Early Life
• Born on April 7th, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan to Carmine and Italia Coppola.
• Coppola had a sick childhood as he caught a disease called polio and was paralyzed on his left side. He learned puppetry and mastered home movies since he was bedridden.
• He graduated from Hofstra University with a degree in drama and then moved on to UCLA and did some graduate work in filmmaking. Francis also received an M.F.A in Film Production from the University of California.
Inspiration/Styles/Credentials
• Francis started off his career as an assistant to filmmaker Roger Corman, working as a soundman, dialogue director, and assistant producer and eventually leading up to director of his first film.
• During the first four years of Coppola’s directing debut he was involved in many script writings and screenplays. For example, writing an adaption to This Property is Condemned and a screenplay for his movie Patton.
• Coppola takes a classical and artistic style to directing films.
• Most critiques of Coppola’s career include a wasted genius and a director who had a good few years then dropped off.
Film Techniques
• Francis Ford Coppola uses a lot of “attention to detail.”
• Creates artistic scenes that enhance the viewers viewing.
• He has lots of great colour to his scenes and you have the ability to see every last inch of picture in the scenes as well.
• He includes many different camera angles.
• He also has a low key lighting and shadow effect involved some of his films mostly The Godfather films Part I and Part II.
List of Feature Films
- Dementia 13 (1963)
- The Rain People (1969)
- The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), The Godfather Part III (1990)
- The Conversation (1974)
- Apocalypse Now (1979)
- Jack (1996)
- Youth Without Youth (2007)
- Tetro (2009)
Achievements
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