Undeniably Francis Ford Coppola has been an artistic force to be reckoned with throughout his bombastic five-decade career. Since his UCLA days when he assisted Roger Corman on “B” movies and leveraged that experience into his first professional screenwriter/director credit, Dementia 13, Coppola, father-figure of the American New Wave of the 1970s, has alternately embraced, rejected, manipulated, and been manipulated by Hollywood.
Instilled in Coppola's Italian roots is a deep and abiding imaginative sensibility he has cherished and nurtured as a constant in his creative life. Equally significant is the participation of family members from three generations in virtually all his endeavors. Coppola has kept his relatives close at hand, blending their talents and abilities with his own. His immediate family, wife Eleanor and children Gian-Carlo (1963–1986), Roman, and Sofia, have been a continual support system, often physically present during production. Most notably, they were with him for most of a three-year production experience in the Philippines and environs during the making of Apocalypse Now.
Coppola has been a Hollywood journeyman and a risk-taking entrepreneur. Throughout, he has maintained a fierce commitment to a highly personal way of life, a unique artistic integrity, and a profound credo that his existence is sustained by an unshakable relationship with the blood of his blood and a relationship with a community of artists and artisans who are of like mind and spirit.
Coppola's passage in the development of art, craft, and human discourse is unique. His worldview and legacy from his generation to the next personifies an artist's gift.
Coppola has been the subject of many journalistic volumes. There are number of full biographies on Coppola, as well as countless analyses and critiques of his major works. The primary purpose of The Coppolas: A Family Business is to illuminate Coppola's career and life in the context of family. Coppola was and is intimately involved with three generations of his biological family, and almost all have played a part in his creativity. Conversely, his influences are expressed in the unique artistry of many of his relatives. In this volume, the focus is especially on Sofia Coppola, as her career for over the past decade is closest to the screenwriting/film-directing path of her father. Also of import are the many extended family relationships and loyalties Coppola has developed with actors and crew. Such relationships are not exclusive to this filmmaker; nevertheless, they are striking and have produced some of the finest collaborations and most respected actors of the past four decades. In the view of the authors, Francis Coppola has earned a place in the pantheon of great film artists and has done so with his forebears and descendants imbued in his creations.