Francis Ford Coppola's Trademarks
- Royale W/ Cheese
- Nov 13, 2018
- 2 min read
"I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians."
He was born on April 7, 1939 in Detroit. He is considered a good director due to the great movies he has created and produced. One of the most “talented and interesting filmmakers to come to prominence in the 1970s” . Through his impacting films and movies, he has represented and showed his most important features as an American director. Firstly, he mainly focuses on families, meaning their structure, dynamic, relationship between each other, rules they live under of and their rituals, his movies include violence, mafia, gangsters and social issues that families have to get through .
A great example, is the movie The Godfather in the early 70s because it is demonstrated that this type of family is created by birth and business, and this trilogy is a ‘milestone in cinema’. The family presented in this movie is living on a criminal organization which is structured as a family, the man with the most power, runs the whole family with his own laws and rules. On the other hand, in the movie The Outsiders in published in 1983, we can analyze that their creation of families is through social forces because all these kids lived in a ‘harmful’ society in which they needed to be violent to be accepted, fight and protect their siblings and friends like if they were carrying each other's blood, it is a sign of loyalty towards family through harsh violent situations.
Coppola demonstrates that he is impressively interested on how individuals are able or unable to work together with them, his topics are mainly based on a considerable amount of violence with a touch of drama.
The main themes he uses in his movies are: justice, vengeance, influence of family in each other’s actions, retribution, “lack of morality scale” and loyalty towards one’s family. Additionally, the morality in his films is part of a very ambiguous theme due to the evil traits he makes each character own as well as good and considered traits.
In the background story of each film, one character or certain characters have more power than others, they seek for more power and are ambitious, such as, in Apocalypse Now and The Godfather (I,II and III). Secondly, “he embedded within these systems stories of people (usually men) going through journeys of maturation and discovery”. And finally, “these films are clearly the work of one man and his unique vision and style. To refer to them as “underrated” or “misunderstood” or “neglected” is to damn them with faint praise and ignore their brilliance”.
Work Cited:
Staff, The Playlist. “Retrospective: The Films Of Francis Ford Coppola.” IndieWire, Retrospective: The Films Of Francis Ford Coppola, 25 Nov. 2014.
Osvart, Kornel. “Francis Ford Coppola.” IMDb, IMDb.com.
Bowell, Samuel. “Francis Ford Coppola Director Study.” Prezi.com, Francis Ford Coppola , 23 Apr. 2012, prezi.com/25qvihd-xq0a/francis-ford-coppola-director-study/.
Dauth, Brian. “Coppola, Francis Ford.” Senses of Cinema, Great Directors , 18 Oct. 2018, sensesofcinema.com/2006/great-directors/coppola/.
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