The Godfather and the Outsider: Francis Ford Coppola and Jean-Luc Godard

Although they were not the only names announced as recipients of Honorary Oscars last Tuesday – film historian and documentary filmmaker Kevin Brownlow and actor Eli Wallach were also named – Francis Ford Coppola and Jean-Luc Godard are arguably the most well-known and influential of them (Coppola will receive the Irving Thalberg Award, while Godard will receive the Governor General Award), and also the most contentious. After all, while Brownlow is well-respected in this field, and Wallach has had a distinguished career in film and on stage, while working with some of the best directors, Coppola and Godard each have a vocal set of detractors (as well, of course, as fans) who think their work either fell off after their peak period (Coppola in the 1970′s, Godard in the 60′s), or was never any good at all (to be fair, more people feel that about Godard than Coppola).

At first glance, Coppola and Godard wouldn’t seem to have much in common aside from that fact. After all, Coppola is known for making big-budget films that have been either highly successful (the Godfather movies) or considered flops (One from the Heart, which was the film that bankrupted his fledgling studio Zoetrope). In addition, while he has tried to alternate his big-budget films with more personal films, most of his stories tend to be in the classical tradition of storytelling (with the possible exception of The Conversation), and he’s tackled a wide range of genres within that tradition. Finally, he went through a period in the 80′s and 90′s of taking on projects strictly for hire (such as Gardens of Stone and The Rainmaker), which he has groused about in interviews. Godard, on the other hand, has almost always worked independently (with the exception of Contempt, which was financed by Italian producer Carlo Ponti), and with low budgets. While he has also tackled a wide variety of genres, all of the resulting films have played around radically with the rules of those genres (A Woman is a Woman, for example, is a musical except the characters don’t break out into song). And while he has used such stars as Gerard Depardieu (Oh, Woe is Me), Brigitte Bardot (Contempt), and even Woody Allen (King Lear) and Jane Fonda (Tout Va Bien), he has used them for his purposes, often to subvert the very idea of stardom. Finally, while he has done movies on behalf of certain groups, he has never made a movie strictly for hire. They also both come from different backgrounds – Coppola was born to a creative family, as his father Carmine was a composer and musician, and his mother was an actress, while Godard was born to a physician. And while Coppola went to UCLA film school and apprenticed with Roger Corman, Godard became a filmmaker through his being a critic.

Yet the two of them are more alike than you would think. Even though Coppola is most recognized, as he puts it, for his adaptations (The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now obviously being the most famous of them), he’s always talked about moving towards a more personal type of cinema, which is what Godard has done his entire career. Both have sought to revolutionize cinema, although Godard has sought to change the form and content of film, while Coppola was looking to change the way films were made and distributed. Both essentially believe in the auteur theory of cinema, not only in the sense of believing in a personal cinema, but also in the sense of the director being in charge (though Coppola, to be sure, has a mixed record as a producer in allowing complete directorial control). While Coppola is not as political as Godard is, to put it mildly, both have made films that take on Western society (though Coppola’s films in that regard are less specific) and its ills, and both have complained about the influence of Hollywood (here, the opposite is true; Coppola’s dissatisfaction is more specific than Godard’s). Both of them were somewhat careless about the business aspects of film – ironically, while in Joseph Gelmis’ book The Film Director as Superstar, Coppola would disdain his fellow classmates at UCLA for following Godard’s lead and not thinking about the business end, he of course was known for films with spiraling budgets (as for Godard, he took a big budget for Contempt, but gave his backers – Ponti and American indie producer Joseph E. Levine – an art film instead of an exploitation film with Brigitte Bardot. Also, as it happens, Godard was making his film Passion with Vittorio Storaro on Coppola’s recommendation, but changed his mind and went with his frequent collaborator Raoul Coutard instead). Finally, while Coppola is mostly known for taking years between projects, he has also been able, like Godard, to make movies on the fly (for example, Coppola made Rumble Fish while he was editing The Outsiders, and used many of the same actors and crew).

Over the next several weeks, leading up to the actual Honorary Oscars ceremony, I’ll be taking an in-depth look back at the careers of both directors (while Coppola’s award is for producing, and I will look at that aspect of his career, as well as the few screenplays he wrote that were directed by others, I’ll be focusing on his directing career). Obviously, one can’t write about Coppola without mentioning The Godfather trilogy or Apocalypse Now, and the same goes for Godard and Breathless, and attention will be paid to those films. However, I’d also like to spotlight the lesser known films in each director’s resume, and maybe find some hidden gems underneath (and, of course, films that deserve to be forgotten). I’ll also take a look at what influenced both directors, as well as the directors who have been influenced by them. When a writer/director endeavors to make “personal” films, of course their personal lives must be investigated, but I’ll only deal with that aspect as it relates specifically to their films. Finally, as much as is available, I’ll try to explore how critics have viewed their works, detractors and champions alike (and even those, like Pauline Kael, who have been in both camps). Obviously, I am far from the first writer or critic to take stock of the careers of Coppola and Godard, but I hope to take, if not an original tack, at least an interesting and thought provoking look at these two filmmakers.