Francis Ford Coppola Receives AFI Life Achievement Award

On a night saluting the independence and go-for-broke cinematic life of Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino perhaps summed up why the legendary filmmaker has opted out of accepting many honors over the decades by quoting Coppola himself who once said, “The things you do when you’re youg that get you fired are the same things you do when they give you lifetime achievement awards”.

Well Coppola finally on the 50th anniversary of the AFI Life Achievement Award dinners got the most prestigious one of all for movie makers, and having been to numerous of these AFI events over the decades (Frank Capra’s in 1982 was my first), this warm and very starry evening was among the very best, and certainly one of the best attended by other legends and past AFI honorees themselves. No less than seven, count ’em, seven past AFI Life Achievement Award laureates were not only on hand in the Dolby Theatre Saturday night, they all got on stage to sing his praises. Robert De Niro, Pacino, Morgan Freeman, Dustin Hoffman, Harrison Ford, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg (the latter pair bookending Coppola at his long table in the middle of the room) were all there to pass the torch, but you have to wonder why it took until the 50th to give this man his due, arguably the Godfather himself of his generation of filmmakers (and many of those who received this years ago). Well, it wasn’t because the AFI didn’t ask. I am told AFI had tried on many occasions to get him to agree. At last he did, and boy what a night.

AFI President and CEO welcomed everyone and started the evening with a remembrance of one of the first graduates of the AFI Conservatory, the late great David Lynch. Actually it didn’t start out well earlier in the day. The sudden rainstorm Saturday morning in parts of Southern California took a toll on Hollywood Blvd and literally sent a river flooding the AFI red carpet that had already been set up for the event. Organizers, taken by surprise’ flew into action, completely trashed the entire soaked carpet, and got a new one in place before the first of the many stars arrived. These included Spielberg who has been in New York making a movie but to show his respect for Coppola didn’t just send in a video greeting, but got a private plane, picked up De Niro and Spike Lee as well, and flew in earlier Saturday, and will be immediately flying back so he can be back on the set Monday morning.

American Film Institute founder , and also creator of this event too, George Stevens Jr. had tipped me off Friday evening at the TCM Classic Film Festival event honoring him, that Spielberg felt so strongly about being there in person, and joining with Lucas to present the award they both had gotten long ago, that he just had to do this. When he got up on stage at the end of the evening he said to Coppola, “We have come all the way up the river to find you buddy”, in a wry reference to one of the master’s masterpieces, Apocalypse Now. “Francis is a warrior for independent artists and always championing their causes,” he added before pronouncing The Godfather as “the greatest American film ever made”.

But there was so much more before we got to that point. Freeman opened the show portion of the evening by telling the audience he was there despite never having been in a movie written, directed, or produced by Coppola who he noted was still ever so the independent filmmaker. “He may have lost millions but tonight “F**k the bankers!”

Throughout the night there were not just film clips, but portions of an interview his daughter Sofia Coppola conducted with her father that took us through each step of his life and career from directing Fred Astaire in Finian’s Rainbow in 1967 (where a young college intern named George Lucas would come by the set to learn) all the way to 2024’s Megalopolis). Sofia couldn’t be at the Dolby however since she is shooting her own new film in London.

The interesting thing is how few sent tapes. They were all there including Ron Howard who starred in Lucas’ American Grafitti which Coppola produced in order to even get this low budget ($700,000) made by the largely untested young director. The studio (Universal) wasn’t thrilled with what they were seeing. “So after a very early screening studio executives said to Francis and George, ‘you should be embarrassed by this movie. It’s too long. We hate the way it looks. It seems upprofessional’. George was shocked, so Francis, with unblinking authority pulled out a checkbook and said ‘alright listen. You don’t want the picture? Okay I will buy it back from you right now. I will buy it back from you today’. Well never mind he didn’t have the money, it worked. And the film went on to make well over $100 million dollars which at that time made it the most profitable ROI (return on investment) in Hollywood history. So that’s a producer and that’s Francis Ford Coppola.”

Next up the evening’s first big standing ovation (after Coppola’s as he was seated) went to De Niro and Pacino who made some brief remarks including the aforementioned one from Pacino, and De Niro’s gratitude for not getting cast as Sonny in The Godfather. A clip had been shown from De Niro’s screen test and he would have been great but Coppola thought he was not quite right for the role (James Caan got it). “Thank you for not casting me in The Godfather Francis which meant I was available for The Godfather Part II!,” he said of the role that won him his first Oscar.

Harrison Ford arrived to tell how he was a carpenter but determined to be an actor when he said he got lucky and landed the role in American Graffiti , and later a smaller one in The Conversation. “Not the part I wanted but I got the part,” he smiled saying he now felt part of the family. “After that film I built something for Francis because he hired me again as a carpenter. I’m not kidding. I was installing a library portico entrance for his offices, as one does, and George Lucas walks in and says (to Francis) ‘I am looking for someone to play Hans Solo’, and I am covered in sawdust wearing my tool belt sweeping the floor. Well you know the rest…He created a world where the carpenter could be the guy, And by the way thank you for Apocalypse Now where I played a guy named Colonel Lucas. Subtle!”

Lee talked about the influence Coppola had on him from the days he was a student at NYU (“I couldn’t get into AFI), seeing the uncut version of The Cotton Club with Coppola, and announcing he still has his ticket stub from Apocalypse Now.

Also highlighted was Coppola’s dream-like musical One From The Heart, one of his self-financed American Zoetrope swings for the fences , and early dances with bankruptcy, a movie now being reconsidered and watched again, even as a predecesor to the likes of La La Land. And then a look at The Outsiders, one of many films where Coppola rolled the dice with new talent including Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, and at the Dolby on stage both Ralph Macchio and C. Thomas Howell. Macchio drew big laughs with a story about borrowing $5 from Coppola on the set but never paying it back, or for that matter everything he owed the director for his career, until this night when he told Coppola to look under the centerpiece in front of him at his table. There was a $5 dollar bill which got a smile from Coppola who promptly handed it to Lucas who probably doesn’t need it. In the audience was a librarian, Jo Ellen Misakian from the Lone Star school in Fresno California who had sent Coppola a letter (that somehow got to him) with the enthusiasm of her class who loved the book suggesting he read the S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” hoping he might make a movie out of it. “Stay gold, Francis,” she said to him repeating a key phrase from the book that urged Ponyboy to retain his youthful optimism and innocence, “Stay gold.” It was one of the undisputed highlights of the night.

Another Outsiders star, Diane Lane, was next, and interestingly the only female participant on stage for the evening who talked about the four films she has made with Coppola including how while making Outsiders they all had such a good time they decided to make another film on the spot. That movie was Rumble Fish.

After Roman Coppola paid tribute to his father for putting him to work on the visual effects for Bram Stoker’s Dracula and starting his career, it was Dustin Hoffman’s turn who began by saying, “word has it you turned down a lot of these awards in the past”. He also said it took a while for Coppola to hire him. “I waited until I was 86 for you to cast me in Megalopolis! It was worth the wait.”

Regarding that movie it was Adam Driver who showed up to tell the tale of the futuristic and controversial, but unquestionably risk taking and wild ride of an cinematic journey Coppola had been trying to get made for over 40 years and finally did by financing it himself to the tune of $120 million. Driver said at one point Coppola addressed the cast and crew and said “we’re not being brave enough”.

Of all the speakers I thought Driver really summed up best just who this genuine maverick of a filmmaker is. “Knowing Francis as I know him now being brave is not such a surprising note if you consider the source. You can pick any section of Francis’ work, open it up, and find bravery whether it be fighting the studio over cuts of The Godfather; forming American Zoetrope; making Apocalypse Now, again with his own money; giving Ellie (his late wife Eleanor Coppola) a camera and saying ‘shoot what you want’; running a studio that ended up bankrupting him; hiring Marlon Brando; defending Al Pacino; breaking all four of his Oscars by throwing them out of a window, i’m not sure that is especially brave but it certainly is passionate (ed note: he actually has five); moving into the jungle and starting a hotel; spending $120 million on a piece of art and not letting the money dictate the content of the film,” Driver listed for the crowd. “This is a principled life, and for a year in our culture where the importance of the arts is minimized and our industry is seemingly out in the open that the only measure to judge a film’s success is simply by how much money it makes, I hang on to individuals like Francis for inspiration who live though their convictions, through big moves, all in service of pushing the medium forward. Francis took $120 million dollars and created a singular gesture for what he thought film could be, and I think that’s pretty great.”

The actual award to Coppola was preceded by an orchestra on stage with Josh Groban who sang, all in Italian, a beautiful version of the immortal theme from The Godfather. Spielberg added to his remarks about seeing a five hour cut of Apocalypse Now with other filmmakers invited to give their thoughts, and Lucas recounted the key lesson he learned from his American Graffiti producer: “Don’t be afraid of jumping off cliffs. I have lived by that my entire life, ” he said while confirming Francis was indeed the first cinema student to make it big and prove the worth of that education.

As for Coppola, he was brief but charming in his acceptance (after all we had seen him talk about his career all night in that interview with Sofia). He talked about his childhood and remembrances of growing up before addressing this community of those who toil in the same fields he does. “(I see) all the beautiful faces are welcoming me back because I am, and will always be, nothing more than one of you.”

Stay gold indeed, Francis Ford Coppola.

The evening earned a record $2.5 million for AFI and will be broadcast on TNT on June 18 at 10:00PM ET/PT with an encore on TCM July 31 at 8 :00pm ET/PT.