Godfather by Gene D. Phillips

Author:Gene D. Phillips
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part Three

Artist in an Industry

7

Exiled in Eden

One from the Heart

There is no point in hating Hollywood. That would be like hating the Sphinx. It’s just there, and it will go on being there, whether you like it or not.

—Ken Russell, film director

Hollywood is still held together by palm trees, telephone wires, and hope.

—John Schlesinger, film director

Although both of the Godfather films were productions originated by Paramount Pictures, Coppola continued to maintain his own independent production company through which he initiated projects, such as Apocalypse Now, that he arranged to finance, shoot, and release in cooperation with various major studios. He initially named this operation, which he established in San Francisco in 1969, American Zoetrope, after the primitive mechanism that was a forerunner of the motion picture projector.

In 1980 he purchased the old Hollywood General Studios in the heart of the film colony, which had all the elaborate technical facilities necessary for shooting a motion picture that his San Francisco setup did not have. He christened his new acquisition Zoetrope Studios and envisioned it as similar to a repertory theater company where a group of artists and technicians would collaborate in making movies together.

He had passed the studio every day as a high school student during the period when the family lived in Los Angeles, and now it was his. Since One from the Heart was to be the first film Coppola directed at his own studio, it is important to outline the inauguration of Zoetrope Studios at this point before discussing the film itself.

Zoetrope Studios

Hollywoodites talked about Coppola’s empire-building with tolerant chuckles, and one industry insider quoted the old adage about directors who started their own studios: “The lunatics are taking over the asylum.” Even George Lucas criticized his former mentor for buying a studio in Hollywood. “I thought Francis was betraying all of us in San Francisco who had been struggling to make this community a viable film alternative,” he said at the time.1 For his part, Lucas had set up Lucasfilm, his independent film company, in Mill Valley in the Bay area, a good distance from Hollywood. Coppola replied that his office complex at the Sentinel Building in San Francisco would continue to be the principal base of operations for his independent film unit, though shooting would be done at Zoetrope Studios in Hollywood.

Coppola envisioned his high-tech studio in Hollywood as a paradise for creative production specialists, who would function independent of the suffocating Hollywood establishment. “This feeling of being a part of a family, this closeness would be stimulating to professionals,” he said.2 Among the “family members” would be Zoetrope regulars like production designer Dean Tavoularis and sound specialist Walter Murch.

Coppola officially purchased the ten-acre movie lot on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard at Las Palmas Avenue on March 25, 1980. He embarked on his daring enterprise by putting up $7.6 million for the studio by means of some cash and several mortgages on his assets. The studio housed nine sound stages, several office suites, thirty-four editing rooms, and a special-effects shop, plus ample rehearsal space.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.