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Posted by on Sep 7, 2014 in Blog, Movie Reviews, Personal, Travel | 4 comments

Francis Ford Coppola’s Five Oscars

 

 

This week, Marieta and I joined close friends and fellow wine aficionados Mark and Tina Napolitano in beautiful Sonoma County, where we enjoyed tastings at several local wineries.  Here’s a review of the Coppola Winery.

 

I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.

The Francis Coppola Vineyard offers a free museum open to the public daily with movie memorabilia from many of the famed director’s most celebrated films.

Located south of Geyserville, right off the 101, this Coppola Vineyard is the smaller of two vastly productive acreages.  The much larger 1,600-acre vineyard is about an hour’s drive away.  However, this vineyard is only about 40 acres in size.  It’s where most of the wine is bottled and shipped for distribution.  Yet it includes an upscale resort, a film museum, and a superb restaurant that is astounding.  It’s an attraction sure to interest anyone into his movies or the array of affordable wines made by the acclaimed film director and screenwriter.

This report will focus on the movie museum, which houses several timeless keepsakes.  The winery will be covered in another essay.

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I’d never seen an Oscar up close and personal.  Well now, I can say I’ve seen five.

That’s how many Academy Awards Francis Ford Coppola has collected in his storied career.  Plus some Golden Globes and Cannes prizes.

All his Oscars are on display here in a simple case behind a glass plate, including his win for writing the screenplay for Patton, the Best Picture and Best Actor winner in 1970.  Remember the phenomenal scene of actor George C. Scott standing in front of the American flag talking to troops under his command at the very start of the film (a shocking way to open a movie).  Coppola wrote that into his initial script, and then was summarily fired, before eventually being rehired again after actor Scott read the script, loved the scene, and absolutely insisted on it being included as the first scene in the movie.

And the rest, as they say — is film history.

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Coppola’s second Oscar came for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Godfather, released in 1972.  Oddly enough, he did not win Best Director and didn’t collect the Best Picture statue either.  That honor went to executive producer Robert Evans at Paramount (The Kid Stays in the Picture).  He won a whopping three Oscars in 1974, for The Godfather Part II — Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture.  Amazingly, he collected no other Oscars for the remainder of his film career, despite directing several other critically-acclaimed films — including The Conversation, The Black Stallion, The Outsiders, Rumblefish, Tucker:  The Man and His Dream, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and The Rainmaker.  His other well-known movies include Finian’s Rainbow, One From the Heart, The Cotton Club, and others.

Of course, nothing will top his Godfather trilogy as far as impacting both American culture and movie history.  When Coppola was interviewed much later on Inside the Actor’s Studio, he surprised everyone in the audience by revealing that those movies were not great sources of pride for him, as one would certainly expect.  Although the first two (of three) movies were among the greatest films of all time, Coppola stated that he didn’t particularly enjoy the movie-making experience.  He often clashed with studios, one reason he launched his own venture — called Zoetrope.

Admittedly his incredible success on the Godfather movies allowed him to pursue the film projects he really wanted to make — most notably The Conversation, a terribly underrated case study of paranoia released in 1975 starring Gene Hackman that was nominated for Best Picture, The Black Stallion, a departure from Coppola’s usual depiction of adult themes and realistic violence released in 1979, and then his cinematic masterpiece laden with mind-boggling difficulty while in production, Apocalypse Now, nominated for eight Oscars, also in 1979.

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Here’s an interesting tidbit that I didn’t know:  The envelopes from the Oscars are displayed in the museum.  These are the actual Price-Waterhouse sealed cards that are handed to the presenter at the Academy Awards when he or she goes onstage.  Interesting that the 1972 “Best Picture” envelope is handwritten!  All it says is — “Best Picture — The Godfather.”

Two years later, the cards the presenter pulls out while standing in front of 100 million people were actually typed out for the first time — as the actual paper reads….“And the Oscar for Best Director goes to Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather Part II.”  I guess they want to make sure the presenter always reads the part which says. “And the Oscar goes to….”

Another highlight of the museum is the actual desk from those classic scenes inside The Godfather’s office at the opening of the film, with Marlon Brando in the iconic role.  A small orange tabby was found on the set and when Brando found it was gentle, he insisted on using the cat in his lap.  The scene helped to convey the godfather in a sympathetic manner.  Check out the scenes of the cat toying with Brando in the movie while he contemplates the family business.  That stray cat had no idea how famous he’d later become:

 

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The photo above shows the then 31-year-old film director coaching Brando.

More movie memorabilia is here, too — including the giant canopy used in the Lake Tahoe scenes for The Godfather Part II.  Remember this scene at the start of the film?  Today, that same canopy is outside at the pool of the Coppola winery.  Our guide informed us that the winery gets about 500 requests per year to hold weddings beneath the cinematic memento.  However, those requests are always denied.

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Coppola made other memorable movies, too.  Here’s a costume that was worn by Dennis Hopper, when he played the drugged-out hippie photographer in Apocalypse Now.

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Tucker:  A Man and His Dream is one of Coppola’s forgotten movies.  It’s the true story of a car maker who was run out of business by the big auto companies during the 1950s.  The movie stars Jeff Bridges.  Not many Tucker automobiles remain.  But one is here on display at the museum:

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Pretty amazing place.  Free museum.  An outstanding restaurant that’s open for both lunch and dinner.  Vineyards that you can walk out into and enjoy.  Tours of the premises.  A pool and resort area.

The Francis Coppola Winery is worth checking out.

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READ:  My visit to Chateau Montelena

4 Comments

  1. Coppola didn’t direct The Black Stallion. Carroll Ballard did.

    Vic
    pokerinmovies.blogspot.com

  2. I read that Coppola threw his Oscars out a window and broke all five when he got mad thatBrando wouldn’t commit to Apocolyse Now

    • Nolan Replies:

      I’d be surprised if that story were true. I do know Brando held out late in the production (which went long and overbudget). Brando wanted another $1 million at the last minute to finish the movie and Coppola was forced to beg for more money from the studio, which was already wanting to pull the plug. Perhaps that fit of rage had something to do with that episode. Thanks for commenting.

      –ND

      • Actually I read it in a book that Coppola’s wife wrote about the filming of Apocalyse Now

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