Francis Ford Coppola stopped by the Coolidge Corner Theatre for a screening, an award, and a conversation about life

Boston Globe

29-04-2025

After a sold-out screening of the film on Monday at the Coolidge Corner, Coppola himself took the stage. Coolidge CEO Katherine Tallman presented him with a special edition of the Coolidge Award, the honor the theater has periodically bestowed on film artists of notable originality since 2004.
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The rest of the event was intended as a conversation between Coppola and the Boston College professor
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The celebrated director of the 'Godfather' trilogy, the Vietnam fever dream 'Apocalypse Now' (1979), and the surveillance thriller 'The Conversation' (1974) had requested a white board, on which he instructed an assistant to list 10 elements of human life that, he suggested, need wholesale reform, including work, money, education, politics, and the law.
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Dressed in a safari jacket, a tie, and boat shoes, the 86-year-old filmmaker launched into a spontaneous lecture about human enterprise and ingenuity. He peppered his commentary with references to books he's read on the history of civilization.
'It's time to talk about the future in this wreck of a world we're in now,' he said.
Career politicians, he proposed, should be replaced by citizen caretakers with short terms – a new mayor every two months, say. We should abolish money and let the robots do the manual labor, he went on, while human beings create things for each other.
The Boston-based composer
To demonstrate, Coppola invited a group of young audience members onstage to participate in the improv exercises he often uses on his movie sets. He formed a circle with the group, then instructed them to toss around an imaginary ball while adding sound effects: 'Bip!' 'Pow!'
His spontaneous work with actors often helps determine the stories he tells, he explained.
'When you make a movie you don't know how to make, something wonderful happens,' he said: The movie tells you what it should be. 'Megalopolis,' with its abundant allusions to the classic films that inspired Coppola, was one of those films.
'Every movie I ever loved since I was a kid, I tried to put in this movie,' he said.
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A few audience members asked questions. One wanted to know why the populist politician Clodio Pulcher (played by Shia LaBeouf) was treated with such scorn in the film.
'What's so bad about populism?' the man asked. Coppola's reply was simple.
'I love people, and I want them to be happy,' he said. 'We should all have ice cream.
'I like populism when it doesn't hurt other people.'
A little after 11 p.m., Coppola received a warning that he should wrap up his talk. He seemed prepared to talk until morning.
'I can stop time,' he joked.
The last dimension of social life listed on Coppola's white board was 'celebration.' Famous not just for his movies but for his wineries, his San Francisco cafe, and his all-consuming love of art and ideas, Coppola had one last thought for the dwindling crowd.
'I wish we could just throw a party now,' he said.
James Sullivan can be reached at
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