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The Coppolas
Recent Titles in
Modern Filmmakers
Vincent LoBrutto, Series Editor
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THE COPPOLAS
A Family Business

VINCENT LOBRUTTO AND

HARRIET R. MORRISON

Modern Filmmakers
Vincent LoBrutto, Series Editor
Copyright 2012 by Vincent LoBrutto and Harriet R. Morrison
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in
a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LoBrutto, Vincent.
The Coppolas : a family business / Vincent LoBrutto and Harriet R. Morrison
p. cm. — (Modern filmmakers)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–313–39161–3 (hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–39162–0
(ebook)
1. Coppola, Francis Ford, 1939– —Criticism and interpretation. 2. Coppola, Sofia,
1971– —Criticism and interpretation. 3. Coppola, Roman—Criticism and
interpretation. I. Morrison, Harriet R. II. Title.
PN1998.3.C67L53 2012
791.43020 33092—dc23 2012018352
ISBN: 978–0–313–39161–3
EISBN: 978–0–313–39162–0
16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5
This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.
Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.
Praeger
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
ABC-CLIO, LLC
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America
 For Lawrence (Larry) Virgilio
Firefighter, physical therapist, actor, marathon runner,
winemaker, first responder
—Perished at the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Series Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii

1. Roots 1
2. Francis Ford Coppola in Hollywood: A Big Boy Now 3
3. Journeyman/One for Francis 7
4. Zoetrope—Wheel of Life: The Godfather, The Conversation,
The Godfather Part II 12
5. Coppola’s Dark Heart: Apocalypse Now 25
6. Reinventing the Wheel of Life: Zoetrope Studios and One
from the Heart 35
7. Back-to-Back Personal: The Outsiders and Rumble Fish 45
8. Coppola for Hire: The Cotton Club, Peggy Sue Got Married,
Gardens of Stone 51
9. Coppola and His Dreams: Tucker: The Man and His Dream,
The Godfather III, Bram Stoker's Dracula 62
10. Home Free: Coppola as Producer, Jack, The Rainmaker 76
11. Entrepreneur, Father of the Filmmaker 82
12. Virgin Outing as a Director: Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides 88
13. Roman Coppola’s CQ, Apocalypse Now Redux,
and Producing Redux 93
14. Lost in Translation 100
15. The Empire: Francis Ford Coppola Presents 105
16. Not a Piece of Cake: Marie Antoinette 110
viii Contents

17. Youth without Youth 113

18. Tetro: Signed, Sealed, Delivered 121
19. Somewhere 126
20. On the Road 133
21. The Kids Are All Right: Colleagues 136
22. Francis Ford Coppola’s Unrealized Projects 141
23. Epilogue 145

Filmography 151
Notes 163
Bibliography 173
Index 175
 Series Foreword

The Modern Filmmakers series focuses on a diverse group of motion picture

directors who collectively demonstrate how the filmmaking process has
become the definitive art and craft of the 20th century. As we advance into
the 21st century we begin to examine the impact these artists have had on this
influential medium.
What is a modern filmmaker? The phrase connotes a motion picture maker
who is au courant—they make movies currently. The choices in this series are
also varied to reflect the enormous potential of the cinema. Some of the
directors make action movies, some entertain, some are on the cutting edge,
others are political, some make us think, some are fantasists. The motion
picture directors in this collection will range from highly commercial, mega-
budget blockbuster directors to those who toil in the independent
low-budget field.
Gus Van Sant, Tim Burton, Charlie Kaufman, and Terry Gilliam are here,
and so are Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg—all for many and for various
reasons, but primarily because their directing skills have transitioned from the
20th century to the first decade of the 21st century. Eastwood and Spielberg
worked during the sixties and seventies and have grown and matured as the
medium transitioned from mechanical to digital. The younger directors here
may not have experienced all of those cinematic epochs themselves, but none-
theless they remained concerned with the limits of filmmaking: Charlie
Kaufman disintegrates personal and narrative boundaries in the course of his
scripts, for example, while Tim Burton probes the limits of technology to find
the most successful way of bringing his intensely visual fantasies and night-
mares to life.
The Modern Filmmakers series will celebrate modernity and post-
modernism through each creator’s vision, style of storytelling, and character
presentation. The directors’ personal beliefs and worldviews will be revealed
through in-depth examinations of the art they have created, but brief biographies
x Series Foreword

will also be provided where they appear especially relevant. These books are
intended to open up new ways of thinking about some of our favorite and most
important artists and entertainers.
Vincent LoBrutto
Series Editor
Modern Filmmakers
 Acknowledgments

We would like to thank many individuals who helped us bring this project to
fruition in various ways.
To Alex Morrison, San Franciscan, sommelier, and wine specialist, much
appreciation for your insights into Francis Ford Coppola’s industry outside of film.
Our respect and gratitude to Dr. Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished
Service Professor of Religions in the Divinity School of the University of
Chicago, for her knowledge about Youth without Youth and other Francis
Coppola projects.
We especially thank Daniel Harmon, the first editor of this project, for his
warmth, compassion, and professionalism. To Jane Messah, we are grateful
for her patience and perseverance in working with us to shepherd this book
to completion.
To Susan Stodolsky for her assistance; to Harry Northup and Holly Prado,
and to Randy Weinstein, we are indebted to you for your friendship. As always,
our affection to Rebecca Roes for her unconditional support.Vincent
LoBrutto acknowledges: at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), thanks to
Reeves Lehmann, chair of the Department of Film, Video and Animation for
his constant support; and to Sal Petrosino, director of operations, for his
friendship and encouragement. And to all SVA students—past and present—
thanks for their motivation. To Edgar Burcksen, former editor-in-chief of
American CinemaEditor, to Jenni McCormick, American Cinema Editors’
production manager; and to President Randy Roberts and Vice President
Alan Heim of the ACE Board, my gratitude for keeping me in the fold.
To all interview subjects: Richard Marks, Walter Murch, Gordon Willis, the
late William Reynolds, and the late Rudi Fehr—much gratitude for your
expertise and contribution to the world of film.
We would like to acknowledge the following authors whose works on
Francis Ford Coppola preceded this book: Gene D. Phillips, Rodney Hill,
Peter Cowie, Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise, Michael Schumacher, and
xii Acknowledgments

Jon Lewis. Their books are listed in the Bibliography, and where citations have
been used they are in the notes.
Finally, with warm appreciation we acknowledge the passion and enthusi-
asm of film director, screenwriter, and producer Francis Ford Coppola. We
were privileged to be part of the audience at a sold-out viewing of Apocalypse
Now at New York City’s Ziegfeld Theater before its official opening. We
watched in amazement the Francis Ford Coppola Presents Hans-Jürgen
Syberberg’s Our Hitler event at Hunter College auditorium in New York
City and witnessed Abel Gance’s Napoleon with live orchestra conducted by
Carmine Coppola at Radio City Music Hall. These experiences and so many
more cinematic gifts have enriched our lives.
We are grateful to have had the opportunity to delve into the artistry of the
Coppola dynasty and to apply the belief of President John F. Kennedy to
them: “If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist
free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.”
 Introduction

Undeniably Francis Ford Coppola has been an artistic force to be reckoned

with throughout his bombastic five-decade career. Since his UCLA days when
he assisted Roger Corman on “B” movies and leveraged that experience into
his first professional screenwriter/director credit, Dementia 13, Coppola,
father-figure of the American New Wave of the 1970s, has alternately
embraced, rejected, manipulated, and been manipulated by Hollywood.
Instilled in Coppola’s Italian roots is a deep and abiding imaginative sen-
sibility he has cherished and nurtured as a constant in his creative life.
Equally significant is the participation of family members from three genera-
tions in virtually all his endeavors. Coppola has kept his relatives close at hand,
blending their talents and abilities with his own. His immediate family, wife
Eleanor and children Gian-Carlo (1963–1986), Roman, and Sofia, have been
a continual support system, often physically present during production. Most
notably, they were with him for most of a three-year production experience
in the Philippines and environs during the making of Apocalypse Now.
Coppola has been a Hollywood journeyman and a risk-taking entrepreneur.
Throughout, he has maintained a fierce commitment to a highly personal way
of life, a unique artistic integrity, and a profound credo that his existence is sus-
tained by an unshakable relationship with the blood of his blood and a rela-
tionship with a community of artists and artisans who are of like mind and
spirit.
Coppola’s passage in the development of art, craft, and human discourse is
unique. His worldview and legacy from his generation to the next personifies
an artist’s gift.
Coppola has been the subject of many journalistic volumes. There are num-
ber of full biographies on Coppola, as well as countless analyses and critiques of
his major works. The primary purpose of The Coppolas: A Family Business is to
illuminate Coppola’s career and life in the context of family. Coppola was and
is intimately involved with three generations of his biological family, and
almost all have played a part in his creativity. Conversely, his influences are
xiv Introduction

expressed in the unique artistry of many of his relatives. In this volume, the
focus is especially on Sofia Coppola, as her career for over the past decade is
closest to the screenwriting/film-directing path of her father. Also of import
are the many extended family relationships and loyalties Coppola has devel-
oped with actors and crew. Such relationships are not exclusive to this film-
maker; nevertheless, they are striking and have produced some of the finest
collaborations and most respected actors of the past four decades. In the view
of the authors, Francis Coppola has earned a place in the pantheon of great
film artists and has done so with his forebears and descendants imbued in his
creations.
 • Roots
1

Francis Ford Coppola was born on April 7, 1939, in Detroit, Michigan, the
second child to Carmine and Italia Coppola. His middle name, “Ford,” is
attributed to Henry Ford, the automobile icon who put Detroit on the map.
The family had no deep roots in Detroit, but Carmine, a Juilliard-trained flau-
tist and composer, followed the work. He was first flautist with the Detroit
Symphony Orchestra and arranger for the Ford Sunday Evening Hour until
the early 1940s.
Carmine, New York City–born, was offered the opportunity to play with
Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and Francis and his
older brother August were transplanted to the suburbs of New York City,
where their younger sister Talia was born in 1946. Francis did not thrive in
the neighborhoods where the family lived. Moving from place to place, he
spent much of his youth in Woodside, Queens, uncomfortable with the rough-
ness of the environment, not doing well in school, and not fitting in. There
were, however, compensations. Carmine brought the children to Manhattan
and to the backstage of the Radio City Music Hall to watch their uncle
Anton conduct the orchestra there. They saw Broadway musicals, and at home
the family enclave was filled with song, storytelling, toys, games, and art
supplies.
In 1949 Coppola’s preadolescence was shaken when he contracted polio.
He suffered paralysis and remained in his bedroom for over a year with the dis-
ease. Coppola remembers that during this solitary convalescence he occupied
himself with the family television set, puppets, a 16mm projector given to
him by his maternal grandfather, and a tape recorder.1
Carmine Coppola sought help for his son’s condition from the March of
Dimes, and through physiotherapy Francis regained the use of his limbs and
was able to return to school. His days at school were not happy ones, and he
felt many of his teachers hated him. He says he thought the New York City
public schools were like penitentiaries.2 Francis was not considered a good-
looking child. His ears stuck out, he wore glasses because of poor eyesight,
2 The Coppolas

and his name was a source of ridicule—spelled as Frances, it was a girl’s name,
and Francis the Talking Mule was a popular movie series starting in 1950 that
invited teasing and embarrassment.
A significant outlet for Francis and his brother “Augie” was the time they
spent at the movies. Francis and August took full advantage of New York City
and the movie theaters in Queens; they educated themselves about movies,
enticed by the film fare of the day. Francis revered his brother August, who
was five years his senior. August was handsome and self-assured and unflag-
gingly protective of his younger brother. While August intended to be a writer
and won writing prizes in high school, Francis was obsessed with all things
mechanical and scientific. As a teenager Francis began to play the tuba and was
proficient enough to enter the New York Military Academy at Cornwall-on-
Hudson, a residential school where he could be housed while Carmine was on
the road conducting musicals with Italia and little Talia in tow. The Academy
was not a good match for Francis with its emphasis on sports and strict regi-
mens. In Peter Cowie’s biography, Coppola, he claims Francis made pocket
money writing love letters for his fellow cadets.3 A fish out of water, Coppola
abandoned the Academy and ran off to New York City. August, who by then
was studying English at the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA),
invited him out for the summer and exposed him to the writings of prominent
authors of the day such as Aldous Huxley and James Joyce.
Returning to Great Neck, New York for high school in the fall, Francis con-
tinued playing his tuba and began developing an interest in theater. The
mechanics of theater production intrigued him, and soon he was working the
light board, acting, directing, and developing scripts. When it was time to
attend college, Francis tried out for Hofstra University (then Hofstra
College) at his brother’s suggestion. His successful audition piece was
Cyrano de Bergerac, and Francis Coppola entered Hofstra’s Theater Arts
Department on scholarship. His years at Hofstra were filled with artistic exper-
imentation and success. Francis Coppola had found his footing. He wrote,
produced, and directed dramas and musicals and was recognized as a
major imaginative force. As he approached his final year at Hofstra he gravi-
tated toward film (he had been making shorts all the while) and became
overwhelmed with the revolutionary work of Russian filmmaker Sergei
Eisenstein when he attended a screening of Ten Days That Shook the World.
He spent his waking hours screening films at the Museum of Modern Art
and devoured writings on film theory and technique. Francis started a film club
that met on Tuesday evenings. His passions diverged. “On Monday I was in
the theater and on Tuesday I wanted to be a filmmaker.”4
The die was cast. In the fall of 1960 he entered the master’s program at
UCLA film school.
 •
Francis Ford Coppola in
Hollywood: A Big Boy Now
2

There were two major film schools in Los Angeles when Francis Coppola
entered UCLA in 1960. Along with UCLA, the University of Southern
California (USC) had a burgeoning film department. Of the two, USC was
more hands-on, with an emphasis on student filmmaking. Coppola had
entered the more academic master’s program, and although Coppola was
proving a competent screenwriter, he wanted practicum and collaboration.
There was a prestigious faculty. In particular, he had one teacher who encour-
aged him greatly. This was Dorothy Arzner, the only female director in
Hollywood. By then in her 60s, she was the first female member of the
Directors Guild of America (DGA).
Roger Corman, the king of the “B’s,” combed the film school looking
for an assistant; Coppola jumped at the chance. He soon proved a jack-of-all-
trades and fulfilled any Corman request. Coppola was industrious and willing.
One Corman assignment eventually led Coppola to England to shoot a Grand
Prix sequence for Corman’s The Young Racers. More than anxious to shoot a
film of his own, Coppola pitched an idea he could accomplish with the equip-
ment already at hand; he would go to Ireland and mount a low-budget horror
film. Corman often used the technique of shooting two films back-to-back in
the same general location—a sound economic strategy. Coppola would apply
the same approach when he made The Outsiders and Rumble Fish back-to-
back in Tulsa. Director Oliver Stone also employed this method when his pro-
duction of Talk Radio took him to Texas. While Stone was in postproduction
on Talk Radio, Born on the Fourth of July was being mounted, and Stone’s
production designer Bruno Rubeo dressed Texas to look like the streets of
Massapequa, Long Island.1
In 1963 Coppola was able to write and direct Dementia 13 through the
graces of maverick producer Corman. Bankrolled with more than $20,000
from Corman, Coppola hastily crafted a script. Dementia 13 is generally
4 The Coppolas

considered Coppola’s first feature film. The thin plot deals with a dysfunctional
family, a mysterious murderer, an old family secret, and an elaborate decaying
castle as the main location; in the mix was the required Corman sex quotient.
Coppola sold the idea to Roger Corman by describing it as a Psycho-like theme.
Coppola was able to obtain some additional funds from a producer at a Dublin
studio. His cast and crew were spillovers from The Young Racers and some of
Coppola’s own friends. As producer, Corman tinkered with Coppola’s version,
adding some additional elements: an axe murder and some narration for story-
line clarity. The debut film was shown on a double bill with Corman’s X—The
Man with the X-Ray Eyes and opened to mixed reviews and a decent box
office. Coppola was on the map. Most significantly, a young assistant art direc-
tor, Eleanor “Ellie” Neil, was also on the set. A designer attending UCLA’s
master’s program, the two quickly became a couple. After the film wrapped,
Neil went back to Los Angeles to complete her degree and Coppola continued
working with Corman. Several months later they worked together for Corman
on The Terror.
On February 2, 1963, Neil and Coppola were married in Las Vegas. The
marriage was spontaneous, and Eleanor had not even met any of Francis’s fam-
ily. Eleanor was the oldest of three children and the only girl. Her father died
when she was 10 years old. The Coppolas set up housekeeping in Los
Angeles, and Francis was offered a job almost immediately as a contract screen-
writer for Seven Arts. Soon the family expanded with the birth of the
Coppolas’ first child, Gian-Carlo, on September 17, 1963.
Coppola’s eventual impact as a director is so powerful that his sizable credits
as a screenwriter are often overlooked. He developed a substantial catalog of
adapted screenplays for Seven Arts. As is often the case, some of these products
never saw the light of day or were reworked before eventually reaching the
screen, with credit redounding to other writers. Conversely, Coppola was
the recipient of credit for screenplays he doctored for Seven Arts. Among the
scripts he wrote under contract for Seven Arts are Reflections of a Golden Eye
and Is Paris Burning?, cowritten with Gore Vidal. Coppola’s second son,
Roman, was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine on April 22, 1965, while Coppola
continued crafting the script under difficult circumstances. The original
screenwriter, Anthony Veiller, was ill, and Seven Arts sent Coppola to provide
assistance—although Veiller thought Francis was only there to learn the ropes
from him. Veiller passed away, and Coppola was left with the arduous task of
completing a complex script. It was at this point that Gore Vidal was called
in. Vidal, the more experienced of the two, worked compatibly with Coppola
to complete the task.
Coppola is credited as screenwriter for This Property Is Condemned, which
ultimately was a flop after many failed business machinations, and he cowrote a
version of Patton with Edmund North. The Patton screenplay had gone
through several incarnations. The Coppola version eventually reached the
screen, and the Academy Award–winning film yielded the Best Original
 Francis Ford Coppola in Hollywood 5

Screenplay Oscar for Coppola and North. In 1970, a 30-year-old Coppola,

father of two, won his first of many Academy Awards, highlighting one of his
multiple gifts: screenwriting.
Coppola was a bundle of energy and was not restricting his time to writing
for Screen Arts. Unbeknownst to them, he was developing a screenplay he
wanted to direct on his own. His desire to direct was fierce, and he pressed
to make it happen. The clandestine script was You’re a Big Boy Now, loosely
adapted from a British novel. 2 Coppola intended to finance the project
through independent sources, but Seven Arts got wind of the plan and insisted
it was their property because it was written while he was still under contract.
Warner-Seven Arts stated the budget as $1.5 million, but Coppola asserts the
film cost $800,000 all told.3 Still, Coppola would embark on his first main-
stream film as screenwriter/director. Because of financial constraints, the film
was cast with an admixture of unknown actors and established actors selected
for lesser roles. Coppola was persuasive in personally hyping the script to
well-known actors Julie Harris, Geraldine Page, and Rip Torn, who would
appear alongside Peter Kastner, Karen Black, and Elizabeth Hartman, all of
whom had barely any experience.
You’re a Big Boy Now is essentially a coming-of-age story about a somewhat
lovable, inept 19-year-old with overbearing parents who has yet to learn the
ways of the world. Set in New York City with the “big boy” (Kastner) working
in the stacks of the New York Public Library, the plot involves the foibles
Kastner experiences, including sexual high jinks, on the road to manhood.
Coppola made the city another character, utilizing high-tech equipment (with
resistance from the traditional crew) that was flexible enough to allow him to
maneuver through the actual public library (thanks to Mayor John Lindsay)
and the streets and stores of New York. This infused the film with a vitality,
almost a frenetic quality. For the score, Coppola used the jaunty rock songs
of the Lovin’ Spoonfuls. In addition to breaking out of the studio-set mode,
Coppola exercised another methodology he would use throughout his film-
directing career. Comfortable as a theater director, Coppola believed in the
value of rehearsal and spent the first few weeks of production preparing the
cast through improvisation and character study. When the cast began working
with the script they were well acquainted with their own characters and the
characters with whom they would interact and were free to focus on line read-
ings in a more informed manner. This is not a typical film director’s approach.
An exception was the late Sidney Lumet, who was known for this ritual; he
came out of the Jewish theater and live television and saw the benefit of these
preliminary activities and their cost-saving value; he maintained the director
would need less takes.
Overall, the movie’s dynamic communicated youth at a time when the lines
were being sharply drawn between the older generation and the Beatles cul-
ture. Coppola has acknowledged an equivocal debt to director Richard
Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night (1964), stating, “it was definitely influenced by
6 The Coppolas

A Hard Day’s Night. But it was all there already before I even saw Hard Day’s
Night.”4 You’re a Big Boy Now received a mixed critical reaction, but the real-
ity that Coppola was given attention as a director was of major significance.
Rex Reed described him as “the Orson Welles of the hand-held camera.”5
The film also served to satisfy his master’s thesis, and Coppola was now a
graduate of the UCLA master’s program. He was seen as a transitional figure,
leaving old Hollywood and touting the birth of a new American filmic transi-
tion. He told a respected film critic of the Los Angeles Times, Charles
Champlin, “I want to make films in Denver, Hartford, Seattle, places nobody
ever makes films. Give me $400,000 and six guys who love to make films
and I’ll do it.” Champlin wrote, “It is one of those rare American things, what
the Europeans call an auteur film.”6 What Coppola at the time was expressing
was an evolving dimension of his artistic credo; it came to be known as the
American New Wave.
 •
Journeyman/One for Francis
3

You’re a Big Boy Now was concrete proof that Francis Coppola was a bona fide
director. The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival where Coppola was
nominated for the coveted Palme d’Or. Geraldine Page was nominated for a
best supporting actress Oscar for her role as the overbearing mother. Despite
the reality that the film was a low-budget, studio-controlled vehicle, Francis
considered he had paid his dues. He envisioned his filmmaking future as inde-
pendent. He would fashion his own deals and create projects that met his artis-
tic standards. He had been conceiving an idea for a film called The
Conversation. Prepared to move full speed ahead, his professional life took an
unplanned detour. Coppola told Peter Cowie in Coppola, “I had made
a promise to myself—the one I didn’t keep—a vow that somehow what could
make me exceptional was the fact that I could write original screen material—
write the screenplay, and then execute it as producer and director.”1
The year was 1968, and a declining old Hollywood was producing musicals
to piggyback on the success of The Sound of Music. Funny Girl was in produc-
tion, and the newly managed Seven Arts (merged with deteriorating Warner)
had the property Finian’s Rainbow. The 1947 Broadway musical with a whim-
sical, well-intentioned, antibigotry fantastical theme had not aged well but had
a magnificent score. Warner-Seven Arts did not intend to pay for a high-
budget blockbuster but banked on a youthful Francis Coppola to breathe air
into the old chestnut. Seven Arts knew that Coppola had a background
directing musicals in college and, coming off the youthful enthusiasm of Big
Boy, Coppola seemed like a promising and prudent choice. This final project
under Jack Warner’s banner already had a commitment from the incomparable
Fred Astaire to play Finian. The budget was set at $3.5 million with a 12-week
shooting schedule, meager figures for a Hollywood musical. Francis wanted to
refuse but convinced himself to consent based on the beauty of the score and
the chance to involve his father Carmine as an orchestrator on the production.
It would be Coppola’s first opportunity to engage a family member in a
Coppola picture, and the possibility that his father could be part of a film
8 The Coppolas

production at this stage of his professional life was heartening. Carmine had
many unfulfilled years without a major breakthrough. His passion was not to
play the flute, although he played masterfully, but to be a serious composer.
Francis approached Carmine, who enthusiastically agreed to participate in
Finian’s Rainbow.
Coppola began production with a rehearsal period as he had with Big Boy.
The cast was a mismatched conglomeration. British pop sensation Petula
Clark played Astaire’s daughter, the choice calculated to attract a hip, young
audience (she was also under contract to Warner’s record division). This
notion was also applied to British crooner Tommy Steele and Canadian night-
club singer and TV star Don Francks, both playing love interests in the musical
but with no acting chops. Keenan Wynn played a blustery segregationist sena-
tor. Coppola quickly concluded that the beauty of the Harburg/Saidy/Lane
score was in no way supported by the screenplay. He tried to modernize cer-
tain details, but it didn’t really have an impact on the storyline. He knew he
would have to find a way to make it work. Fred Astaire, at 68, was a veteran
of countless Hollywood musicals created in controlled studio environments
with meticulously choreographed production numbers. In addition to being
a superb choreographer in his own right, the legendary Hermes Pan had been
hired to design the choreography for Finian’s Rainbow. Pan and Astaire had
collaborated on 17 Hollywood film musicals. From the outset there was fric-
tion. No studio sets with proper dance flooring were available for the film.
Warner-Seven Arts wanted the existing back lot set originally used for
Camelot to double for the countrified environment of Finian’s Rainbow. Pan
complained the set was not suitable for dancing and requested additional
rehearsal time to iron it out. Coppola was pressed; there was no time. Pan
was fired, and Coppola absorbed responsibility for the choreography. Francis
Coppola was an artist with multiple gifts, but choreography was not among
them. He tried, instead, to let the camera infuse the musical numbers with
energy. He wangled eight days of location shooting, and for the rest, in
essence, he fudged it. At best, the results were mixed. Coppola hired his
UCLA buddy Carroll Ballard to shoot the second unit, and the result is a
super-scenic Americana opening sequence. Other scenes survive through the
sheer beauty of the song lyrics, but the film’s overall impression is not compel-
ling. To add insult to injury, Warner-Seven Arts decided to blow up the 35mm
print to 70mm in first-run screenings in the old roadshow style. In changing
the film’s aspect ratio,2 the top and bottom of the frames were lost! If there
were any acceptably choreographed sequences, the audience couldn’t see
those dancing feet. The box office was not particularly good, and Coppola
learned another painful classic Hollywood lesson: decisions were made in the
front office, after the fact, and without consultation with the director.
There were a few bright spots during the Rainbow experience. In produc-
tion on the desolate Warner lot, Coppola noticed a young man quietly observ-
ing the shoot. Coppola approached him and asked his business. The young
 Journeyman/One for Francis 9

observer was a USC film student named George Lucas. Lucas had already won
first prize at the third National Student Film Festival for his short film
Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB and then a Warner Bros. scholarship
affording him six months at Warner’s studio. Unfortunately, the studio was
in decline, and Finian’s Rainbow was the only action on the lot. From the side-
lines, Lucas watched Francis Coppola’s work-in-progress. Lucas knew
Coppola by reputation. Coppola was five years his senior, but the two were
part of the young film school generation and ecstatic to have that bond. The
two became fast friends although their personalities were polar opposites.
Lucas was a slender, bearded young man in white shirt and chinos, reserved,
cautious, and pragmatic; Coppola also had a beard but was extroverted, emo-
tional, and a risk taker. Lucas came to the set every day, and Francis asked him
to take Polaroids of the action. They talked about their futures, and Coppola
told Lucas he envisioned a new era of filmmaking: low budget location shoots
with the moviemaker in control from script through edit. With this in mind, he
asked Lucas to join him as documentarian and production associate on his next
venture. Setting aside an unfinished script of The Conversation, Coppola
decided to approach Warner-Seven Arts for an advance on another project he
had been developing—he was now titling it The Rain People.
Coppola began organizing The Rain People with the intent of fulfilling his in-
dependent filmmaker concept. He chose as producers Ron Colby, with whom
he had worked on Big Boy and Finian’s Rainbow, and Bart Patton, a classmate
from UCLA. To cast the film he looked to young actors from the theater com-
munity who were just crossing over to film and television: the three lead actors,
Shirley Knight, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, all fit the criteria. The lead
actress was Knight, whom Coppola had met at Cannes when Big Boy was
screened there in 1967. Knight was confronted by a hostile press reacting to
her role as a racist prostitute in LeRoi Jones’s film The Dutchman.3 An unnerved
Knight was in tears, and Coppola comforted her by remarking that he would
write a film for her. James Caan had been at Hofstra when Coppola was there
and then studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse under the esteemed acting
teacher Sanford Meisner.4 A year after The Rain People he would have his
break-out role as Brian Piccolo in the made-for-television movie Brian’s Song.
Robert Duvall also studied in New York under Sanford Meisner and had a small
but pivotal role in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).
The Rain People was a road picture that followed a young married and preg-
nant woman on a personal journey of self-discovery. Unsure of her status as
wife and mother-to-be, she takes off in her station wagon to find out what
she wants in life. Coppola took the entire cast and crew across the United
States, formulating much of the story as they proceeded from location to loca-
tion. Hitchhiker James Caan becomes Knight’s companion on the road; the
character is a brain-damaged ex-football player injured during a game. Caan
becomes a kind of surrogate son as Knight sorts out her maternal feelings.
Caan meets a violent end when Knight has a romantic encounter with
10 The Coppolas

Duvall, playing a widowed motorcycle policeman. Much of The Rain People’s

script was improvised and written as Coppola took advantage of settings and
circumstances while the caravan journeyed cross country. Although tempers
flared from time to time and living conditions were barely adequate, most of
the young cast and crew rolled with the punches. They knew they were partic-
ipants in a guerilla filmmaking experience that was on the cusp of a revolution
in filmmaking; at the helm was a passionate and astute trailblazer. Of the lead
actors, Shirley Knight had the most difficulty with the experience. She and
Coppola argued creatively, and it probably didn’t help that, in fact, she was
pregnant like her character.
Coppola had invested in equipment he could utilize on the fly. The tools of
the trade were transported along with the troupe. Coppola displayed solid
working knowledge of the camera and editing concepts and had the respect
of his crew.
Cinematographer Bill Butler, who would also shoot The Conversation,
recalls in the interview book Masters of Light, “I love working with Coppola
because Coppola is heavy. The things that he’s putting on the screen are
heavyweight ideas. He gives you lots of freedom. He lets your creativity work
for him. I like that a lot.” 5 Editor Barry Malkin, who was also raised in
Woodside, Queens, sat at a Steenbeck (then state-of-the-art as opposed to
the Moviolas still in use in Hollywood) in the kitchenette of a trailer cutting
material as it was processed. At a certain point he needed to catch up with
the mounting footage, and the group holed up in Ogallala, Nebraska, for five
weeks while he assembled the material. George Lucas, the film’s documentar-
ian (filmmaker: a diary by george lucas) suggested his girlfriend Marcia Griffin
(who later became Marcia Lucas) become assistant editor and support Barry
Malkin’s editing process. Lucas’s documentary was a 16mm cinéma vérité
chronicle of the production. George Lucas shot, edited, and recorded it; it
has become a classic accompaniment to The Rain People adventure. Lastly,
after the show was in the final edit stages, Coppola needed sound work to
round out its technical elements. George Lucas had a sound guru friend at
USC and approached him on Coppola’s behalf. Working with no sound
library material (he was afraid of being caught since he was nonunion),
Walter Murch became another addition to the expanding crew of young
upstarts who eventually would be icons of the American New Wave of the
1970s. Murch, like Butler, observed in On the Edge: The Life & Times of
Francis Coppola, “Francis had a tendency to hire people and give them a great
deal of freedom to do what they were doing and authority over their domain.
So in a sense you feel an upwelling of responsibility for him.”6
The Rain People opened in New York City in August 1969, about a year
after the cavalcade had begun its journey. Coppola’s family—Eleanor, Gio,
and Roman—had been along for the ride. Throughout his career, Francis’s
family would travel with him whenever filming was away from home and lasted
more than two weeks. He often involved family members. On The Rain
 Journeyman/One for Francis 11

People, Ellie’s brother Bill Neil participated as production assistant. The final
product received a lukewarm response, but Coppola made true on his invest-
ment with Warner, completing the film on time and under the $750,000
allowance. Most consequential for Francis Coppola was the moniker at the
end credits—“Produced by American Zoetrope, San Francisco,” the name
Francis Coppola had chosen for his production company.
And so the Zoetrope adventure began.
 Zoetrope—Wheel of Life:
•
The Godfather, The Conversation,
4

The Godfather Part II

At age 30, Francis Coppola had completed a largely independent film, The
Rain People, which met many of the objectives he had striven for as a develop-
ing artist. He had taken his own script from start to finish, cast the film with
actors of his choosing without interference, used locations for authenticity,
and surrounded himself with a dedicated crew. His team used state-of-the-art
equipment Coppola purchased in Europe where the French New Wave (nou-
velle vague) and other independent artistic movements were flourishing. To
boot, the project came in on time and on budget. Thus motivated, Coppola
began conceptualizing an independent company where he could build on his
theory of a community of artists and artisans crafting films outside of the old
rules and regulations of the classic Hollywood studio system.
The Rain People wrapped in San Francisco, where Walter Murch did the
sound mix. The early American Zoetrope participants agreed they did not
want to locate their filmmaking commune in Los Angeles. San Francisco
seemed to be the consensus. The first American Zoetrope location was on
Folsom Street in a warehouse converted into a three-story loft. Coppola was
the owner and George Lucas was vice president. Mona Skager, who assisted
Coppola on projects from early on, was treasurer and secretary. Young film-
makers were eager to come on board. American Zoetrope was buzzing with
activity as a new breed of filmmakers made use of the high-tech equipment
all housed in one facility.
Coppola was committed to providing George Lucas with the opportunity to
expand his THX-1138 short into a fully realized feature. When it was clear that
Lucas needed assistance writing the screenplay, Lucas ultimately turned to
Walter Murch to fashion a script that would allow them to go into production.
 Zoetrope—Wheel of Life 13

It was then Coppola’s task to obtain financing. As he had in the past, he

approached Warner-Seven Arts, but there was little enthusiasm for Lucas’s
oddball script, and Coppola could not persuade them. Eventually a deal was
struck, but not for THX alone. Instead Coppola had to agree to a seven-
picture deal to be accomplished using the various American Zoetrope proper-
ties in development. Among them were Apocalypse Now, with a script by John
Milius slated for direction by George Lucas, and Vesuvia, a project originated
by his UCLA classmate Carroll Ballard. This placed a heavy burden on the
fledgling company to deliver a number of profitable products. THX-1138
began production in September 1969, and was completed in 10 weeks for
$800,000.1 That was the good news, but not the only news.
Coppola screened the film for its backers, and enthusiasm was low.
Expressing a lack of trust in American Zoetrope and the marketability of
Lucas’s first feature, the film fell into Warner Bros.’s hands, where venerable
Rudi Fehr (who had been Jack Warner’s right-hand man and head of produc-
tion) tried a light re-edit. The film was distributed by Warner-Seven Arts, but
the fallout was devastating. Warner-Seven Arts severed its relationship with
American Zoetrope, cancelling its seven-project deal and demanding repay-
ment for the Lucas venture. The whole experience embittered Lucas and
placed pressure on the Lucas-Coppola relationship. This was one of many
examples of Coppola’s disconnect between finances and artistry. There would
be more. The dream of American Zoetrope was turning nightmarish.
Francis Coppola was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with no silver
lining in sight. The American Zoetrope site became an equipment rental and
postproduction house, which managed to keep it afloat. Coppola’s only claim
to fame toward the end of 1970 was as co-screenwriter of Patton, which was a
box-office bonanza.
Because of the success of Patton, all was not lost. Coppola’s reputation as a
screenwriter still kept him in the game. He was receiving low-level directing
offers, and among them was a property owned by Paramount Studios. The
novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo was selling very well as a popular page-
turner about a mafia family and its intrigues. Paramount thought it would
attract an audience and brought Puzo out to Hollywood to create the script.
Paramount had suffered reversals with several high-budget films that did not
do well, including Catch-22, Paint Your Wagon, and Darling Lili. As a result
they were in the hole for billions of dollars. Their strategy was to develop
multiple low-budget vehicles and begin recouping the losses they had
incurred. Robert Evans was the West Coast head of operations with Frank
Yablans as his East Coast counterpart. Other directors had turned down the
gangster film property, and when Coppola was approached he was reluctant
after reading less than 100 pages of the novel. When Paramount asked again,
Lucas gave him a push, reminding him of the debt hanging over his head.
Coppola consented, and Albert Ruddy was assigned as line producer.
Ruddy’s key responsibility was to keep the production within the parameters
14 The Coppolas

that were established and, most of all, to keep Coppola on the straight and
narrow.
A meeting was set with the president of Paramount studios, Stanley Jaffe,
Robert Evans, Ruddy, and Coppola. Ruddy had prepped Coppola to adhere
to the party line so his superiors would feel comfortable; when it was
Francis’s turn to speak, he held court on the theory of filmmaking and what
his approach to The Godfather would be. After 25 minutes it was unclear if
his audience understood his oration; nevertheless it was persuasive enough
that the job was his. This was vintage Coppola, and it worked. Coppola was
hired to direct and work with Puzo on the script. His salary was a purported
$150,000 and a purported 712 percent of net profits.2
Conflicts began to surface immediately when the studio wanted to update
the timeframe of the story and set it in St. Louis, claiming a New York shoot
would be too expensive. Coppola stood pat, allowing Ruddy to present
Coppola’s objections to Robert Evans and Frank Yablans; $1 million was
added to the budget for the New York location, and the timeframe was
retained as post–World War II. Coppola wanted the Sicilian part of the story
photographed in Sicily; Coppola was nearly fired, but in the end the studio
acceded to this demand.
To develop the script Coppola used an approach that was successful when
he directed theater pieces. He took the entire novel page by page and framed
each page in a workbook, writing copious notes on the framed margin. He
eliminated portions he didn’t think would work on screen and developed dia-
logue, blocking directions, individual scenes, and visualizations. He and Puzo
collaborated by sending versions back and forth. That method served The
Godfather well. Puzo readily understood that Francis was the director and in
command. Puzo told Coppola biographer Michael Schumacher, “The great
thing about Francis is he never criticized my work. If I sent him a draft and
he didn’t use some of it, I knew he didn’t like it. He never criticized it or said,
‘Gee, this is shit.’ He just didn’t use it.”3
The next challenge was to cast the picture and determine the crew. For the
cast, Coppola was eager to use actors with whom he had worked successfully.
James Caan and Robert Duvall immediately came to mind. For the key role
of Don Corleone, Puzo himself envisioned Marlon Brando and had sent him
the book. Coppola, who had approached Brando the year before about The
Conversation, welcomed Puzo’s idea. Jaffe was vehemently opposed, and
Evans was right behind him. Brando’s reputation was at a low point. He was
overweight and unreliable. He had been off the radar for years. Well-
established actors were considered for the role, and others pursued it. It was
a star turn. Coppola grew increasingly adamant that Brando, the ultimate
American actor of the second half of the twentieth century, was the Don.
Jaffe relented only to a point. He wanted Brando to do a screen test.
Coppola found a way to make it happen without Marlon knowing that a
taping they did was a screen test. After Jaffe and Evans saw the tape they
 Zoetrope—Wheel of Life 15

immediately came on board. During the brief scene Coppola devised, Brando
morphed into Don Corleone. As noted in Patricia Bosworth’s book on Marlon
Brando, Coppola advised Brando: “The Godfather could be played as a sweet
little old man. Powerful people don’t need to shout.” About Brando, Coppola
observed, “Before we started, I thought Marlon was this strange, moody titan,
but he turned out to be very simple, very direct.”4
Paramount wanted Caan for the role of Michael Corleone, the heir appar-
ent, but Francis disagreed. He was intrigued by a young New York theater
actor with a maturing off-Broadway career—Al Pacino. Virtually unknown in
Hollywood, Pacino had been compelling the previous year in one of his first
films, The Panic in Needle Park, directed by Jerry Schatzberg, who was part
of the so-called New York School of directors—East Coast directors such as
Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet known for their gritty, naturalistic style. In
1973 Schatzberg would direct Pacino again, this time with Gene Hackman
as his costar. Resistance to casting Pacino was fierce, as he appeared too dimin-
utive for the role. He did not test well for the part, forgetting his lines. In
Schumacher’s biography, Pacino is quoted as saying he did not think he was
right for the part—but Francis did. Coppola had seen him perform off-
Broadway and thought he was a great actor. Having won the Brando battle,
Coppola prevailed, and the rest is history.
Robert Duvall, who had appeared in The Rain People and Lucas’s THX
1138, was cast as Tom Hagen, the adopted son and consigliore to the Don,
and James Caan was to play the hot-headed Sonny Corleone. John Cazale,
also a young theater actor who worked with Pacino, was cast as the ineffectual
oldest son Fredo. For the role of Connie Corleone, Fred Roos, casting direc-
tor, recommended Talia Shire. Shire, who attended Yale School of Drama,
asked her brother for an audition. He said no. Roos was Talia’s agent, and he
pressed Coppola for an audition. Coppola relented. Evans thought the audi-
tion was wonderful, and Talia was cast. At the time, Evans and the studio did
not know she was Coppola’s sister; she was married to composer David
Shire, and that was her professional name. In an online interview with Alex
Simon (The Hollywood Interview), Shire reflects, “After I was picked, Francis
and I had a long talk, because he was very concerned about the politics that
go on in studios.” In retrospect, Shire recognized the burden her presence
placed on Francis as a fledgling director. Rounding out the actors who would
all become stars after The Godfather was Diane Keaton. Mario Puzo had seen
her in a popular television commercial airing at the time and suggested her
for the role of Kay.
There was another incredibly significant New York choice. Cinema-
tographer Gordon Willis was an East Coast director of photography with a
solid career in commercials who was virtually unknown in Hollywood. His first
feature film, The End of the Road, was shot in New York in 1970 and directed
by Aram Avakian. The Landlord, directed by Hal Ashby, Irvin Kirshner’s
Loving, and Klute, directed by Alan J. Pakula, quickly followed.
16 The Coppolas

Willis’s contribution to The Godfather is incalculable. Willis is considered

the master of low-key lighting and was dubbed “The Prince of Darkness” by
his friend and fellow cinematographer the late Conrad Hall, but his lighting
approach baffled the Hollywood suits at Paramount. In an author’s interview
he recalls, “Paramount was giving Francis a terrible time while he was shooting
the movie. They almost fired him, and I don’t think they were too happy with
some of the things I was doing.” Willis continues, “The Godfather changed
moviemaking completely. The whole approach was different. People saw visu-
als in The Godfather that made it possible to do things today they were never
allowed to do.”5
Albert Ruddy chose Dean Tavoularis as production designer. Tavoularis’s
contribution to the visual look of the film created the perfect trinity of director,
cinematographer, and production designer. Tavoularis continued collaborat-
ing with Coppola for the majority of his career.
Aram Avakian was the supervising editor of record and was dismayed at the
voluminous footage Coppola amassed. Two prestigious Hollywood film edi-
tors, William Reynolds and Peter Zinner, finessed the abundant footage. In
an author’s interview, William Reynolds explained how they coedited:
Francis said, “Bill, I want you to take the first half of the picture, and
Peter, you take the last half.” We had a real wealth of material to work
with . . . there was lots and lots of editing to do to get a first cut. The pic-
ture was very long, well over three hours. Francis said to us editors, “I
just can’t show the picture at this length to Bob Evans” . . . so we did
some really drastic surgery under Francis’ direction. At that point we
brought it to Bob Evans for the first time. When the screening was fin-
ished Bob said, “Well, this looks good, but I remember lots of wonderful
material that isn’t in the film; where is it?” Francis was very upfront about
it. He said flat out that he didn’t think the studio would buy a picture at
an excessive length and Bob, bless his heart, said, “I don’t care how long
the picture is, put that material back. It’s that good, so let’s have it that
long.” It was because of Bob Evans and the clout that he carried at
Paramount at that time that they brought the picture at that length.6
William Reynolds, a gentleman through and through, may have cleaned up the
actual exchange between Coppola and Evans a bit, but Evans did instruct
Coppola to make the picture longer to retain the many nuances of the
storyline.
Volumes have been written about The Godfather. Invariably it appears on
10-best lists. It is number three on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years—
100 Films list with only Citizen Kane and Casablanca above it, and is number
two of all Oscar-winning films since 1929. Casablanca is number one.
Before The Godfather went into production the studio needed to contend
with another issue. The Italian-American Civil Rights League opposed the
film, asserting it would defame Italian Americans. After strenuous negotia-
tions, Paramount agreed to refrain from using the terms mafia and la Cosa
 Zoetrope—Wheel of Life 17

Nostra in the script. Understandably, the debate about glorifying the mafia
and its effect on Italian Americans as an ethnic group has never gone away, just
as it existed in the blockbuster television series The Sopranos.
The production was grueling, especially after the in-fighting about casting
had sapped so much of Coppola’s energy. Paramount continued to display mis-
trust and, rightfully, Coppola felt he was always on the verge of being fired. In
truth, Coppola was not an experienced director, and some mechanics were
beyond him. His direction was artistic and operatic to a flaw, but the crew had
to do a lot of mop up. Ultimately, it was the actors who gave Coppola the capac-
ity to reach the heights. Although they could be temperamental, they func-
tioned as an extended family. And Coppola had the opportunity to involve his
real family. Shire proved to be an unconditional support system. Shire described
the Coppolas as a circus family. Shire remarks in The Hollywood Interview, “I’ve
always said that we’re in the tradition of a circus family. . . . We may be competi-
tive, but as in great circus families, we never drop the other members, so we can
do what I call the dangerous tricks.”7 Still, to the very end Francis believed the
film was a massive failure and that his career was in jeopardy.
Coppola also had his father Carmine write incidental music for the film, and
Gio, Roman, and Eleanor were extras in the church sequence. Baby Sofia
Coppola, born on May 14, 1971, debuted as Connie Corleone’s son in the
pivotal baptism scene that intercuts with the film’s bloody, dramatic conclu-
sion. To Coppola, the kernel of The Godfather is about family and succession.
It has been described as Shakespearian in theme and proportion. The
Godfather opened on March 11, 1972, to huge public success. It has amassed
millions and millions of dollars over the past four decades. The Godfather was
nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won three—Best Picture, Best Actor
(Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Coppola shared with Puzo).
Coppola won the Golden Globes Best Director Award. Most noteworthy for
Coppola was recognition from his peers. At age 33 he won the prestigious
DGA award as best director. For the foreseeable future Francis Ford Coppola
could write his own ticket.
When reality set in and Coppola finally could be assured The Godfather was
a hit, he still took on a rush assignment at Evans’s request. Paramount
was developing The Great Gatsby as an “A-list” production, and the studio
was not pleased with the Truman Capote screenplay. Time was of the essence,
and Evans implored Coppola to redo a script in a month’s turnaround.
Coppola agreed and began writing in a North Beach café, spending many
hours a day for five weeks. He applied the cut-and-paste notebook approach
he had used successfully for The Godfather. Despite the pressure, he enjoyed
the challenge of adapting such a prestigious novel. When he had completed
the script, Evans labeled it “a brilliant adaptation.”8 It was a source of pride
for Francis. He could not know then that director Jack Clayton would tinker
with the script during production delays; the majority of Coppola’s material
was eliminated. Coppola had only disdain for the finished product.
18 The Coppolas

Also following the release of The Godfather, Lucas approached Coppola

about a project Lucas was trying to realize with little success. The film was
American Graffiti. Coppola agreed to produce the film, and with his emerging
bankability Graffiti was launched. The film is a reverie of West Coast cruising
and rock-and-roll in the early 1960s. To everyone’s amazement, it was a colos-
sal hit. Although the project caused tension between Lucas and Coppola,
mostly over financial disputes, where Coppola believed he ultimately came
up short, Graffiti jump-started Lucas’s career and allowed Star Wars to be
more than just a twinkle in his eye. The unparalleled Star Wars franchise made
Lucas a very wealthy man.
Coppola contemplated his next film project. He returned to The Conver-
sation, a story he conceived in the late 1960s that had been put on the back
burner. The storyline’s text is about eavesdropping and surveillance; its subtext
is loneliness. The film’s subject was only heightened by the national paranoia
of the Watergate bugging. The lead character, a renowned sound surveillance
expert, Harry Caul, played by Gene Hackman, is undone when he becomes
personally obsessed by a love-triangle assignment that results in murder.
Coppola and Hackman worked very precisely on the details of the character
of Harry Caul and the technology of eavesdropping, knowing that Harry
Caul, for the first time in his career, is confronted with taking responsibility
in a personal way for the principals of the eavesdropping.
The Conversation was made under the auspices of a newly formed unit—the
Directors’ Company—comprised of William Friedkin, Peter Bogdanovich, and
Coppola, all successful new-generation filmmakers who wanted to exert some
additional clout over their projects. It was financed by Paramount. The studio
believed the three directors were settling into a more mature stage and traded
backing for the directors’ loyalty, foreseeing a good cash return in the end. With
each director coming off of a big success—Friedkin, The Exorcist; Bogdanovich,
The Last Picture Show; and Coppola, The Godfather—the studio indulged them.
When The Conversation, perceived as an art-house film by Paramount, became
Coppola’s first offering, Paramount was irritated. In addition, Friedkin and
Bogdanovich did not really like The Conversation, so there was dissension within
the ranks. Bogdanovich came through with Paper Moon but quickly announced
he was planning Daisy Miller as a showcase for his girlfriend Cybill Shepherd.
By this time Paramount was prepared to reject this extra layer of authority and
kiboshed the whole arrangement. Before it was disbanded, The Conversation,
Paper Moon, and Daisy Miller were the sum total work products, and only
Paper Moon was profitable. Once again, a conflicted Coppola was not able to
totally gain the upper hand with the studios nor was he totally able to walk away.
About The Conversation Coppola has often referred to this moody film as
his personal favorite and the most personal to him. He acknowledges several
influences in The Conversation. He references Italian director Michelangelo
Antonioni’s Blow-Up and Hermann Hesse’s iconic novel Steppenwolf.
 Zoetrope—Wheel of Life 19

Coppola, always fascinated with electronics, was able to develop a story that
worked on many levels, including sound itself as an integral character. To
shoot the film Coppola had hired Haskell Wexler, who was the visual consul-
tant on American Graffiti. A conflict developed between him and trusted pro-
duction designer Tavoularis, and Coppola replaced Wexler with Bill Butler,
who had shot The Rain People. Along with Francis, Roos and Mona Skager
coproduced the film. Coppola cast John Cazale, who had played Fredo in
The Godfather, as an employee of Harry Caul’s who is fascinated by his extraor-
dinary abilities but frustrated by his withholding character. Gene Hackman
described Harry as an “uptight, right-wing eccentric, secretive, but with no
axes to grind.” 9 Other cast members were Frederic Forrest, with whom
Coppola would make many pictures; Cindy Williams; and Harrison Ford,
who acted in American Graffiti. Robert Duvall appears uncredited. As would
be the case in every subsequent film until Twixt was released in 2011,
Coppola employed family members. His oldest son Gian-Carlo appears
uncredited. To score the film, Coppola selected his brother-in-law, David
Shire, and gave him the script well before production. Although not typical,
it was fortuitous as Shire could begin to develop musical themes early on.
The schedule for the film was tight because The Godfather Part II was already
on the docket.
Perhaps the most crucial crew member on The Conversation was Walter
Murch, who is a film editor, sound editor, and sound designer. Murch was
responsible for the aural aspects of a film where sound is a key element. In an
author’s interview, Murch explains the electronic component of the film’s
opening sequence.
You start to be aware of this electronic component element, but you
don’t know what it is. So that peaks your curiosity. There’s nothing
you are looking at that has anything to do with this sound. Of course,
in three or four minutes you discover it. We had to invent some logic.
This film was made in 1973, but we said: “There’s going to be digital
sound. Let’s pretend somehow that Harry Caul has his hands on some
prototype digital processing equipment, and when he’s recording these
people’s voices, he’s recording some kind of digital interference matrix-
ing. When they’re in focus it’s fine. When you get off focus, are the dig-
ital underpinnings of the sound. So you start to hear the code itself rather
than words. One of the hardest things to do in film is to intentionally do
bad sound, but that’s what we had to do. We had to intentionally imply
that it’s drifting away, otherwise it just sounds like bad mixing.10
Murch goes on to discuss the decisive phrase that is central to the plot of
The Conversation: “He’d kill us if he got the chance.” Throughout the film
the phrase has been interpreted by Caul as “He’d kill us if he got the chance.”
When Caul listens to the phrase for the last time, he hears “He’d kill us if he
got the chance.” This shift in emphasis haunts him because he cannot decipher
20 The Coppolas

who is in danger in the love triangle. Murch talks about this change in the
phrasing.
“He’d kill us if he got the chance” was something Fred Forrest came up
with spontaneously in one of those recording sessions in Pacific Heights
Park. When I was putting the film together, I didn’t use that take. I set it
aside because it was not the right reading. So the film got put together; it
was locked . . . and we were still having story problems . . . the film is an
intensively subjective single point of view . . . You see everything through
Harry’s eyes. So I thought, “Harry is a lonely guy and without him
knowing it, he is falling in love with this attractive woman (Cindy
Williams) who he thinks is the victim . . . He’s very adept at getting rid
of filters on the tape but . . . Harry is forced to realize that the most
powerful filter of all is the one that’s in his head.”11
In the film there is a dream sequence where Harry tries to make an emo-
tional connection with the girl. He tells her about his sickly childhood, a clear
recollection of Francis’s own boyhood. “I was very sick when I was a boy. I was
paralyzed in my left leg. I couldn’t walk for six months. One doctor said I’d
probably never walk again . . . ” Harry then tries to warn her, yelling, “He’ll kill
you if he gets the chance.” In the end, Harry is prey to his own devices. Now
he knows the tables are turned and he is being bugged by his employer. He
strips his apartment bare layer by layer trying to find the bug. The final scene
is a poignant Harry Caul alone in his demolished apartment playing his saxo-
phone for solace and refuge.
The Conversation was an art film and was well received critically. At Cannes
Coppola won the coveted Palme d’Or, which Roman Coppola proudly carried
for his father. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for best picture,
best sound, and best original screenplay, competing against frontrunner
The Godfather Part II. Of utmost significance, Francis felt deeply rewarded
by the recognition The Conversation received—a film that was so special
to him.
Coppola began principal photography on The Godfather Part II on
October 1, 1973—redefining the term sequel in twentieth-century motion pic-
tures. The atmosphere surrounding the production was markedly different
from Coppola’s anxiety-driven experience on the first film. It was clear he
had carte blanche. As he stated in a Playboy interview in 1975, “I had to fight
a lot of wars the first time around. In Godfather II I had no interference.
Paramount backed me up in every decision. The film was my baby and they left
it in my hands.”12 In Coppola’s vision, there were several stated intentions for
Part II. He mapped out a story that was intrinsically tied to The Godfather so
he could eventually weave the material from the two films into one epic.
While providing deep biography of Vito Corleone’s roots, he also took pains
to underscore Michael’s deterioration into a vengeance-filled, isolated exis-
tence, so that by the film’s conclusion the audience would understand the true
 Zoetrope—Wheel of Life 21

evils of the mafia lifestyle. As Coppola articulates it in Playboy, “I didn’t want

Michael to die. I didn’t want Michael to be put in prison. I didn’t want him
to be assassinated by his rivals. But in a bigger sense, I also wanted to destroy
Michael. There’s no doubt that, by the end of the picture, Michael
Corleone, having beaten everyone, is sitting there alone, a living corpse.”13
Much of the crew carried over from the original Godfather production.
Barry Malkin and Richard Marks joined the editing staff with Zinner.
Carmine Coppola took on additional composing responsibilities. Tavoularis
and Willis returned to complete the remarkable production designer–director
of photography–director triumvirate. All lead cast members returned. Robert
De Niro as the young Vito Corleone was the significant new player in the cast.
Of the returning actors, Talia Shire observes, “We were a family at that point.
The second one was so stunning, which rarely happens with a sequel, but
Mario and Francis were always working to up the ante. Now you have Greek
literature, because you have the death of a mother, and a brother killing a
brother.”14
As always, Coppola brought his family. Eleanor and the three children can
be seen in the sequence when young Vito Corleone comes to America.
Roman also has a brief turn as a young Sonny. It was Francis’s joy to include
family members, meshing his work and his family. Even his mother Italia helps
out, subbing as Mama Corleone in her coffin because Morgana King, the
actress who played her, was spooked by the idea. This is not to say that there
was no strain on Eleanor Coppola, who had dutifully accompanied Francis
on all productions that took him out of the San Francisco area, where they
had a sumptuous Pacific Heights mansion overlooking the Golden Gate. At
every location in Part II (Santo Domingo, New York City, and Lake Tahoe)
the weather was awful. Constant rain, even when it should have been sunny
in the Caribbean, left Eleanor crying and depressed.
Early shooting was at the Lake Tahoe location where Michael Corleone has
his compound. The production design of Michael’s house on the lake is in
stark contrast to Vito Corleone’s cloistered but warm suburban environment.
It was particularly cold and dank during this part of the schedule, and it wore
everyone down. Al Pacino was especially affected. Between his performance
as Michael in The Godfather and this production, Pacino had developed into
a New York screen sensation with performances in Jerry Schatzberg’s
Scarecrow (costarring Gene Hackman) and Sidney Lumet’s Serpico. Pacino
was now able to compare directorial work methods and was irritated by
Coppola’s pace.
Coppola continued to maintain his own rhythm but understood that
Pacino was under great stress. In the Playboy interview Coppola observes that,
“The role of Michael is a very strange and difficult one and it put a terrific
strain on him. It was like being caught in a kind of vise. In the first picture,
he went from being a young, slightly insecure, naïve and brilliant young col-
lege student to becoming this horrible Mafia killer. In Godfather II, he’s the
22 The Coppolas

same man from beginning to end—working on a much more subtle level, very
rarely having a climactic scene where an actor can unload . . . The load on Al
was terrific and it really ran him down physically.”15 Eventually Pacino had
to take three weeks off, perhaps because he had pneumonia, perhaps because
he suffered mental fatigue. Coppola was obliged to rework the schedule to
accommodate his absence and focus on sequences where Pacino was not
involved.
In an author’s interview, director of photography Willis talks about lighting
the Little Italy and Ellis Island turn-of-the century period in Part II. “I per-
ceive period in a flatter light. Francis kept saying when it’s in the sun it looks
more period. Although there were some pieces that were in the sun, most of
it was done in shade because the values were better. There was not as much
light in the period interiors. People go through books and look at photographs
of Ellis Island and that’s their only real reference point. If you combine your
reference point with what you feel, many times you come up with something
that seems real. You’ve embellished it to make people perceive it as real—it’s
not real at all.” 16 A particularly challenging shot was the reflection of the
Statue of Liberty on young Vito in the boat’s glass porthole. Gordon Willis
told production designer Tavoularis how he could resolve the reflection.
“Just do a big black-and-white photo blow-up of it. We’ll put it outside the
window.”
Willis provides several examples that explain how locations are used as sub-
stitutions for what the audience perceives as an actual site. For the interior of
Ellis Island a fish market in Trieste, Italy, was used. “The apartment house
scenes were done in Rome. Part of it was done in Los Angeles, part of it was
done in New York—it was shot all over the place. The scenes with De Niro
on the rooftops were stretched over a long period of time because the weather
wasn’t good. The sun was out and we had to match the other shots.”17
The structure of Part II was complex, with the stories of young Vito
Corleone at the turn of the century and Michael’s ascendance to power after
the Don’s death interweaving throughout the film. Editor Marks, in an
author’s interview, explains the editing challenges.
The structure of interweaving the old and present story was written into
the script. It was the contrast and juxtaposition that was the underpin-
ning of the film. It always existed, but not necessarily in the exact way
it appears on film. One of our most difficult problems was finding where
to go back and forth, because the pace of the two stories was different.
The old story was legato and lyrical and the new story was more frenetic.
When you put those two together, it kept lurching you in and out of
the film. We were constantly experimenting. Because of the constant
cutting back and forth in time, the editing calls attention to itself. The
editing structure is implicitly part of the story, so the editing took on
a bigger role.
 Zoetrope—Wheel of Life 23

Marks goes on to discuss Coppola’s reliance on the editing process. “He

shoots long. He shoots beginnings, middles, and ends. He loves the editing
process and relies very heavily on shaping the film in the editing process.” As
to whether Coppola spends a lot of time in the cutting room, Marks indicates
that Coppola “reviews, talking, trying things, coming in and looking at it, talk-
ing again, trying other things. Occasionally, he would sit and work on sequen-
ces but he didn’t live in the cutting room and I think that’s a healthier way to
work for everyone concerned. It is important for the director to maintain per-
spective.”18 Coppola invariably trusted his well-chosen crew. He respected
their skills. He would spend some time in the editing room because he enjoyed
the process and in this case was aware of the complexities in shaping the
structure.
Much has been written about the uncommon acting abilities of De Niro.
Best known for his dynamic relationship with director Martin Scorsese, De
Niro came to Coppola’s attention after his breakout performance as Johnny
Boy in Scorsese’s extraordinary early film Mean Streets. De Niro had audi-
tioned for the part of Sonny in The Godfather. Coppola and Roos began mul-
ling over the possibility of De Niro as young Vito Corleone. They decided to
take De Niro to lunch without discussing their intentions. They spent the
lunch checking out De Niro’s features, demeanor, and mannerisms to deter-
mine if they could identify him with Brando, the older Vito, and whether they
thought he could execute this difficult reverse transformation. After the social
meeting, Coppola went with his gut, and, despite Paramount’s reservations, he
cast him without so much as a screen test. Coppola’s instincts would be
rewarded. Although De Niro could be inarticulate, shy, and insecure when
he was not acting, he was capable of incredible hard work—whatever it
took—to inhabit a role. De Niro researched every aspect of a character until
he could totally transform himself. For a jazz musician in New York, New
York he learned to play the saxophone; for the role of Jake LaMotta in
Raging Bull he gained over 40 pounds and learned to box.
For the role of young Vito Corleone, De Niro studied the Brando perfor-
mance again and again. He knew he had the responsibility to replicate the
physical characteristics and qualities Brando had established. De Niro has
stated, “I didn’t want to do an imitation, but I wanted to make it believable
that I could be him as a young man. I would see some little movements that
he would do and try to link them to my performance. What I did was watch
videotapes of Brando’s scenes looking for gestures to pick up. Or maybe just
a variation on something he did. The voice we tried first. I thought we might
be going too far and that it was too raspy. I think it turned out pretty good
though.”19
While Coppola was shooting in Lake Tahoe, De Niro was honing his char-
acter. Because the majority of his speaking part was in a Sicilian dialect of
Italian, Robert De Niro took a crash course in Italian and while in Sicily went
24 The Coppolas

to converse with relatives of the film’s Sicilian dialect coach so he could hear
the spoken word in its natural setting. There was no question that De Niro
delivered an Oscar-winning performance, if that is the measure of achieve-
ment. De Niro was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category along
with one of his mentors, Lee Strasberg, who is a Myer Lansky–type family head
in the movie. De Niro did not attend the Academy Award ceremonies in 1975,
and when he was announced as the recipient Coppola accepted on his behalf:
“I think this is a richly deserved award. Robert De Niro is an extraordinary
actor and is going to enrich the films that are made for years to come.”20
The reception for The Godfather II was terrific. To this day there is
argument as to whether the sequel even exceeds the first film in scope, acting
prowess, visualization, subtlety, classical drama, and tragedy. Critic David
Thompson notes:
The phenomenon . . . is that Part II is in many senses the bolder work—
not just filling in the story gaps from Puzo’s novel but building an
explanation of how this America came about and of how desperate inno-
vation grew into the most baleful and conservative measures. Notice
how far this transition—the shift from hope and arrogance to fatal
gloom—repeats the emotional journey of Citizen Kane, that earlier film
full of warnings about being a success in America.21
De Niro’s Oscar that night was the first of many for The Godfather II.
Coppola reaped the fruits of his labors. With Part II he won the trifecta: Best
Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay (with Puzo). Also hon-
ored was Tavalouris for his production design. Of particular joy to Coppola,
his father Carmine won an Academy Award for the musical score shared with
Nino Rota. So Coppola was a rich man emotionally and financially. His next
artistic choices were entirely in his hands and heart. Having completed The
Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Francis Ford Coppola undeniably had
realized a masterpiece.
 •
Coppola’s Dark Heart:
Apocalypse Now
5

After a grueling edit and re-edit of The Godfather Part II, an exhausted
Coppola was ready for the Christmas release of the sequel. Never one to sit
still, he was thinking about his next project and accelerated his involvement
in artistic affairs in San Francisco. He bought a radio station, KMPX-FM, with
funds against future profits from The Godfather Part II. He purchased the
Little Box Theatre and the building that housed it and became immersed in
City magazine, an underfunded journal focusing on all things San Francisco.
Over time, Coppola had infused the struggling magazine with needed cash, a
magnanimous no-strings-attached gesture, but now, in addition to dollars,
he sought to redefine the magazine. He put his name out and used it in a
major ad campaign, fired and hired staff, and fired again, changed editorial pol-
icy, and brought in experienced editors from outside venues. Coppola
attempted to put his imprimatur on City. His decision making, in an effort to
make a major San Francisco magazine, was poor. Coppola did not really
understand San Franciscans; he was a New York boy, and the San Francisco
natives resented his reimaging of their town.
Pulitzer Prize–winning San Francisco journalist Herb Caen, who wrote col-
umns for the Chronicle, put it this way: “Why would Francis Ford Coppola
hire a Los Angeles advertising agency to persuade us Bay Areans to buy his
City magazine? I suppose it should also be recorded that Coppola’s new toy
is being designed by Mike Salisbury—also of L.A.—but leave us not to be pro-
vincial. I’m not sure yet, but I think I preferred the OLD City magazine.”1
City had a short period of increased subscribership and revenue, but
Coppola’s money was seeping out the other end. Ultimately the magazine
folded in 1976. Caen eulogized it in his column, placing Coppola at the center
of its demise. More than the failure of a magazine, Coppola’s involvement was
indicative of his extreme behavior during this period in his life. There is no
question that his successes led to excesses. On one level, it had been an artistic
26 The Coppolas

endeavor, part and parcel of Coppola’s nature; in another way it was sheer
arrogance. Coppola was imposing his newly found power indiscriminately.
This ego-feeding conduct was evident in social activities as well. Coppola
began hosting extravagant parties at his large home, inviting the great and
near-great and wannabes for whom he would cook lavish meals. The house
was truly a mansion, and in the days of 1970s overindulgence, all kinds of
hanky-panky was rumored to have taken place under the Coppola roof.
Eleanor Coppola, a shy, private individual, was unhappy with this unrestrained
hoopla and would greet guests early in the evening and then retire to another
part of the house.
Gradually, Coppola began to realize that no matter how many creative
enterprises he was involved with in San Francisco, he was still an outsider and
not necessarily beloved. He required a kind of attention and stroking, and he
was not getting it, despite his influence. Perhaps, in part, this prompted
Coppola to purchase a sprawling estate in Napa Valley. Intended as a retreat,
the property was located in Rutherford, about 90 minutes from San
Francisco, complete with a vineyard. Coppola could not then know how ser-
endipitous the presence of the Rutherford vineyard would be.
April 8, 1975, when Francis Coppola won his coveted Academy Awards for
The Godfather Part II, was a magical night for him. Carmine Coppola, in his
acceptance speech, quipped, “If it wasn’t for Francis Coppola, I wouldn’t be
here tonight. However, if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t be here.”2 It was
endearing. Academy Award recipients can be forgiven for overlooking signifi-
cant individuals during their thank-you speeches, and when Francis won the
screenplay award and director’s award he told his mother Italia that if he won
again he would thank her. Then The Godfather Part II won for best picture,
and, in addition to other remarks, he thanked the Academy for giving his
father an Oscar and remarked there was something else he wanted to say but
couldn’t remember. Neither Carmine nor Francis thanked Italia. She was furi-
ous. In that sense, it was not Francis’s finest moment as a devoted family man.
Italia had been an actress in her youth, and her family had strong show-
business ties in Italy. The Penninos had come to America from Naples, Italy.
Italia’s father composed Italian songs and was an early supporter of Italian
films. As owner of the Empire Theater in Brooklyn, Francesco Pennino
imported Italian films to air in his theater. From Italia’s point of view, her influ-
ence on Francis’s career was at least as major as Carmine’s. Italia’s father was a
popular songwriter in Naples, and she referred to him as the “Irving Berlin of
Italy.”3 Despite bickering about who deserved credit for Francis’s artistic suc-
cess, the reality was that like many first-generation American parents,
Carmine and Italia would have preferred their children be doctors or lawyers,
or in Francis’s case an engineer; but since that was not the path they chose,
Italia certainly felt she had earned recognition from her son on this occasion.
There was also an unhappy Talia Shire, who had been passed over for best sup-
porting actress in favor of the sentimental favorite, Ingrid Bergman in Murder
 Coppola’s Dark Heart 27

on the Orient Express. Talia was also hurt that her brother had not acknowl-
edged her. As she observed caustically, “All of a sudden there are a lot of
relatives—aunts and uncles and cousins—all too willing to kiss Francis’s ass
and trade on his status.”4
Directly after The Godfather Part II’s big win at the Academy Awards,
Francis and Ellie went to Rio for two weeks of alone time. On their return
from vacation, Coppola began formalizing Apocalypse Now so he could go into
preproduction. As a gift to himself he had also bought a rare Tucker automo-
bile; he admired Preston Tucker’s life story. The car was a concrete tickler to
remind him that he wanted to develop his biography into a film someday. He
had been buying himself a lot of lavish gifts. He owned a helicopter, a
Wurlitzer jukebox loaded with rare Caruso records, a room filled with trains,
and many other purchases indicating Coppola was on a manic buying spree.
The Godfathers were so phenomenally popular that television rights were
purchased by the summer. In July, NBC bought the rights to the two
Godfathers, including all unused footage, in order to make a nine-hour mini-
series that Coppola would reassemble in chronological order. The deal was
purportedly for $15 million.
Coppola was now seriously focused on his next project, the Vietnam War
story Apocalypse Now. The backstory of Apocalypse Now began when George
Lucas and USC classmate John Milius were discussing the war in Vietnam in
the late 1960s. The two were members of the original Zoetrope group.
Milius, a crackerjack screenwriter, had heard of and spoken to returning sol-
diers about their experiences in Vietnam. He began to develop a project he
originally called The Psychedelic Soldier, which eventually became Apocalypse
Now. The plan was that Milius would write the script and Lucas would direct.
The script became part of the bundle that American Zoetrope lost to Warner
Bros. after THX-1138 flopped. When Coppola was in the black he repaid the
money originally owed to Warner, and the developing scripts for The
Conversation and Apocalypse Now reverted to his ownership. Originally, Lucas
had owned the rights to Apocalypse, and in 1973 he refreshed Coppola’s
memory about the project. In the ensuing year Lucas and Coppola argued
about monies to be paid for directing and producing and who would do what.
These were old financial tensions resurfacing on yet another project. The two
men were opposites when it came to money and how to use it. Ultimately,
Lucas turned away from Apocalypse, but not without resentment. John Milius,
who was a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), was
brought on board to reshape the script, with Francis instructing him not to hold
back. In the end, Lucas and Coppola came to a more amicable financial agree-
ment for Lucas’s lost rights and for his inability to direct Apocalypse in the future.
At the start of production, the only completed mainstream film about
Vietnam was the jingoistic The Green Berets (1968), starring an aging, prowar
John Wayne. The studios were skittish about Vietnam War vehicles so close in
proximity to the contentious environment that had divided the nation for
28 The Coppolas

years. On May 7, 1975, President Gerald Ford declared the official end to the
Vietnam Era, but the nation was yet to heal. Coppola was hard at work reshap-
ing the voluminous Milius rewrites. Coppola was bringing the screenplay
closer to its original conception—a river journey loosely based on Joseph
Conrad’s story Heart of Darkness.
Francis Coppola began to assemble his production team, believing at the
time that the film would turn over in about a year. Initially planning to self-
finance, he decided instead to strike a part-ownership deal with United
Artists. He had already personally invested several millions in preproduction.
Dean Tavalouris was again on board as production designer. Coppola was anx-
ious to use Vittorio Storaro as the director of photography because he admired
his photography on Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Last Tango in
Paris, and 1900. Storaro hesitated, not wanting to trump Gordon Willis and
knowing how difficult it was to shoot a war film. Coppola convinced Storaro
to accompany him to Sydney to look at potential locations. On the 27-hour
plane trip Storaro read the screenplay. In Peter Cowie’s The Apocalypse Now
Book he is quoted as saying,
I never went to sleep, I just sat down, and I started to write down my vis-
ual concept of Apocalypse Now, inspired by Conrad’s book, which I’d
just finished. I landed in Sydney . . . and met with Francis. . . . We were
able to discuss the main concept . . . and later he called Gray
Frederickson (producer) to translate my outline. . . . That was my first
creative meeting with Francis and it was wonderful. It was one of the
most remarkable encounters I’ve ever had in my life.5
Meanwhile, Fred Roos and Tavalouris were scouting locations. They deter-
mined that Queensland had tropical tracts that would be suitable. But the idea
did not prove acceptable to Australia’s burgeoning film community, which did
not want Coppola’s presence to dominate Australia’s film industry. Coppola
made the snap decision to shoot in the Philippines under the regime of
Ferdinand Marcos, who for a hefty price would provide him with men and
helicopters. Coppola chose Richard Marks as supervising editor. Walter
Murch was in charge of sound design. Carmine and Francis Coppola would
create the music.
For the lead role of Captain Willard, Coppola approached Steve McQueen,
who wanted $3 million.6 Coppola was forced to alter his strategy and set his
sights on a less expensive selection. Marlon Brando said he would accept the
role of Colonel Kurtz. For the part of Willard, Coppola wanted Martin
Sheen, but he was not then available. He selected Harvey Keitel, who was dis-
missed very early on and replaced with a now available Sheen, considered by
some as the next James Dean after his performance in Terrence Malick’s
Badlands. Robert Duvall was cast as the irrepressible Lt. Colonel Kilgore,
and Frederic Forrest, who had been in The Conversation, was cast as Chef.
Sam Bottoms, who had appeared in The Last Picture Show, was part of the boat
 Coppola’s Dark Heart 29

crew, and a 14-year-old Larry (Laurence) Fishburne was cast as Clean.

Harrison Ford and Scott Glenn, a Vietnam vet (who would take a role in
Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides) were also part of the cast. Albert Hall
was cast as Chief Phillips, and easy rider Dennis Hopper does a star turn as a
whacked-out photojournalist.
Apocalypse Now takes place in-country at the apex of U.S. involvement in
the Vietnam War. Captain Willard, a man conflicted by duty and virtue, is
assigned a confidential mission to hunt down and terminate with extreme
prejudice Colonel Walter Kurtz, a former rising military star operating outside
the purview of the industrial military complex.
The central metaphor of Apocalypse Now resonates in its title: the confron-
tation of good and evil, the quest for a spiritual path, and an inquiry into eter-
nal truths. These themes address war, morality, and for director Coppola the
very foundations of moviemaking as they then existed. He set out to create a
film about America’s military participation in Vietnam that would travel
through what Conrad called the Heart of Darkness to examine and question
the ethical code of the United States by employing an emerging cinematic lan-
guage that rebelled against the notion of the “well-made” studio film.
From the outset the project infected everyone in its path with megalomania-
cal fervor. Milius raved about actually shooting the film in Vietnam as the war
continued to rage in Southeast Asia. On location in the Philippines, Coppola
lost touch with reality and began to fantasize that he was Willard and that the
out-of-control production was his own private trip into the belly of the beast.
In reality the director was actually behaving more like Kurtz, operating out on
his own, risking his sanity, career, possessions, and even his family.
Eleanor Coppola, Gio (age 12 at start of production), Roman (age 10), and
Sofia (age 4) spent the better part of the production on location in the
Philippines with Francis. The boys spent some of the time back in the states at
school, but for the most part they were in the jungle. Francis had asked
Eleanor to photograph the entire experience to create a documentary record
of the making of Apocalypse Now. Ellie had a small crew and took on the assign-
ment with great dedication. She shot copious footage and also amassed many
stills. To maintain a record of times and places while she was working, she began
writing what became Notes. It is a volume of enormous value in detailing the
events of the filming, and, unplanned at the start, it is also the personal diary of
Eleanor Coppola at a time of great strain and chaos in her marriage.
Notes is insightful in its descriptions, observations, and shared experiences
with Francis Ford Coppola as he spirals downward psychologically during pro-
duction and postproduction. It is courageous in its self-reflection as Eleanor
Coppola struggles to cope with the belief that her husband is having an extra-
marital affair and that she has a great need to reevaluate her life as a person and
wife.
Apocalypse Now was a culmination of directorial expression and excess
during the American New Wave of the 1970s, when a new generation of
30 The Coppolas

filmmakers took over Hollywood and transformed what had largely been enter-
tainment into personal statements with lofty narratives and aesthetic goals. After
taking on organized crime to meditate on the corruption of American political
and corporate values in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, and the inva-
sion of privacy resulting in the destruction of self in The Conversation, Coppola
amassed the power and artistic hubris to tackle the nature of evil as personified
by the country’s aggressive engagement in the affairs of Vietnam.
Apocalypse Now is a series of narrative tableaus positioned in sequential
order. We are introduced to Willard as he begins to unravel mentally in a hotel
room; the officer is given his orders; a boat and crew are at his disposal; and he
is escorted to his point of departure. Willard then embarks on a journey up-
river to the Kurtz compound deep in the jungles of Cambodia. Each scene
block of the odyssey is a saga unto itself. The crew progresses into an increas-
ingly surreal set of circumstances until Willard reaches what Jim Morrison of
The Doors quantified as “The End.” The structure is linear, without parallel
storytelling, flashbacks, or flashforwards. Like Dante’s The Inferno it is a descent
into Hell. Coppola does not drive the story downward but horizontally—it is a
cinematic trip up-river to Hades.
Cinematographer Storaro utilizes light, color, composition, and movement
to illustrate the story, visualize motifs, and convey the emotional actuality
of the characters—their time and place. Storaro’s cinematography reproduces
the reality of the moment and space through diaphanous layers of light. The
images of Vietnam are illuminated with a sense of empirical truth. Storaro pho-
tographed Apocalypse Now in the anamorphic widescreen format to capture
the horizontal axis of the sky, the jungle, and the river that is the conduit
of this road movie traveling by boat. TechnoVision in Italy had just developed
lenses with the optical properties to duplicate the high level of definition seen
by the human eye. This registers in the brain’s storage bank and is filed along
with selective memories of a given period. The light in Apocalypse Now produ-
ces glare, contrast, and saturated colors, which embody the immediacy of the
tumultuous 1960s.
Lateral tracking shots evoke the film’s central metaphor. Throughout
Apocalypse Now the camera often follows a character—most notably Colonel
Bill Kilgore—as he briskly leads his men to his helicopter in a prelude to the
air attack. Framed in a full shot in a straight-on profile, the camera tracks right
to left, locked into the speed of Kilgore’s confident stride. The trajectory of the
camera movement not only defines the powerful charisma of the character, but
the tabular direction is a gesture that continues to evoke a visual representation
of the theme defining Willard’s pilgrimage toward a confrontation with the
other half of his psyche mirrored in Kurtz—his destiny is cinematically con-
stant and inevitable.
Psychedelic drugs such as LSD transformed the consciousness of many
young Americans during the late 1960s. Apocalypse Now takes place in 1969.
Experiments with mind-altering substances that produce hallucinatory
 Coppola’s Dark Heart 31

psychoactive states in the brain were spreading at home and at war. For the
men fighting in Vietnam the experience of leaving boyhood for the terrors of
the jungle and facing an enemy they didn’t fully comprehend was a surreal
and horrifying transition into manhood. For them, psychedelic drugs were
both a rite of passage and a way to transcend the unimaginable existence they
confronted.
In Apocalypse Now some of the members of the crew are under the influence
of hallucinogens. Storaro’s use of color sparks these psychic visions in the view-
er’s retina. Orange and green smoke fills the air with bright, gauzy fog. Lance
(Sam Bottoms), the zonked-out California surfer, fires a canister of purple
smoke he calls “Purple Haze,” a reference to the seminal Jimi Hendrix song.
Hendrix, who provided the sonic soundtrack for drugheads during the era,
had named the tune after a variety of acids chemically concocted for the exper-
imental electric musician by Augustus Owsley Stanley III, engineer of count-
less sensory excursions taken by Baby Boomers.
Cinematography is an art of chiaroscuro, the attention to light and dark in a
pictorial work. As Willard and the crew float into Kurtz’s heart of darkness
through the atrocities of war, Storaro’s photography emphasizes conflict with
tonal contrast. The environmental serenity of green foliage, blue sky, and
water is counterposed to the presence of warriors with dark camouflaged faces,
black metal weapons, and the burning yellow and orange of explosions that
ravage the land expressed in a surreal display of deadly fireworks. The Kurtz
compound is heavy with brush. The Colonel dwells in a cave where light isn’t
absent but represents the other side of brightness. The stark pools of light and
the gloom of its reflected rays unify to expose that light and dark—good and
evil—are configurations of each other. In an interview in Projections 6: Film-
makers on Film-Making, Storaro told Ric Gentry,
Apocalypse Now was the sum of my work up to that time. It was everything
I did in the moment of my past, and everything I could do in the moment
of my present. It was through Conrad, in part, and the title of his novella
Heart of Darkness on which Coppola’s film is based, that I began to re-
evaluate everything that went before. The concept of “darkness” itself
was revealing. It is where light ends. But I also realized that darkness is
not the absence of light but the antithesis of light. . . . Light and dark are
not only metaphors but the means by which we perceive and understand.7
The sound design by Walter Murch creates an aural environment that
supports and enhances the thematic achievements of the visual narrative.
Apocalypse Now is a sonic landmark which heralded a new era in the application
of film sound analogous to the accomplishments in production design attained
by William Cameron Menzies on Gone with the Wind.
Despite the incredibly stressful conditions that existed during the making of
Apocalypse Now, both cinematographer Storaro and sound designer Murch
elevated their crafts to a new level of competency, skill, and intricacy.
32 The Coppolas

Sound effects and music interpenetrate to produce overlays of realistic,

expressive, associative, and symbolic pertinence. The whirl of helicopter blades
is a signature sound in Apocalypse Now that defines the authentic and sensory
nature of the Vietnam War experience. In the opening of the film, Willard
imagines the sound of a turning hotel ceiling fan into a synthesized blade thwarp
that distinguishes his dream state. This is then blown out of his consciousness by
the audio of an actual helicopter that flies over the building, thereby returning
the psychically burned-out officer to the material world of Saigon.
Throughout the film, Michael Herr’s narration8 puts us inside Willard’s
thoughts as he tries to reason the purpose of his journey. This inner voice is
up close and resonates as if it were emanating from inside his head. It allows
the viewer to experience Willard’s twisted cognitive condition.
During the helicopter battle Kilgore plays a tape of Wagner’s “Ride of the
Valkyries,” which blares out of speakers mounted on the helicopter. The tri-
umphant horn melody and the heavenly choral voices signify power and vic-
tory and bring associations of Nazi invasions and the superiority of a master
race. The perspective of source and score interchange and interact with sounds
of gunfire, helicopters, explosions, radio transmissions, and shouting voices of
the combatants, which constantly shift to produce a hyperdramatic, cine-
operatic encounter between sound and image.
To create the exterior ambiance of Kurtz’s compound, Murch blended real-
istic Southeast Asian jungle sounds that had been recorded for the motion pic-
ture Lord Jim, music and singing of the Mung people of Cambodia taken from
ethnomusicality records, Vietnamese dialogue spoken from various depths in a
hidden valley, and a bird-presence track recorded at the San Francisco Zoo
bird room.
The interior of Kurtz’s lair is depicted as a dank, wet ruin. There are the
sounds of seeping water and echoed drips from various parts of the dark loca-
tion that acoustically outline the space. Jungle inhabitants are represented by
cricket sounds and the suction-cupped fingers of a Philippine lizard known as
a gecko.
Coppola and his team of film editors—supervising editor Marks, Jerry
Greenberg, Murch, and Lisa Fruchtman—struggled incessantly to find a fit-
ting conclusion for Apocalypse Now. After trying every available possibility
inherent in the raw footage they arrived at the concept that after Willard’s ritu-
alistic killing of Kurtz, he reads the man’s typewritten diary and finds the mes-
sage “Drop the bomb—exterminate them all!” written in scrawl. The Doors
song “The End” is heard at the beginning and end of the film. As sung by
the Dionysian rocker Jim Morrison, who had attended UCLA with Coppola,
the modal, tribal ode is an Oedipal drama that deliberates patricide. Its pres-
ence establishes a preordained affinity between Willard and Kurtz. Willard
then emerges from the cave carrying the diary, throws down the murderous
knife, and is acknowledged by the tribe as their new leader. Willard rejects this
and leads Lance, the only survivor of his crew, back to the boat. They turn the
 Coppola’s Dark Heart 33

vessel around to travel the river once again. They receive radio contact asking
for conformation but Willard shuts it off. We hear Kurtz repeat Conrad’s pro-
phetic words, “The horror, the horror.” In an author’s interview, supervising
editor Marks talks about the struggle of cutting the ending. “Apocalypse was
the quintessential difficult ending, mostly because Brando was shot in such a
strange way. It was just endless improvisation, with Brando covered with over-
lapping cameras. . . . I don’t think there was ever a clear cut answer. Not that
Francis didn’t write an ending; he wrote them, but they weren’t necessarily
the ones that were filmed, and the ones that were filmed were changed a thou-
sand times in the cutting room.”9 The fruitless search for a logical ending to a
film about the Vietnam War is the consummate metaphor of Apocalypse Now.
The war and the film can never truly be resolved and must lie within a con-
flicted American heart.
Time and cost overages on Apocalypse Now were stupendous. The quoted
budget at the end of production was about of $31.5 million.10 The film took
three years to come to fruition. It had survived a massive typhoon and
Martin Sheen’s heart attack. Coppola was being vilified by the biting
American press. In an attempt to mollify the naysayers, Coppola decided to
screen an unfinished version at Cannes in competition where it received a
warm reception and shared the Palme d’Or with Volker Schlöndorff’s The
Tin Drum. On August 15, 1979, Apocalypse Now opened in limited release.
A playbill was created by famed graphics designer Milton Glaser.11 The 16-
page handout included a statement from Coppola to his audience. He says,
“The most important thing I wanted to do in the making of Apocalypse Now
was to create a film experience that would give its audience a sense of the hor-
ror, the madness, the sensuousness, and the moral dilemma of the Vietnam
War.” He continued, “It was my thought that if the American audience could
look at the heart of what Vietnam was really like—what it looked like and felt
like—then they would be only one small step away from putting it behind
them.”12
The Vietnam War was a seminal experience for the American public. The
political divisiveness and the harrowing experience of visually seeing the war
unfold on nightly newscasts left American society in pain and damaged. For
those soldiers who had experienced Vietnam and for the families of those
who died in the conflict, the trauma continued. Returning soldiers often
received a hostile reception from the citizenry and had psychic wounds that
took years to repair. Ultimately, Coppola hoped that his artistry could contrib-
ute to an arduous and lengthy healing process.
It took many years for Apocalypse Now to yield a profit. The overruns were
enormous. In the end, the tally was positive, and the film received eight
Academy Award nominations with Oscars for Storaro and Murch. With the
tincture of time Apocalypse has been deemed by most to be a masterpiece. It
was responsible for spawning a series of filmic endeavors addressing the war
in Vietnam.
34 The Coppolas

The Apocalypse Now chapter in Coppola’s life had left him traumatized and
hurt. For the major portion of the experience he had behaved badly toward
many of his most trusted colleagues and most assuredly to his wife Eleanor.
She had been denigrated in public and private while Coppola found reasons
for pleasuring himself and justifying his uncivilized behavior. He still had
hearth and home, but just barely. Francis Coppola, the gambler, had rolled
the dice, but even with an ultimately financially successful film, it was questionable
if he had won the toss.
 •
Reinventing the Wheel of Life:
Zoetrope Studios and One
6

from the Heart

To understand Francis Coppola’s passionate desire to own a Hollywood studio

in 1980, it is necessary to place his fervor into the historical context of the
Golden Age of Hollywood and the classic Hollywood studio system.
Hollywood as the mecca of moviemaking developed during the silent film
era when the nascent American film industry relocated from New York to find
better weather and light. In Los Angeles and environs, studios were founded
under the strong control of the moguls by the 1920s. The moguls were a
group of businessmen largely comprised of Eastern European Jewish emi-
grants who had left their home countries under the strain of prejudice, pov-
erty, and pogroms. These men fled their homeland to partake of the
American dream and, in establishing studios in Hollywood, often ended up
defining the American dream through the motion pictures their studios
produced.
The moguls varied in their aesthetic and artistic sensibilities. They were not
driven to make art; instead they wanted to create thriving businesses. Most had
come out of retail businesses where they understood what the public wanted.
Being immigrants in a country of immigrants the moguls could identify the
tastes of the people who would become the prime audience for motion pic-
tures. They strongly identified with the immigrants’ desire to assimilate and
become part of the fabric of America. It was their desire, too. In a landmark
book on the subject of the Jewish moguls of the Golden Age of Hollywood,
author Neal Gabler traces how this group of men created the Golden Age
and literally invented Hollywood. The book, titled An Empire of Their Own:
How the Jews Invented Hollywood,1 painstakingly examines the process by
which these men gained power and placed their stamp on an entire industry
for decades.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 XIX
A QUEEN’S CONQUEST

S URROUNDED by her people, the ancient diadem of the Chibchas,

with its great, smouldering emerald, on her head, Sajipona waited
at the entrance to the court. Without, the motionless flowers and
shrubbery of the garden were steeped in a pale, quivering light
outlining every object with a weird intensity sharper, yet more
indefinable than gleams from moon-drenched skies. In this spectral
scene the cavemen stood in rows, like carven statues; even
Sajipona, mobile, versatile of mood, seemed a woman of marble.
But Una, stirred profoundly by the picture she had seen, doubtful
of its reality, not altogether sure of her own ground, aware of the
dangers that threatened, but ignorant of their exact character, could
not hide her anxiety. Seizing Sajipona’s hand, her eyes were
eloquent of unspoken questioning. Her mute appeal was answered
by a wistful smile, a glance at once gracious and sorrowful.
“For you there is no danger,” said the queen. “For me—yes, for me
there is, perhaps, danger.”
“How can that be?”
“You fear this Raoul Arthur. It is not for you, it is for me he has
come. For three years he has plotted to do this thing. My own
kinsman, Rafael Segurra, was in league with him. Before now he has
attempted to force his way here. The two together found their
opportunity in your coming. And now—Arthur has escaped from his
captors and again seems to have found traitors among my people.”
“What is it he wants?”
“You ask that—you who know David!”
For a moment the anger and suspicion with which she had first
regarded Una kindled in Sajipona’s eyes. But the mood vanished as
quickly as it came.
“Surely, you remember what Narva said,” she went on. “He seeks
treasure. He sought it with David three years ago, the poor treasure
belonging to what is left of my people. Segurra told him where it
was, how to get it.”
“Ah, yes!” exclaimed Una. “Now I know! The treasure of
Guatavita, of El Dorado, it is here.”
“It is here—it is mine!” said Sajipona sternly. “It will never be his.
Always your people have fought for it, have sinned and died to make
it theirs. They have driven us off the face of the earth, to hide for
centuries in this cave and in that other land that as yet you know
nothing of. Here we have made our world—and we will keep what is
ours, unless David——”
The words died on Sajipona’s lips. At the far end of the garden the
heavy branches of spectral shrubbery swayed and parted, revealing
a majestic figure hastening toward them. It was Narva. Gliding along
the pathway, she showed an agitation contrasting strangely with her
accustomed reserve. Reaching the entrance to the palace, she
pointed behind her, at the same time addressing the queen in words
unintelligible to Una.
“Yes, they are coming,” said Sajipona, smiling composedly. “It is
well. There is nothing to fear.”
Narva had arrived none too soon. As she spoke to the queen,
shouts were heard in the distance, and then the tramp of
approaching footsteps. Sajipona advanced to the threshold of the
palace, where, signing to the others to remain behind, she stood
alone, awaiting the noisy intruders. Her defenseless position brought
bitter protest from Narva that was supported by a movement among
the others to protect their queen. This was quickly rebuked; and
when Raoul, his followers and the explorers poured into the garden
they were confronted by a group of men and women who gave no
sign of uneasiness at their arrival.
It should be noted here that, in spite of his defeat, pictured in the
pool of light, Miranda had by no means relinquished his efforts to
gain control of Raoul’s men. He had followed along at their side,
irrepressible in his attempts to hold their attention—a sort of gadfly
whose persistent teasing nothing can stop. Raoul would have put an
end to him, once and for all; but in this he found that his men,
pacific by nature and training, would not uphold him. Miranda’s
rotund figure, vehemence, spasmodic energy, the unmitigated scorn
with which he regarded all who differed from him, delighted them.
He enjoyed the sort of immunity from punishment granted the old-
time court jester. The cavemen liked him because they could never
tell what he was going to do next. The novelty of so dynamic a
personality appealed to their sense of humor. Thus, when they were
all assembled in the garden, the little doctor’s next move was
awaited with eagerness. To their astonishment, the flourish expected
of him was not forthcoming. Instead, he stood stock still, folded his
arms across his chest with all the Napoleonic dignity he could
muster, and glared at Raoul.
This extreme composure, however, was not shared by the rest of
the explorers. At the first glimpse of Una, standing immediately
behind Sajipona, Mrs. Quayle gave a shriek of joy and collapsed into
the arms of the schoolmaster, whose own emotions made him a
sorry support at the best. Leighton, on the contrary, accompanied by
Herran, strode quickly forward and would have reached the
threshold of the palace, had he not been waved imperiously aside by
Raoul, who now summoned his followers about him, formed them
into a close phalanx and advanced rapidly across the garden. When
they were within a hundred yards of the palace, they were suddenly
met by two men of gigantic stature, who calmly ordered them to
halt. Raoul was less intimidated than his followers, who recognized
in this unexpected challenge an authority they were accustomed to
obey. The two men confronting them evidently belonged to the
priesthood. They were distinguished from the rest of Sajipona’s
courtiers by their dress, adorned by various symbolical figures
embroidered in red and gold, and by two wands, each surmounted
by an emerald, which they carried in their hands. Although without
military backing, weaponless except for these wands, Raoul saw with
dismay that the mere presence of these men excited the respect,
and even the homage, of those about him. Many bowed before
them; a few showed an unmistakable disposition to abandon their
enterprise altogether and take refuge in flight. Before this movement
could become general, however, they were arrested by the
appearance of Sajipona in their midst.
Descending the steps of the palace, the queen, attended only by
Una and Narva, came swiftly forward to meet them. Her bearing, the
proud majesty of her beauty, caused a murmur of admiration
throughout the ranks of the cavemen that was punctuated by a
hearty shout from Miranda, who watched the troubles of Raoul with
unrestrained delight. It was not often, indeed, that the rank and file
of the Land of the Condor came face to face with their queen. When
they did so, the meeting aroused a profound feeling of pride and
loyalty. Raoul, seeing the effect Sajipona had upon his men, and
already disconcerted by the reception accorded the two priests, had
no mind for further encounters that might cost him his entire
following. In the outside world, faced by a similar danger, he would
have retreated. But here, in the midst of a subterranean labyrinth of
unknown extent, retreat was impossible. The alternative was a bold
rallying of his forces, a sudden rush for the prize he had ventured so
far to win. Turning upon his men, he denounced them savagely for
their apparent change of purpose, their cowardice.
“You will remain slaves!” he cried tauntingly. “We have your
tyrants in our power. All you need do for your freedom is to follow
me and take what belongs to you.”
There were enough who understood his words to translate them
to those ignorant of Spanish, and the immediate effect produced on
these people, vacillating by nature, ever ready to yield to the
strongest personality that appealed to them, was not far from that
intended. Spears, knives, blowguns were brandished, a score or
more men leaped forward uttering cries of triumph—and again the
attack planned by Raoul seemed fairly under way and with a
reasonable prospect of success. It was checked—but only for an
instant—by a clamorous protest from Miranda. The latter, blazing
with indignation, bounded to the front, gesticulating and menacing
all who were within his reach.
“He is one canaille, this fellow!” he shouted. “He fight with the
womens. He take from you all you have. Do not be estupid. He lie!
He lie!”
This outburst astonished more than it convinced those to whom it
was addressed. As Miranda spoke in a mixture of English and
Spanish, scarcely any one understood what he said. In another
moment he would have been swept derisively aside, had not
Sajipona quietly interposed. Pointing at Raoul, she spoke a few
words to the cavemen in their native tongue. Then she turned to the
man whose armed presence at the doors of her palace, threatened
her authority, if not her life.
“So! This is the man who, a short time ago, I saved from death at
the hands of an angry mob!” she said scornfully. “You did not come
to my house then, Don Raoul, as you come now. And yet—if I order
these men, whom you think are your followers, to treat you as that
other mob would have treated you, they would obey me. Be sure of
that! And now, tell me: what have you done with Anitoo?”
Raoul hesitated a moment, then answered sullenly:
“He attacked me. I killed him in self-defense.”
The reply was only half understood by the cavemen; but the
attitude of Raoul, contrasted with the majestic bearing and
composure of Sajipona, had already aroused their indignation.
“It may have been, as you say, in self-defense—I have only your
word for it. But, for the treachery, the rebellion you have brought
here,” the queen went on, “by all the laws of our kingdom you
should die. But I have something I wish you to do. If you do it, your
life will be spared and you will be taken in safety from this cave
never to enter it again.”
Sajipona checked the tumult that she saw rising among the
cavemen, and spoke a few words to them.
“I have told them,” she explained, turning to Raoul, “that I knew
of your coming—as I did. I have told them I have something for you
to do before you are expelled from our kingdom. And I have pledged
my word for your safety—although none of the men you have led
here against me seem to care what happens to you. And now you
will come with me.”
 There was a murmur of approval. Raoul looked fearfully at his
followers. Their submission to the commands of the woman they
were accustomed to obey was sufficiently evident to destroy his last
hope for even a divided authority. Neither—for he was ignorant of
their language—could he tell just what had passed between them
and Sajipona. He was glad to accept, however, the queen’s promise
of safety; and this, coupled with a desire to get to the bottom of the
mystery that had tantalized him since he first met this strange and
fascinating being, reconciled him to the enforced abandonment of
his schemes for the conquest of a subterranean stronghold into
which he had ventured too far to retreat. He therefore bowed his
head to Sajipona’s commands and prepared to do as she directed.
His submission was greeted with ironical approval by Miranda, who
how waddled forward impatiently, dragging Leighton with him, to
enter the palace. But in this he was prevented by Sajipona.
“Senor, Doctor,” she said, pleasing his vanity by her knowledge of
his professional title, “you must wait. There is much to be done. You
are a fine general. You have helped save this palace, my kingdom
and all of us from ruin. I am very grateful. Soon you will have
everything that you want. And you and your friends will return to
your own country in safety.”
This unexpected check, although expressed in terms that were
highly pleasing to Miranda’s vanity, was received with a grumbling
protest.
“But, Senorita,” he expostulated; “this young lady is here. I look
for her everywhere in this cave. I am her family. She must come
back to us.”
“Not yet,” was the calm reply. “Very soon, yes. But now she will
stay with me.”
There was a finality about this way of putting things that dashed
even Miranda’s impetuosity. Leighton, silently watching the brief
altercation, and perceiving that Una, who still remained where
Sajipona had left her, was perfectly calm and in no need of their
assistance, exerted himself to restrain her headstrong champion.
This was no easy matter, and the struggle between the two was
watched with a covert smile by Sajipona. With the help of Herran
and Andrew, however, Miranda’s opposition was finally overcome.
After which, without waiting to hear the tirade that, she could see,
the doctor was ready to launch, the queen, followed by Raoul,
turned to the palace. Regaining the entrance, she faced them once
more and waved a farewell to the silent throng in the garden. Then,
giving her hand to Una, she passed within, the great doors clanging
behind her.
 XX
LEGEND AND REALITY

A Scourtiers,
soon as she reëntered the palace, Sajipona dismissed her
the cavemen who acted as guards, and even the few
female attendants she was accustomed to have near her. Of her own
people, Narva alone remained.
Facing Raoul and Una in the deserted hall, flooded with light from
the magic sun that a short while since had traced in moving
characters of fire the approach of her enemies, Sajipona told of her
purpose in bringing them there. She spoke as if she had long
foreseen and even planned this interview, and amazed them by her
intimate knowledge of various matters that seemed quite beyond the
reach of her sources of information. It was as if she had been
thoroughly familiar for some years past with Raoul’s schemes, and
had even shared in the hopes and fears that brought Una to
Colombia.
“I knew of your coming; I planned for it,” she said to Raoul. “For
months I have known that you were using every art your cunning
could suggest—aided by the treachery of one of my own people—to
find your way here. Until now you have been unable to do anything.
I was always able to keep you out of here—and I could still have
kept you out, had it not served my purpose better to let you come.
You are here now—you are looking for what you have always looked.
You guessed, long since, of the existence of a great treasure house,
built here centuries ago by the rulers of our mountain kingdom who
disappeared before the white invaders of this country. Idle stories
and legends of those far off times, repeated to you by the peons
whom you questioned, vague hints and romances picked up from
ancient books, led you to this cave and to the belief that I was, in
some way, mixed up with its secret. I will not say that you were right
or wrong in all of this. Here you look for a mountain of treasure; as
yet you have found none. But you have seen marvels enough since
you entered this unknown region to make you eager to solve a
mystery that every moment has grown deeper. I will help you—but it
must be in my own way, and just so far as it suits my own plans.
“Once, we who live here now shut out from all the rest of the
world, were free. We overran all the plains and mountains of Bogota,
our rule extended to the warmer countries on every side of us. We
practiced arts, cultivated sciences, were familiar with secrets of
nature that our conquerors were too rude, too ignorant to
understand. But these conquerors excelled us in warfare; and so we
were driven either into slavery or hiding. It is in memory of that
former age of freedom and empire that my people have called this
the Land of the Condor—that, and a strange old legend that you
may have heard of. Here we are hidden far, as you know, from the
light of the upper earth. A miracle of nature carved this land out of
the rock; the science and art of a race older than yours have
furnished it and made it what you see. It is guarded, as you know to
your cost, by many a labyrinth, strongholds that have baffled you
every time you have tried to pierce them. Its people live by means
and methods that are forgotten—if they were ever known—to the
outer world. Here we have been free to follow the customs and
beliefs of our fathers. Here we could still continue a peaceful mode
of life you know nothing of. But something has happened that has
changed all this. Because of it I have at last permitted, even aided
your coming to us. I know all you have sacrificed for this treasure
you hope to win from the depths of the earth—treasure that belongs
to us. I will not say that your search will be rewarded. Had you
succeeded in your plan years ago you would have paid dearly for it.
The knowledge of this hidden land would have been forever lost to
you. Good fortune—or ill—has brought you here at last. Your fate
lies now in the hands of the man you once tried to injure. But there
is one thing you must do before his decision can be given. You must
free him from a tyranny that, with all our knowledge of mankind’s
perils and weaknesses, we are powerless to overcome.”
The demand, vague though it was, did not surprise Raoul. Upon
learning of David’s disappearance on the road from Honda to
Bogota, he guessed that the missing man had found his way, by
some inexplicable method, to this subterranean world, thus
repeating his almost fatal adventure of three years ago. This
surmise, based on the past, and on indications of similar abnormal
mental symptoms that he believed David had again experienced,
was corroborated by the cavemen who accompanied him to the
palace. From these cavemen he learned that David had been
followed by Sajipona’s emissaries ever since his arrival in Honda.
These people intended neither his capture, nor to interfere with
whatever plans he might have. Instead, they had formed a sort of
secret guard, instructed to watch him and report, so soon as they
could ascertain it, his purpose in revisiting Bogota. When he was
separated from Herran by the regiment of volunteers on the Honda
road, he was found in a state of mental bewilderment, not
conscious, apparently, that he had lost his traveling companions, but
anxious to find his way to some place, which he vaguely described.
While in this condition he seemed to recognize the cavemen with
whom he was talking. Aided by their hints and suggestions, his
recollection of the cave, and especially of Sajipona, grew in
vividness. He appeared to remember nothing of Herran, nor of his
immediate object in visiting Bogota. But he spoke with increasing
clearness of the Land of the Condor. He recalled what had befallen
him there three years ago as if it had happened quite recently, and
declared he was looking for Sajipona, of whom he spoke with the
greatest admiration and gratitude. As he was uncertain of his way,
he asked the cavemen to guide him. This, of course, they were
ready to do, although they were completely mystified by the sudden
oblivion into which, apparently, all his present friends and purposes
had fallen in his mind. Sajipona alone he remembered. Three years
had passed since he last saw her—but the events crowded into
those three years seemed to have left not the slightest trace on his
memory. He described his first visit to the cave; but the time
between that period and this remained a blank in his mind.
All this Raoul had gathered from the cavemen who, reverting to
the Indian belief in such matters, declared that David was
bewitched. In a sense, Raoul knew this to be true. He knew also that
the spells wrought by modern witchcraft were easily broken by any
scientist holding the clew to them. That the cavemen, who
possessed secrets in physics unknown to the outer world, should be
ignorant of the simplest phenomena of hypnotism was not
extraordinary. Even Sajipona shared, to a certain extent, the
superstitions of those around her regarding David. She expected
Raoul to break the “enchantment” under which David suffered. Una,
familiar with Leighton’s experiments and speculations in this field,
was quite as confident as the queen that the case was within Raoul’s
power. Raoul alone realized the possible consequences following
David’s return to normal consciousness.
“Even if I could do as you say,” he asked, “why would you have
David changed?”
“As he is now, he is not himself.”
“No, he is not himself,” repeated Una eagerly.
Sajipona’s cheek paled; her lips tightened as if to prevent an angry
rejoinder.
“Are you not content with him as he is?” persisted Raoul.
“What is that to you?” she asked coldly. Then, no longer disguising
her emotion, she went on:
“You don’t understand what is between us. He comes from a
world that I have never seen. In the legends of our kings there is
one telling of a stranger who suddenly appears from a land of clouds
—a land no man knows—who brings with him the power to make my
people, as they once were, rulers of their own land. It is an old tale.
Believe it or not—who can be sure of these things? Certainly, the
stranger has never come—unless it is David.”
“There have been many strangers since that time,” said Raoul
cynically. “Your people have disappeared before the Spaniard. They
live unknown, forgotten, in a cave in the mountains. Why do you
think David is the stranger in the legend?”
She drew herself up scornfully. Her dark beauty, flashing eye,
quivering nostril, needed not the emerald diadem of the ancient
Chibchas encircling her brow to proclaim her royal lineage.
 “We are not so poor, so abandoned, as you seem to think,” she
said. “This is all that is left of a mighty kingdom, it is true—a cave
unknown to the rest of the world. But here we are, at least, free. We
live the life of our fathers. Our old men have taught us wisdom that
is unknown to you. We have wealth—not only the wealth that you
are seeking—but secrets of earth and air you have never dreamed
of.”
“This may be—I believe it is—all true. But—what is David to do
here?” murmured Una.
“If he is the Stranger of the old legend, the Gilded Man we have
awaited, this Land of the Condor is his.”
“You are its queen.”
“He will be its king.”
“You have told him?” asked Raoul.
“Years ago. We were happy. I loved him. It was not as the women
of your world love. Life was less than his least wish. And he loved
me. Plans for the great rejoicing—the Feast of the Gilded Man—were
made. Not since the Spaniards came—perhaps never before—has
there been such preparation. Then, a change came over him. He
talked of an outside world he had seen in his dreams. He was
bewitched then, as he is now. He had forgotten you, his false friend,
and all the life he had lived before. To cure him, I sent him out with
some of our people. He scarcely understood, but he accepted
anything I did as if it came from his own will. Then he disappeared.
Without a word he left me. There came long years of uncertainty.
The few months he passed with me here seemed like some bright
dream that vanishes. I began to think it was a dream—when
suddenly I heard of him again. Some of my people found him
wandering aimlessly in the forest near the Bogota road. He was
looking for me, he said—he had forgotten the rest of the world.”
There was an artless simplicity in Sajipona’s confession of her love
and disappointment that was more than eloquence. Narva stood
apart, her face shrouded in her mantle, motionless, as if the
remembrance of these bygone matters carried with it something of a
religious experience. Upon Una the effect was startlingly different.
She listened in amazement, indignation, at this revelation of a
passion in which her lover had shared—of which she had known
nothing—and that seemed to place him utterly apart from her. If
Sajipona’s tale was true—the manner of its telling, her own engaging
personality, carried irresistible conviction—David’s love for Una had
been shadowed all along by an earlier, deeper sentiment that gave it
the color of something that was not altogether real. Why had he
never told her of this Indian romance? Hypnotism indeed! What man
could help kneeling in passionate adoration before this queenly
woman, whose beauty was of that glorious warmth and fragrance
belonging to the purple and scarlet flowers of one’s dreams, whose
love combined the unreasoning devotion of a child with the proud
loyalty that inspires martyrdom? They had loved—David and
Sajipona—there could be no doubt of that. Before he met Una on
the shores of that far-off English lake, David had stood soul to soul
in a heaven created by this radiant being. He was with her again.
The past was completely blotted out; the tender idyl of
Derwentwater, of Rysdale, forgotten. Even the sight of Una herself
stirred but the vaguest ripple of memory. There was mystery,
certainly, in these strange moods of forgetfulness from which David
was suffering. Her uncle could give them a learned name and
account for them as belonging to something quite outside the man’s
will, outside his control. But what did Leighton really know of all
this? Such matters were beyond the reach of the mere scientist.
With a flash of scorn she doubted Leighton’s knowledge; his wisdom
seemed curiously limited. David’s malady—if it was to be called a
malady—was nothing less than the delirium caused by love itself,
and as such beyond the reach of clinic or laboratory. The spell, the
witchcraft, that had transformed him was wrought by Sajipona.
At first Una had not believed this; now the sudden conviction that
the man she loved was faithless to her, had always been faithless to
her, brought an overwhelming sense of bitterness. Her former
anxiety to save him—from peril as she thought—gave place to a
feeling that was almost vindictive. She did not view him with the
anger of the jealous woman merely; she wanted to have done with
him, to forget him altogether. His name was linked by this beautiful
Indian to one of the legends of her race; let it remain there!
“Why disturb him now?” she demanded passionately of Sajipona.
“He loves you, he is content.”
The revulsion of feeling in her voice was unmistakable. Her cheeks
flushed, her eyes, eloquent hitherto of womanly tenderness, dilated
in anger. Sajipona smiled enigmatically.
“If you had not come,” she said, “there would have been no
question. But you are here. He seems to have forgotten you. I am
not sure, I want to be certain, now that he has forgotten you, that
he is still himself.”
“Why do you doubt? Yes, he has forgotten me. And he is in your
power, he is yours! Why hazard anything further?”
Sajipona ignored the scornful meaning conveyed in the words,
regarding Una with a detachment indicating her absorption in a new
train of thought.
“A moment ago you were anxious for his safety,” she murmured.
“You came here to look for him, to rescue him. Perhaps I have been
unjust—perhaps you have a claim——”
“I have no claim,” retorted Una proudly. “Once you saved his life.
He has come to you again. He loves you. What man could help
loving you!” she added bitterly.
Still Sajipona smiled.
“I must be sure of all this—and so must you,” she said. “If the
witchcraft is mine, its power will soon be broken. If there is
something else, you, Senor, will discover it.”
She turned impatiently to Raoul, desiring him to go with her to
David. Una refused to accompany them. The conviction that she had
been mistaken, deluded, filled her with an unconquerable aversion
to meeting the man for whom she had been willing to sacrifice so
much. Aware of the unreasonableness of this feeling, she yet had no
wish to conquer it. To escape from this land of mysteries and terrors,
to return to the simple familiar environment of Rysdale—to forget, if
that were possible—was now her one desire. She did not attempt to
explain or justify herself to Sajipona. Nor was this necessary. To
Sajipona, Una’s anger and its cause were alike evident.
“Stay here, if you will, with Narva,” said the queen, with real or
feigned indifference. “But remember, you have refused to save the
man whom you think is in danger.”
Una did not reply. For the moment the old Indian sibyl, to whose
protection she had been assigned, seemed a welcome refuge.
Narva’s reserve, her silence, brought a negative sort of relief to her
own moods of anguish and indignation. Thus, without regret or
misgiving, she watched Raoul and Sajipona disappear through the
portal that had first admitted her to the great hall of the palace.
 XXI
DREAMS

D AVID welcomed Sajipona with genuine pleasure, with an

eagerness suggesting that he had been awaiting her coming
impatiently. Heedless of his greeting, however, and regarding him
earnestly, she asked if he remembered the visitor who had been with
him a short time before.
“Yes! Yes!” he exclaimed. Then he went on, betraying a certain
degree of anxiety in tone and manner, explaining how this visitor’s
face had haunted him as if it belonged to one he had seen in his
dreams, one upon whom he had unwittingly inflicted pain. Of
course, that could not be, he said, since there was no reality in
dreams. After all, a fancied wrong was nothing—and yet, this dim
memory of the woman who had been with them a moment before
was confusing. Where was she now? he asked. Was she offended
because he failed to recognize her? He should have known better—
but dreams are troublesome things! He would like to see her again—
although it might be painful in a way—and then, perhaps, he would
recall more distinctly what now was merely a dim sort of shadow in
the back of his brain.
They talked together in the darkened chamber overlooking the
portico. The couch from which he rose to greet Sajipona screened,
with its regal hangings, Raoul from him. When the queen pointed
out this new visitor to him, the result was similar to that following
his encounter with Una.
“More dream-people,” muttered David, passing his hand slowly
across his eyes. “I know this man, but I can’t exactly place him. It
will come back to me in a minute.”
Raoul watched him with the intent, impersonal interest a scientist
gives an experiment that is nearing the climax for which everything
has been prepared beforehand.
“I think I can help you,” he assured him.
 Then, turning to Sajipona; “I must warn you,” he said in a low
voice. “There will be a complete change. Why not leave things as
they are?”
The queen held her head up proudly.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Raoul shrugged his shoulders, regarding her, and then David, with
a gleam of malice in his restless eyes.
“I mean just this: David will remember vividly what is now only a
vague dream, and he may forget everything else. Therefore, I say, if
you are satisfied with him as he is, don’t disturb his present mood.”
“I am not satisfied.”
“Ah! you are not satisfied. You want to try one more experiment.
But, just think!” he went on, a hint of mockery in his voice; “all that
legend of your people, about a stranger who would appear from a
far-off land and restore the Chibcha Empire—why spoil so pretty a
picture? And the chances are, you will spoil it. I warn you——”
A flash of anger checked his words.
“I have pledged myself for your safety,” she reminded him; “keep
out of danger! I don’t care for your warnings. Help this man in the
way that I have asked, and as you say you can. You’ve tried often
enough to injure him. The consequences to me from what you do
now—leave all that for me to choose. Oh, never fear! I will repay
your service.”
David understood little of what was said, although he strove to
piece out a meaning. He perceived he was the subject of their talk.
From Sajipona’s angry tone, moreover, he knew that she was
offended. The consequent resentment that he felt in her behalf was
strengthened by an instinctive feeling of suspicion and dislike toward
Raoul. Checking a movement of repulsion, he appealed to Sajipona.
“Let me throw him out of here,” he demanded abruptly.
“Oh, on the contrary!” smiled the queen, not unpleased at his
attitude. “He is here because I have asked him to come—and you
will help me if you do what he tells you.”
“Do what he tells me? No! Why, Sajipona, what new whim have
you got in that beautiful head of yours? Something’s wrong. It must
be that I’ve offended you.”
He took her hand, stroking it caressingly, while his eyes sought
hers in unrestrained admiration.
“This is hard,” he went on, in a low tone, half laughter, half
reproach. “You are always so good, gracious as a queen should be.
Now you tell me to do what an enemy of yours commands. As your
enemy means mine, that is unreasonable. I fear,” he added playfully,
touching her hands with his lips, “I will have to disobey you, just this
once, even if you are a great queen. When I am king, and we rule
our jolly cave together, as you said we would, it won’t be so bad, I
suppose. Men like this, certainly, won’t be around to bother us. How
did he get here? I thought one law of this kingdom—and a very
good law it is, too—was to keep people out.”
“But you got in.”
“I suppose I did,” he assented dreamily. “But I’m not sure how it
happened.”
“That’s just it. This man will tell you. His name is Raoul Arthur.”
David looked at him blankly, repeating the name. Raoul moved out
of the shadow of the bed hangings, his eyes fixed on David’s. His
lips parted as if to speak, but the words were checked by an
imperative gesture from the man before him.
“I’m not sure that I want to listen,” said David. “I know this man,
I’m certain that I do—but I can’t tell you when it was that I first met
him. It’s all very vague, like the haze that sometimes covers the
living pictures in the great pool of light in there. This memory comes
like something evil, something that brings ruin. Surely, you don’t
want to bring ruin upon us, Sajipona! Why not blot it out
altogether?”
She shook her head sadly, looking wistfully into his face. They
clasped each other’s hands, oblivious, for the moment, of Raoul’s
presence.
“If you are king there must be no forgetting, no dread of a
memory that has been lost. You must know! The Land of the Condor
is a land of dreams compared with the rest of the world. You have
been out there, David, but you have forgotten. Now you must
remember.”
“No, not exactly forgotten,” he said uneasily. “It’s all in my head, a
lot of things jumbled together—like the haze in there. I have no wish
to straighten it out, either. There is such a thing as knowing too
much sometimes. We are happier this way—don’t let’s run any risks
changing what we already have. Soon there will be that feast, you
said—and then, if you are queen, perhaps you will want me to be
king. How proud I shall be! You are very beautiful, Sajipona; noble
and great, like the daughter of real kings of the earth. You are my
dream-queen, you know, the first love to touch my soul with a
knowledge of beauty. Such a woman men die for! Sometimes, when
you sing to me, or tease old Narva; or when I would hold you and
you kind of ripple away laughing, like the little brook at the bottom
of the garden—yes, that is the woman men die loving.”
“I wonder if you will always think that!”
“You mean, I may forget?”
“No, you will remember.”
“‘Remember!’ You mean, those other things wrapped in the haze—
the things that we wait to see come out in the pool of light. That’s
just it! No, I don’t want them; they spoil the first picture. To worship
beauty like yours, to live forever in the spell of your eyes, the
fragrance of your whole perfect being—that is happiness. I want
nothing else. Why lose our dream-loves; why snatch from us, even
before it is ours, the first pure flower that touches the lips of youth?
Don’t rob me of mine, my queen!”
His appeal thrilled with a dreamy earnestness that would have
moved a sterner woman than Sajipona. Nor could there be doubt
that the joy he thus kindled in her revived a hope that Una’s coming
had almost destroyed. Nevertheless, in spite of this response of her
own deep passion to his, her purpose remained unaltered. The very
eagerness with which she drank in David’s words—feeling the
temptation to let things keep the happy course they had already
taken—strengthened her resolve to lose no time, to risk everything
now. That such a change as she had feared could be wrought in
David after all this, seemed inconceivable. The witchcraft, if
witchcraft it was, that drew him to her was something real, real as
life, that exorcism could not dissolve. Sure of her triumph, she
sought to put him to the test herself.
“David, before you came to me, was there no other woman that
you knew?”
“Oh, yes, I think so, surely!” he laughed. “There might have been
any number of them. But—why bother about them? Just who they
were, or where I knew them, I have forgotten. I hope you don’t
think it necessary to remember every woman I have known! Anyway,
I can’t. Why, I don’t even remember their names.”
“I mean, one woman only. Perhaps there was one you loved, you
know, among all those you have forgotten. Some one who was
beautiful—is still beautiful—and who loves you. It might be the
woman you saw here a short time ago. She is called Una. Surely,
you remember.”
He wrung her hands, kissed them, listened eagerly to what she
was saying, at the same time that he longed to seal his ears from
hearing. Under his breath he muttered Una’s name, its iteration,
apparently, increasing his agitation. Distressed by Sajipona’s
questions, he tried to parry them, without revealing too much of his
own mental confusion. He did remember Una, he said, but the
memory was vague. She might be one of those dream-women, for
all he knew, who get mixed up with one’s ideas of reality. He would
like to have it straightened out, to know who she was and why the
thought of her troubled him. But, after all, it was not particularly
important—not important, that is, compared with his love for
Sajipona, his certainty that in their union lay a future happiness, not
for them only, but for all this wonderful kingdom she ruled over.
“Keep in this mind, if you will,” said Sajipona, the hope that she
secretly cherished greatly strengthened by the sincerity and fervor of
his protestations; “but first be sure you know dreams from waking.”
Again she expressed her desire to have Raoul brought into the
matter, promising David that, through his knowledge and experience,
the puzzles and contradictions of the past would be set right.
Yielding reluctantly, he turned to Raoul.
The latter had withdrawn to the far side of David’s couch, whence
he had watched, with alternate amusement and contempt, all that
took place between these two. He now advanced, with the air of one
who has the mastery of a difficult situation, and again proffered his
services. There was mockery in his voice; before he addressed
himself to his task he repeated his warning to Sajipona, reminding
her that it might be better not to revive too suddenly a past filled,
possibly, with disagreeable surprises. His warning waved impatiently
aside, Raoul turned swiftly upon David, his restless, irritating eyes
fixed in a steady glare that, bit by bit, broke down the latter’s
opposition. Forcing his victim to be seated upon the side of the
couch, he stood over him, for a short space, in silence. There was
nothing in all this of the gesture and mummery traditionally
accompanying certain spectacular manifestations of hypnotism;
neither were the two men at any time in physical contact with each
other. An onlooker would say that the younger man was
unconsciously brought into a passive condition by the exertion upon
him of a stronger will, intensified by facial peculiarities that were well
calculated to hold the attention. Eyes like Raoul’s, although exciting
repugnance, at the same time arouse curiosity. Once absorbed in
probing their baffling depths, the object of their regard yields to a
sort of baleful fascination hard to shake off. In former years David
had been used by Raoul in various psychological experiments, and
was thus accustomed, on such occasions, to surrender himself to the
other’s compelling influence. This habit was now unconsciously
revived. The old grooves of thought and conduct were reopened, as
it were, by the resumption of a parallel outward condition. As a
result, David fell into a state of complete mental inertia.
To this influence Raoul now added the force of direct suggestion,
or, rather, verbal command. The subtle arts of apparent submission,
or, at the least, mild expostulation which he usually employed in
gaining his ends with an intractable opponent, were cast aside. His
attack was concentrated, he spoke scornfully, without compromise in
utterance or meaning, so that his hypnotized subject was forced
either to resist or to be carried along by him. Through this direct,
positive method, he took David back, step by step, over events in
the immediate past that had become obscured in his memory.
“On the road from Honda,” he told him, “you were traveling with
another man. You were both going to Bogota. You stopped on the
road, and at this man’s suggestion you drank several toasts. The
liquor confused you. You began to lose track of things. Suddenly,
you and your companion met a ragged army of volunteers marching,
as they said, to avenge their country on the Americans at Panama.
This encounter, bringing you into direct contact with Colombian
hostility to your countrymen, intensified your abnormal condition. In
the confusion caused by meeting the volunteers, you were separated
from your companion. His name—don’t forget!—was General Herran.
He also had been mixed up in the Panama troubles. By this time—
that is, after you had lost Herran—owing to these various causes,
you had fallen into one of those states of forgetfulness that you had
experienced before. In this state you forgot what had just happened
and remembered instead your experience here three years ago,
when your brain had been stunned by an explosion of dynamite.
Living again in this memory, you met two cavemen. They spoke to
you. You knew them. Immediately, it seemed to you that you were
on your way with them to meet Sajipona in this cave where you had
been three years before. All that had passed between then and now
faded from your mind. But, of course you know that is preposterous!
Nothing fades from the mind. The memory of that period that you
think you have forgotten is really in your brain, waiting for you to
call it to life. And now, you will call it to life.”
The emphasis, the force in what Raoul was saying was due more
to his manner, the intensity with which he regarded David, than in
the actual words themselves. It was, in a measure, a contest of
wills; but, either through long habit of yielding to Raoul in these
experiments, or else through a desire to carry out what was
evidently Sajipona’s wish, there was no doubt from the first of the
result. And when this result came, it was decisive. After the first
sentence David’s instinctive opposition was weakened. The desire to
allay the anxiety obscurely felt in his own mind helped to bring him
under Raoul’s influence. The unexpected sight of Una had disturbed
him. Ever since their meeting he had been aware that something in
him was lacking, some clew lost between his past and his present.
Sajipona, deeply conscious though he was of her majestic beauty,
began to take on the vagueness of outline belonging to those
persons whose relationship to ourselves is so doubtfully
circumstanced that we momentarily expect to lose sight of them
altogether. She was literally becoming the dream-woman, the
intangible, lovely ideal of youth that he had playfully called her, while
Una was becoming correspondingly more real, less elusive. For this
very reason, this fear that fate was about to take from him one so
desirable as Sajipona, he had felt an excess of joy upon seeing her
now. His greeting had been more than usually demonstrative
because her coming had reassured him, silenced doubts that were
disquieting. Then, on the heels of this, he was aware of Raoul, with
all that he meant of uncertainty and restlessness. And yet, in spite of
his distaste for anything that threatened the peaceful course his life
seemed to be taking, a secret feeling of relief tempered the
repulsion aroused by the sudden appearance of his long forgotten
friend. Raoul’s words and manner completely possessed him. The
scene that he recalled of his meeting with the cavemen on the
Honda road was etched on his mind as vividly as if it had just been
experienced. And now, with this starting point fixed, Raoul took him
backward, step by step.
Again he saw himself with General Herran, stopping on the Honda
road to exchange those fatal civilities, and immediately after, the
noise and confusion of the marching volunteers, with their threats of
vengeance against the Yankees. Back of this came the quiet march
with Herran. He recalled their talk, something of their friendly
disputes. The effort to do this bewildered him. It seemed as if he
were stepping from one world into another. Everything was merged
into one gigantic figure of Raoul, a Raoul towering above him,
concentrating himself upon him, dominating him until all else faded
away and he was lost in a dreamless sleep, filled only with that word
of command—“remember!”
How long he remained in this state of unconsciousness—for it was
that rather than sleep—he did not know. It might have been years, it
might have been a mere moment of time. When the spell was finally
broken by Raoul the scene that met his awakened senses puzzled
him. He was in Sajipona’s palace, in the room where Raoul had
confronted and subdued him. But it was all unfamiliar. His mind was
filled with his mission to Bogota. His parting with Una in the sunny
courtyard of the inn came back to him, irradiating a dreamy
happiness. He had been through some strange experiences since
then, he knew. The sight of the bed hangings under which he was
reclining, the great spaces of the room, the softened light of the
cave, kept alive the memory of many a novel, fantastic adventure.
Shaking off his drowsiness, he sprang to his feet. Sajipona and Raoul
advanced to meet him. Sajipona! Yes, he remembered her. She was
the beautiful Indian queen he was to marry in his dream—it must
have been a dream, because Una was not there; except that, at the
very last, he remembered, Una had stepped in for just a moment—
and he had not known her! How amazed, angry, she must have
been! And then—what else could have been expected?—she had
gone away. He was anxious now for her safety, although how she
could possibly be in this cave, how she could have found her way
here, was a hopeless puzzle. The first word he uttered was a cry to
Sajipona:
“Where is Una?”
Raoul would have answered, but Sajipona checked him. She
realized the full significance of David’s question, although outwardly
she showed nothing of her emotion.
“You are yourself again—I am glad,” she said.
“But Una——?”
“She is safe. She reached Bogota after you left Honda.”
David’s relief was evident, although his eyes showed the perplexity
arising from his strange awakening.
 “I thought she had found her way here,” he said. Then he turned
again to Sajipona, this time with an impulsive gesture of gratitude. “I
remember everything now. You saved my life. Every moment with
you has been filled with happiness. How can I ever be grateful
enough for the kindness you have shown me?”
He knelt before her, kissing her hand. She smiled; her other hand
rested upon his shoulder.
“Grateful!” she exclaimed playfully. “Have we not a lifetime
together before us? You have forgotten the festival that awaits us on
the top of the mountain.”
“No, I have not forgotten.”
“Do you want it to take place?”
He arose to his feet, clasping his hands over his eyes as if to fix an
uncertain impression. When he bared his face before her again,
there was quiet determination in his glance. Again he took her hand
in his, pressing it to his lips. Then, with eyes fixed full upon hers, he
answered her question:
“Yes.”
 XXII
A PEOPLE’S DESTINY

M IRANDA and, in a lesser degree, those who were with him in the
palace garden, were indignant at their enforced separation from
Una and Sajipona. The doctor, priding himself especially on Raoul’s
discomfiture, considered the queen guilty of the basest ingratitude,
and even suspected that she might be, at that moment, plotting
their destruction. Leighton and Herran scoffed at this, but it
appealed to Mrs. Quayle, and that lady, clinging nervously to
Andrew, followed Miranda’s explosive talk with appreciative horror.
This proving a profitless diversion, however, Leighton proposed the
adoption of a plan for immediate action. An attack on the palace, or
a retreat that would bring them to the entrance of the cave, were
alternately considered. But as both plans seemed to leave Una out of
their reach, they were discarded as impossible, and it looked as if
they would have to settle down to an indefinite stay in the garden.
In the midst of the discussion the doors of the palace were thrown
open and Narva and Una hurried out to meet them. Still fearing
ambuscades and other undefinable treacheries, Miranda was by no
means ready to throw aside his caution at their approach. But the
aged sibyl’s lofty disdain was disconcerting, nor was there any
resisting the whole-hearted joy with which Una greeted them.
To their eager inquiries she gave the briefest replies. For one
thing, she assured them that they had Sajipona’s promise that their
escape from the cave would be easy and not too long delayed. Of
the queen’s friendly disposition towards them, she said, there was
not the slightest doubt. They could count on the carrying out of her
promise if, on their side, the conditions she proposed were observed.
These conditions were: never, once they were out of it, to enter the
cave again; to reveal as little as possible to the outside world of their
experiences during their present adventure; and to keep an absolute
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