Francis Ford Coppola Quotes

Historically the director has been the key creative element in a film and we must maintain that. We must protect that, in spite of the fact that there is new technology that's continually trying to erode that.

Film is a collaborative process, absolutely, but I am a control freak.

I went through a string of A&R men who all thought I should be doing something different. One thought I should be a dance diva; another thought I should do Rock n' Roll; and one thought I shouldn't even be singing at all!

I have a very clear vision, and I come from film, where director is God, so if there's a clash, it's painful.

I don't think Hollywood makes many good films anymore. How many directors can you really trust to have an artistic vision, not a corporate vision or a watered-down communal one?

I do believe very much in movie as a one-man-show. I think that where I've watched movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.

I'm not Tyler Perry. I'm not Dino De Laurentis. I think it's a bit much to put one's name in front of the film. It makes me uncomfortable.

When I did 'Stardust,' I was fighting the studio for things I believed were right.

Since childhood, I'd dreamed of making a film, but producers in France and Germany wanted to make commercial films with chinoiserie. I refused.

I can't imagine bringing in somebody else to direct my show. Wouldn't that be funny, if next season I had, like, Michael Bay come in and direct 'Better Things'? I wonder what that would be like?

I personally like to see films that are the work of as singular a consciousness as possible.

My first feature, I made in France. There's a great respect for the author there - they don't change your stuff.

Movies cost so much that studios really try to impose their personality over yours. A lot of times, you can get swallowed up in that and end up making movies that are indistinguishable from anybody else's. One of the things I've always tried to do is to inject myself as much as possible into the movie, so I feel like it's mine. But that also comes from what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. There are certain projects I could have said yes to, and I know exactly how they would have turned out: exactly the way they turned out when someone else did them.

I'm not a movie person. They're collaborations of the worst kind. You must compromise yourself to many interests that are venal and crass and do not have your best interests at heart.

It has become harder and harder in the United States to make films unhampered by outside influences. I've always been able to steer clear of that and keep the business people out of my hair completely.

Creative differences are legendary in this movie business, so we're really not exploring the creative-difference aspect as opposed to the money aspect, or the fact that something can come up in a movie and literally put the whole movie on the line, and this is where producers have to earn their keep.

My gaze is very different from that of Ekta Kapoor's, and that is quite visible in those two films - 'Ragini MMS 2' and 'Jism 2.'

My last film as director, the National Award winning 'Zakhm,' barely managed to break even. So why should I listen to so-called sensibilities of a handful of critics?

It is difficult to make movies on your own terms and also to make a film and convince somebody to have faith in it.

You have to be honest about what kind of films you want to make.

Hollywood is a double feeling. Love and hate. With a talented film director, I cannot resist. They are such charming and intelligent people. But each time, it is very difficult to deal with other people. I have to satisfy other people. The director or the producer. Not me. I have to satisfy myself. But then I have to deliver my music.

Some young filmmakers, unfortunately, don't have the ability to resist attempts to maybe cut their films down unfairly.

Sometimes shows suffer from having many cooks in the kitchen.

Every director works differently but one thing's important: they must have a vision. If they don't have a vision I don't care how they work.

I look for good directors mainly because if you do enough of movies where there's not a real creative vision behind it, you start to turn into a robot and you want to jump off a bridge.