Francis Ford Coppola on doing what you love and taking pleasure in learning | Homeroom with Sal

Hmm hi everyone. Welcome to our daily homeroom! For those of you who are wondering what this is, uh this is something that we started many months ago. It was really when all of us had to be socially distanced around COVID, uh but it's really evolved into, uh, you know an outlet to having interesting conversations and for us to interact with all of y'all. As we go through the conversation, I'm very excited about our guest today. Feel free to ask questions on Facebook and YouTube and the message boards. I have team members who are looking at it and we will try to surface as many questions as possible.

But before we begin our conversation, I will give my standard announcement reminder to everyone that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit, uh, that we exist because of philanthropic donations from folks like yourself. If you're in a position to do so, please think about donating. A special shout out to several corporations that stepped up, uh, especially as the COVID crisis was ramping up. In our servers, our traffic was two, two hundred fifty, three hundred percent of normal registrations going through the roof. We're trying to accelerate a bunch of programs, especially thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, and Novartis.

But I will remind everyone—including any corporations out there listening—that we continue to run into a deficit, uh, so if you're in a position to help out at any scale, uh, please think about it. With that, I am super excited of, uh, introducing our guest, uh, who is someone that I've always admired and I've I'd like to believe have become a good friend over the last several years, uh, Francis Ford Coppola. Francis, thanks so much for joining us!

Francis: It's my pleasure to join you.

So a good place—no, a good place to start is, you know, when we scheduled this, uh, the world was already in kind of the COVID crisis and, uh, you know I thought we were going to talk a lot, and I think we will talk a lot about, you know, learning, and especially learning in times of crisis and, you know, what this is doing. But obviously there's been layered on top of COVID other things in the world, uh, you know, we have, uh, the protests and, uh, around the killing of George Floyd, um, around not just the country, but the world.

I would love your view as a storyteller, as a filmmaker, as an observer of the human condition. You know what's your lens of what you're seeing now? And you’ve also seen a lot in your lifetime. You know, does this have parallels with other things you’ve seen or is this— is this different in certain ways?

Francis: Well, I must say, you know, I was born in 1939, so to me the big event as I was growing up when I was a child of four and five and six was World War II. Uh, so I was born at a time when the world was going through one of the most terrible, uh, of all bad things, which is a world war. And, uh, of course I was blessed being in America, uh, in that we were never attacked like our fellows, uh, all over the world.

And so this I would say that this present pandemic is the most, um, serious crisis that I have personally, as a more understanding adult, lived through. And you know, all my perspective is that, you know, the human species, uh, it’s always—it’s always easy to say, well people are selfish, or there’s part of them that’s bad, and then—and it always has been. But, you know, I don’t believe that to be the case. I believe the story of humanity, uh, which has been, uh, certainly going on 50,000 years recorded history is only maybe seven thousand years old. Uh, but there have been, uh, the human species is a latecomer to the family of creatures that inhabit the earth. And we have changed quite a bit over that time.

And usually there is some tremendous influence, some innovation or some event, uh, that causes a, uh, a readjustment of what life is like. It goes way back to the time of agriculture when human beings began to cultivate agriculture for the first time, and suddenly land became a priority. So there were landowners, and then with landowners there were the people who worked on the land, and that evolved into feudalism. And at each phase of human development there was always a reason why things changed, all the way up into say modern times with the industrial revolution. It was the learning how to make force engines, steam engines, and ultimately mass production. And that changed everything.

So this idea to say that human beings are a certain way, for me, is, uh, is not true. It depends on what is going to influence, uh, what, what, uh, what happens. And therefore we can imagine a time when there are other priorities changed by other things, by, uh, our human ingenuity is constantly inventing something that changes this science called economics, which everyone thinks, well this is the way it is. It’s not the way it is; it’s ever-changing.

And so I can imagine definitely, uh, out of even out of this crisis, I see change. I don’t hear people talking so much about, oh I'm worth this much money or I earn that much money. I hear them talking about, oh my family's okay, my family is safe. So that I think that there has been, uh, some positive things we’re learning from, from this crisis together, absolutely.

And, and what's your sense, you know, the—you know, just as an observer, in, in our country and maybe around the world, but especially in our country around, you know, what's around race issues? You know, I think we’d like to believe that there’s been progress, but there's also, you know, it feels like every now and then we get reminded as we've been in the last, not just last several weeks but the last several years that, you know, things are still happening that we thought only happened 50 years ago. Where do you think we are on that narrative?

Francis: Yeah, I feel that, you know, we are all immigrants. Every—there is not an American—there is not anyone living on this continent who is not an immigrant. Even the Native Americans came here maybe 15,000 years ago. No, there were no human beings in any part of what we call the New World. So to refer to them as, oh they’re new here, they’re not really born here.

I heard today on television a lady berating some young lady of where where where were you from, where you're not—this is in your home. The truth of the matter is everyone in America is an immigrant, and the immigrants have been a source of tremendous benefit beyond calculation. That's one of the things that gives us such vitality and innovation. And certainly African Americans who came here— not even—wasn't even their will to come here; they were brought here—African Americans are, you know, I'm an Italian-American. There are Chinese-Americans, there are African-Americans. And African Americans have struggled, uh, unfairly against, uh, the prejudices that grew up around them during, what, 300 years ago.

And when you think about it, it will take a big effort to change the four areas that, that, that is troublesome: one is, of course, uh, the criminal justice system, two is the equal opportunity for equal education, three is, of course, the health care and the ability to be healthy, and four in my opinion is childcare and nutrition. Because these children have to have good nutrition so they can learn and they can blossom and be the contributors to our society that we know is possible. And, and you say, well to do that, to really to really, uh, attack those four areas of criminal justice is an enormous job and health is an enormous job, and it’s going to cost a great deal of money.

But that money has been earned, uh, because the African American contribution to American culture over the last three years has earned trillions of dollars in, in revenue from, uh, the, the, the, uh, selling of that culture, which they created! Jazz, and, and literature, and dance, and, and so many things that have enriched and have have enriched our country. Certainly, a percentage of that, as a royalty, is worth spending, uh, the, the needed money that we have to do to revolutionize those areas of criminal justice, health, education, and childcare and nutrition. The money was earned by what they contributed, and they're entitled to that money to be spent in those areas as a royalty, right?

It’s a fascinating idea. Money, as you mentioned, contributed over, you know, 300 years, you know, many, many, many generations. You know, just, you know, one of the things that, that I think we like to do on, on this homeroom is for any guest because we have a lot of young people watching, uh, they're, you know, at a stage of their life where they're trying to figure out what to do. They have some things that they're excited about, some things that they might be feeling less secure about, and when they see a Francis Ford Coppola, who's, I mean, I don't think I'm, you know, saying anything that anyone would disagree with—a filmmaking legend—you know, they say, well how did, how did he become Francis Ford Coppola?

So, so maybe tell us a little bit about your own journey because I think especially something like filmmaking, you know, you can go to film school but it doesn't seem as obvious of a career track as, you know, going to med school or law school. How did you become that? And what gave you the confidence? And, and, did you, how did you know that you had some of the creative gifts? You know, Ernie H. Town from YouTube says, "Thank you Mr. Coppola for the greatest cinema ever," and I think a lot of people would agree with that. So tell us a little bit about that journey, especially when you were young.

Francis: You know, talent is—a strange thing and there’s—there’s two kinds of talent you can have. There’s the God-given talent that, uh, you know we all know those kids, they can just draw beautiful pictures and they could—and there’s no effort to them or they can sing or they can dance or they’ve just been given, uh, the gift.

The other kind of talent, uh, really you have to work for. And one of the beauties of all of these fields is that, uh, even if you didn’t get—I did not get that God-given gift. I would say the filmmakers like, um, well Steven Spielberg clearly just has the knack, and that just was given—the talent to do it, plus a lot of work in addition. And there were great directors like William Wyler, who happened to be the nephew of the owner of Columbia Pictures and got the chance to do it, but he had just a gift.

In my case, it was—I saw talent all around me. My father was a talented musician and, uh, but I didn’t feel I was given any special anything except I had enthusiasm, and I had a good imagination, and I worked hard. And, and I just tried, and I tried, and I tried to write little plays when I was a kid, and I knew they were awful, but I didn’t stop.

So, whether you get that God-given gift or not, applying yourself and working hard and having a dream that one day you’ll be able to do the thing you love, it does work. I have seen actors who—I remember from college—were terrible, and, uh, but they never gave up and they kept trying and—and years later they started to be actually brilliant. You know, so, so you can—you can either work your way to what your dream is, or you get the natural gift, which sometimes, uh, is not even as good as those of us who have to just keep working at it.

And certainly that’s true of writing or any creative thing. I, so I was a kid who was extremely good at science and, and I knew—all I understood electricity and I could make little gadgets; I could make little electric motors or do things like that. And I wanted to be a nuclear physicist, but I had flunked algebra twice, and my father said you can’t be a nuclear physicist if you’re gonna, uh, flunk, uh, flunk algebra. And I said my mind has difficulty.

Unfortunately, I looked at the Khan Academy algebra course, and at my own pace I was able to understand it. I have more of a spatial mind, so I—I won the geometry medal in, in school, uh, because my mind thinks as whole pictures, doesn’t think as a linear thing. So every kid has the things they're good at naturally and the things they're less good at, and the trick is to identify, uh, what you’re good at, and often it’s what you love.

So I loved science; I wanted to be around science and technology. And unfortunately, I was taken out of school for reasons of my father’s moving around and I went to about—I don’t know, maybe 20 schools before college. And I would always wander, as a new student I had no friends and I knew no one and I wasn’t doing well in school. So I would wonder—I would—the teacher wouldn’t even care if I said, oh I have to do a special project. I would always wander to the theater department because they always needed boys at that time who would climb up on the stage and hook up the lights.

And from up there with the lights I would watch, and of course I wanted to go to the theater department because that’s where the girls were. You know, the girls were either in the theater department or they were at the, around the football team. Well, I was sure not gonna meet them, uh, playing football. So I, I went—they were at least at the theater department, and I wanted to—I wanted to meet one if I could or even get to know one.

So I was there hanging the lights of the theater, and I would see the teachers directing the, uh, the actors and I thought, well, I could do that. And so that was really the reason I became a theater major, and ultimately when I did go to college I was a theater student. And that’s where I sort of blossomed because I was doing something that I really loved, which was to do plays.

And then from that, ultimately, the transition came and I went to film school. I could tell that story if you’re interested why I chose film school rather than—I was going to go to the Yale Drama School for my master’s degree, but something happened and I went to film school instead.

Well now you’ve—you’ve—I have to ask you why. Why did you go?

Francis: Well, I was very—I was very poor! I had absolutely no money! And, and, and just to eat was like a major—to have a lunch was, you know, a major, uh, thing! And so I would hang around where they were building the—the new theater because I knew I was going to get to do plays in that theater. And there was a little theater and there was a sign that said, “Today only at four o'clock we’re showing Sergey Eisenstein’s '10 Days That Shook the World',” which I had—I knew he was a Russian silent film director.

And so I had nothing to do and I went in there and there were maybe four people in that little theater, and I saw this silent movie by Eisenstein and I couldn’t believe my eyes! You see this—this stuff! And even though there was no—it was no music or anything—it was just a silence, but you could hear it! You could hear the crowds, you could hear the machine guns, you could hear everything because of the way it was edited! It was the first time that I saw what this magical ability that film has, which we call montage, where you take a shot and put it together with another shot and make something magical.

And when I came out of that theater I said, I’m not going to the Yale Drama School, I’m going to be a film director like Eisenstein. And I decided to go to the UCLA Film School and my whole life was changed!

And that relates to a question from YouTube. Uwu says, “How can you know not to be too ambitious with your dreams in life? Was there any point where you’re thinking maybe I’m, you know, filmmaking isn’t a guaranteed job? How am I going to pay the bills? Will I even be able to make films? How did you know you were being too ambitious?”

Francis: Yeah, I— I had no money! My father was mad at me because he had at one point sent me to military school, which I didn’t like at all, and I ran away. And he had to pay for it even though I had run away! So he didn’t want to support me in college; I had no money, I knew no one in the film business, I didn’t—didn’t have a family connection. I did have the blessing of a creative family; my father was a great musician and I had uncles who were in music, so I had seen, uh, in theater that kind of stuff.

But you know, in answer to that young person, you can't be too ambitious! You, you are given this unique opportunity to live, and you should have the most wild, wonderful ambition you can dream up, because anything is possible! I’m a good, I’m a good example of that because I—I was as poor as you can be! I lived—I lived—I remember I had 25 cents for breakfast, I had 40 cents for lunch, and I could sometimes have for dinner a Kraft macaroni and cheese dinner which in those days cost about 20 cents. So I was really poor!

And I went to the most wonderful film school, which was in the University of California, UCLA, which was, uh, you know—I mean tuition was like forty dollars a semester or something, so which was a blessing of California at that time. And, and there I was the least possible person to, to get even in the movie business!

And, you know, part of me dreamed, of course, that I could do it, but the other part thought, well maybe I can become an assistant director or something, and because I did have a sort of technical ability. So I mean every—every person alive is a unique individual, one of a kind! If you’re listening to this, there isn’t anyone like you!

So the fact that there’s no one like you, do what you love! Because that’s telling you what you might be good at. And anyway, even if you’re not as good as you want to be, you’re doing something that you love doing. That’s—that’s; you know they say if you do what you love, you never do a day of work in your life and it’s true! You know I would do what I do—I don’t even know most of the time—I don’t get paid for what I do! I, I basically am doing it because I would do it no matter what! And that’s what I think I would tell young people.

I remember my daughter, Sophia, when she was a young girl she was a very, uh, interesting little precocious young lady and she always admired fashion and she was a good painter and she was going to painting school studying painting and she said to me once, “Daddy, am I just a dilettante? Am I just a girl? I’m going to be studying painting but I’ll never probably be really a great painter. I like fashion, I like photography, I like stories. What should I do?”

And I said, “Do everything you love! Why? Because if you do what you love, you’re going to learn about all the things you love and who knows what you’re going to be in five years! You may decide to be something, but if you were doing the things you loved, I bet you that they will be useful!” And then four or five years later she made a little short film—you can see it on the net—it’s called 'Lick the Star', and she was just, uh, with her high school friends, and you could see when you made that that she was a born movie director!

And all of her interests—fashion, photography, storytelling, painting—all helped her be a film director! So, even if you're not sure what your profession is going to be, still do the things you love, because there’s no doubt that if you do those things they will be useful when it finally is clear to you what your profession that you wish is.

That’s—that’s super powerful! You know, the question from Facebook here, Jeannie Nicole says, “Did you have a person in your life that helped you believe you can do anything you want?” It sounded like Sophia had you and probably others as a teacher. So Jeannie is a teacher. As a teacher, I strive to make sure I tell each student so. Yeah, who in your own life—and actually maybe who in other people's life have you played that role? Because I know there have been several.

Francis: Well, when I was a very bad student, I, I should have defended myself because to my father, getting good grades and doing well in school, he had come from a neighborhood in a sort of area in New York where the boys either became hoodlums or professional musicians or doctors and lawyers; there was a split.

So he hated the hoodlum mentality, someone who didn’t do well in school. But at the same time, he took me out of school every six months and I was always in a different school, sometimes even in a far distant area. Like, I would be going to school in New York and then suddenly I’m going to junior high school in California. Well, California and New York was as different—more different than any two places on earth today. I remember being ridiculed in school in New York because I was eating an avocado because people in New York had never seen an avocado!

That’s how different it was! So my feeling is that, um, you know, once—I was in—I was not in good with my family. My brother was a brilliant student and I was a terrible student. But my mother did something good for me. My father didn’t take me too seriously when I said, oh I want to be a director and stuff of plays, but my mother said listen, if you’re interested in being a director, I’ll give you, uh, enough money that you can go to New York. We lived out on the outskirts of New York. I’ll let you go to a matinee of a play every week. So every Wednesday I would go in the subway or whatever the method where I was living to the city and I would see a Broadway matinee!

You know, which probably cost eight dollars was a lot of money! But she gave me the money to do that! And I think, uh, you know, that was a wonderful thing; she—a gift she gave me. Also in UCLA, uh, I met a professor who was one of the only women movie directors Hollywood ever had, her name was Dorothy Arzner, and she directed many, many, many big Hollywood films with great stars like Catherine Hepburn and Joan Crawford, and she was a major Hollywood director!

And she was the only woman for many years who was! And, and, and she, she was very encouraging to me! And there was a time—I can remember one night I was broke, I was miserable, uh, I was lonely. I—you know, and she came out in—in out of the bungalow that where the film school was in UCLA and she said to me, uh, she said, you know, you’ll make it! I’ve been around a long time and I know you will! And she left! And I was ready to quit! But that little word of this one teacher, uh, I said wow, she—she was she was a great movie director and if she says that I, I’m gonna make it… Gone! Maybe I shouldn’t—I wanted to quit and go get back to New York and maybe see if I could get a job as a stage manager or something!

But that little voice of encouragement helped me a lot. I, I think one thing in the second part of your question, Sal, is that American film directors, uh, have been very good about, uh, supporting each other and helping each other. I mentioned Steven Spielberg; he has sponsored so many young directors and made it possible for them to have their careers.

And even I, in my career, uh, took a very bright, much younger student whom I had met and, and, uh, you know, wanted to work with. I thought he was so bright and, and I said I’m gonna try to help you get to make your first film, and that was George Lucas, who of course made 'Star Wars' and 'American Graffiti' and is, uh, you know, is a legend! But he was the skinny 16—skinny about, uh, how old was he when I met him? Maybe just 20 or so.

Uh, and, and became, you know, at first this assistant but very quickly not an assistant, more of an associate, and there have been, uh, opportunities to give a helping hand or encourage. Even—the—one of the great all-time directors today, probably the greatest living working director, Martin Scorsese was, was a kid, a younger director that I tried to be helpful to! I remember I got him the job to do the film he made with Ellen Burstyn, 'Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.'

So it’s part of—it’s like being a tree, I mean if you’re not planting new young trees around you there won’t be a forest!

And what did you see in a young George Lucas or Martin Scorsese? I’m guessing that there were other—I don’t know exactly where you were in your career, but I’m guessing by that point you were starting to get relatively established or known. What did you see in them? Probably there were other people who would love mentorship from you. What spark did you see in them that said yeah, I think they’re going to be something?

Francis: If you, if you scratch a filmmaker what comes out is—no matter how old they are, no matter—you know, if you scratch the skin a little, outpours enthusiasm! To hear George Lucas talk about film, he would get so excited about, you know, you take that shot and you put that together with that shot and then you get something that you didn’t imagine could happen! There’s such an outpouring of, of love and enthusiasm for the cinema!

To this day, Martin Scorsese is the best film teacher I think on earth! You—I would recommend very seriously anyone interested in movies to get a documentary series that Martin made called 'My Voyage to Italy,' which is a multi-set in which he discusses from the beginning to end the Italian cinema and goes into every director and what they did. You come out after seeing that and you know so much about how the cinema, uh, evolved and developed, but more important you just want to make a film!

And that—and that’s great! You know, uh, that's what young filmmakers—you know, when I was a young theater student I had three heroes that I just, I mean they were like untouchables! It was of course Illya Kazan, it was Marlon Brando, and Tennessee Williams! And, and they represented with a theater student of the ’50s, uh, you know, the ultimate! And of course I was blessed to have been able to meet each of them!

But it's good to have a hero of someone who, if you're a writer, of whose books you just admire so much, or if it's a dancer who inspires you, or a composer, or whoever it is, a songwriter, Carol King, whoever it is you love. And it's all right to even imitate them because you can’t imitate them! That's the beauty of it! In other words, you could try to write a song like Carol King, but it goes through you and it comes out different and that’s what you want!

I remember once reading a note about Balzac, the great French writer, and someone said, oh the young writers are taking your writing and they’re copying it. And Balzac said, oh I want them to! I want them to! That’s why I do it because when they take it, they make it their own! It means I’ll live through them forever! And, and, and this idea that oh, of course, plagiarism is wrong when you take something someone else wrote and say you wrote it, but to be inspired and try to do something like the person who inspires you, whether it’s anything—music, film, dance—that’s okay! Because you can’t just copy it!

In you, you are such a unique creation yourself that it’ll come out differently. And little by little you’ll start to understand the difference and as it becomes clear to you, that becomes your voice and you go on and it becomes more and more beautiful, and then some young person will steal from you and you want them to! It’s there for them!

That’s super powerful! And you know, one thing that I think it comes through in even just your narrative and what you see in others, but you know the spark, this curiosity, I don’t think probably the world fully appreciates just how much you have that in you! Uh, for a context, you know, the first time—well the last time we've, see we saw each other pre-COVID, you—you said yeah I would love to meet but you've got to teach me calculus! Tell us a little bit about your, your love for learning! I think you're, you're kind of infectious when you talk about that!

Francis: Well, that’s very important, um, because I think if I could give the, the subject of education my two cents, uh, be it the teachers, wonderful teachers and less wonderful teachers, the students, the wonderful students, the less wonderful students, what I would say to them that I’ve learned is that the secret to why we want to learn is because it’s pleasure! That learning is one of the greatest pleasures you can have! And, and, and if you, if the students could understand that, sure, there’s lots of reasons you learn, because then you’ll become more wise and you’ll be able to get a profession or you’ll be a doctor or you’ll make your parents proud or you’ll be able to make money. All those things, the real reason to want to learn is because the more you learn and learn how to learn, the more pleasure you get!

And I always had an example—I think I even, oh yeah, I have it here— why is that true? Uh, you know because you think of human beings, they were born in the, in, in the mud! You know, we—we suddenly saw, where are we, what is this, where am I? It’s gotta get—it’s cold! I’m cold, I’m hungry, I better find something to eat! So human beings just ran into a bunch of puzzles that they didn’t know the answers to, but because we’re gifted with this wonderful ability to think, and the tradition to think, and ultimately we learn how to think, uh, that we're able to solve the puzzles! And it’s—it’s a great pleasure to solve puzzles!

And I always make this—I have it here—I have this example! All the kids know this puzzle: this is the two nails that yeah, go like that! And if you have one of these, you say, well how do you get these two nails apart? And—and some kids can just figure it out immediately, and others don’t! But if someone says, look at the way to do it is, you line it up so that, uh, let me see how, like yeah, you line it up so it’s like this, and it’s pointing up! And then you go like that! And oh, this is going to work! You go—you go like this, twist it around, I know how to do this!

Wait a second, my whole point is being, uh, you line them up like that and then you twist it around like that! So I failed! This shows the learning process! We're all—we're all on the street! You do it like that, and then you go around like that—and is it around like that or is it up like the—kids are laughing at me because they know how to do it! Anyway, ugh, I’ll—you—you put it up like that, then you take one around, I’m so close! Anyway, it’s great pleasure to learn how to solve this puzzle!

And later I'll do it again! But the learning how to do anything is—my point is it’s a pleasure! If I had been able to teach you how to do this stupid puzzle, I would have been happy; it was giving me pleasure! But learning everything is a lot of fun, and that’s the reason why we—we go to school and we learn is not because of all this, the sub-reasons that they tell us. This is because it’s a lot of fun to, to do!

No and kudos to you, Francis, because I think, you know, in real time on a live I guess live stream to try—it shows, you know, a growth mindset. Not, not a fear of failure. And I think we all want to go and try to—you can’t have a fear—you can’t have a feel of failure if you have a fear of failure, you won’t do anything!

That’s right! Failure, and also failure is, is one of the steps of success because when you learn what not to do, then you don’t do that again and you skip that! So that's—that's an equal step towards success! If you make a movie that’s a bad movie, that doesn’t work, that doesn’t uplift the audience or engross them, then you think about it a lot and—and you say, well, and next time I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna make those mistakes!

Someone—someone tricked this! They made it so I can’t do it! I know one of my kids—they bent the nails a little bit too much! You know, I—I would be remiss! I’m getting a lot—I’m getting a lot of questions from a lot of film buffs here, as you could imagine! Uh, you okay? I’ll try to—I’ll try to be less talkative and I’ll try—

No, no, this is wonderful! No, no, I'm—this is—and, and keep solving the nail puzzle! You know, I mean there’s a lot of questions about—I mean people are asking what’s your favorite horror films? People are asking about some of the things that, you know, Gene Hamm from Facebook asks, you know when Mike—Michael Corleone pops a hole in the orange and sucks the juice out of it and it’s kind of a metaphor for how he treats life, you know. Is that stuff you came up with? Was it in the script? Was it something the actor came up with? Uh, I’d love—I’d love there’s quick views on that!

Francis: Oh, let’s go ahead—oh, very good! Yeah, well you know the metaphor of the orange in 'The Godfather', you know, um, I basically saw the oranges around—I didn’t have an idea of, oh this could be a symbol of anything. I just said, hey, take the orange! You know, or like when I put the cat in Marlon Brando’s hand there was—it seemed to be an opportunity, uh, to, uh, to use what was around. And after a while then I—when I edited the movie, I began to understand that—that the orange said something!

A lot of times when you’re working on something, you’re sort of half in a trance and you’re doing it because it feels right to you or it seems to be logical. Although I do have a rule when I'm making a film, I always try to know what the overall theme is in one sentence. Like in 'The Godfather', the theme was succession. In 'Apocalypse Now', the theme was morality.

So if I know what the big picture is, when they ask me a lot of questions, well you know, a director just answers questions all day. Should she be in a dress or in slack? Should she have long hair or short hair? Should she drive a sports car or a sedan? And you just say off the top of your head, yeah long hair, dress, but when you don’t know how to answer it then I always say, well what’s the theme?

And then for example, the movie I made, 'The Conversation', they were asking me what kind of coat he should wear and I said well he’s really not a detective so it shouldn’t be like a Humphrey Bogart coat. And one of the coats they showed me was a raincoat and was transparent and I said well the theme of 'The Conversation' is privacy. So let me give them a transparent raincoat.

Sometimes if you don’t know the decision, if you ask yourself what the theme is, it will suggest what the decision should be. So there are lots of tricks that you can learn.

That’s—that’s super powerful! You know I—we—my favorite horror film of all time? Well gee, there’s a—you know, when you get to the subject of favorite films, there’s always people who come up with all my ten favorite films—that is so absurd! You could come up with a thousand favorite films because the cinema, which has only existed for 140 years, was blessed with the most wonderful masterpieces! Even in the ‘30s, when movies were silent, there were already 10, 20, 30 masterpieces!

So, uh, when you ask what is your favorite horror film? You could say 'Nosferatu' of Marnau, which is a silent film. It’s a silent version of a kind of Dracula story, that’s a great one! Or you could say 'Alien', that was unbelievably scary and horrible. Uh, what other—what they’re—there're probably four or five really—or you could talk of Japanese films, the film of Mizoguchi, 'Ugetsu', that’s really beautiful!

So cinema is so filled with a bounty that you can just enjoy for your whole lifetime seeing the great works that were made! And they tend to make you want to make one too because it seems like such a wonderful field—the cinema! It’s, it’s—it’s truly one of the—well all the arts are!

And I, I of course like to encourage young people, uh, to consider going in the arts because their parents aren’t—the parents are saying, oh become an accountant, or become a lawyer, or become a doctor. But partly it’s because their parents want them to be able to make a living! And the truth of the matter is the arts is a wonderful way to make a living!

Because what they call today intellectual property, which is when you make a book or you make a painting and stuff, that’s very valuable because it’s such a beautiful thing! Uh, so I think young people should consider being artists! It’s, it—you will love doing it! B, it will make you—you’ll be making other people happy and giving them something that will enrich their lives, and it’s—I think it’s one of the great professions to choose.

You know, more and more as we go into the future, there’s going to be less and less jobs; this is not necessarily bad, which means is that people are going to be able to do more what they love rather than the toil part of the, you know, the work that you hate! Machines and AI and other things are going to do that! And, and you say what about the money?

Eventually, you know, I—the—this is crazy, but just like today we all pay taxes; in the future the government—the state will give you—the will pay you the taxes because you are a citizen, and you’re entitled, uh, because more and more non-living—what Aristotle called non-living machines are going to be doing the work. The toil, I shouldn’t call it work; work is fun, right?

And one last—I mean we could talk for for hours! I know we’re already over time but maybe just a good capstone. You know, there’s a lot of young people watching, it is around graduation time. You know, what advice would you give to them? Or another way to think about it, if you were them today, uh, what yeah, what would you want to work on? What would you want to know?

Francis: Well I think this is going to—I know it’s a—it’s a tough time and people are scared about the future. I see the future, even the pandemic, as teaching us some good lessons that we should value as to what’s really important. If you ask people today what’s really important, uh, it’s that my family is okay, that the people I love are okay, that my friends are okay, that we’re, we’re, we’re—that’s less so, I’m gonna be a billionaire!

I have a new word, by the way, better than billionaire, I call it sufficientaire, having enough for what you need! You know, you don’t want to just pile up a lot of excess stuff. I can’t believe that the so-called one percent that they talk about, that have all those hundreds of billions of dollars, I can’t believe that they’re any happier than some really happy person! And we know, you know, thinking you’re gonna have money makes you happy. Anticipating having money makes you happy! Having it as a whole, those people are miserable!

You know, because all they’re doing is managing, worrying about losing it and stuff—that’s not happiness! That’s not even a smart thing to do! The smart thing to do is have a lot of friends, have a lot of capability, being able to do things, and—and having the freedom to be able to do it, having a great education!

You should be—I think that we should go to be educating ourselves, go to school or being involved in some school thing for entire lives! I do it! I'm—I’m 81 and learning is my greatest source of pleasure! I’m reading a book right now about fungi that I—I tell you, I always take good notes when I read because I may want to remember what I read. So many books, I don’t—you know, you forget what you learn!

So I take good notes! I can barely get through two paragraphs of this book, uh, without underlining it! So I’m underlining the whole book because every—when you talk about the subject of fungi, which of course is, uh, I think I forget what that—ism is called when you study that, it is so amazing that it’s so different than we think of how these networks work and how they think! And, uh, it is just utterly a joy to learn something!

Every time at night when I go to bed, I always read before I fall asleep! And I always learn so much! And that's my real pleasure of life is learning! And I would tell the young person you’re talking, never stop learning! Never stop studying! They’re always be learning more and more! Not because it’s useful, but because it’s pleasurable!

I love that! And, and as I consider myself a very lucky sufficientaire! So from one sufficientaire to another, thank you!

Francis: Wherever the sufficientaire collapse, which is, which is an honor to, because not everyone has sufficientaireness, definitely! But if more people were content to be sufficientaires instead of billionaires, then we could all be sufficientaires! And that’s the goal, right?

Right! And we wouldn’t lose—and we wouldn’t lose all the individuality! I mean there was still—you know, like I made a—I made a dumb remark at people—I actually didn’t make the remark, I was asked at a press conference if I agreed with something one of my colleagues said that Marvel Pictures were sort of, uh, not real cinema! And I said of course there’s cinema! There’s cinema that some of them are just made by wonderful, uh, talented people, ingenuity, video!

But the problem is, is what the goal? And, and, and in the economics that I read, there's the idea that if you make a lot of money doing things that are good for humanity, that’s just—that’s—it’s good! Like if you, if you did something that just gave people a lot of pleasure and everything, you’re entitled to be rewarded!

But to make money that doesn’t contribute anything is despicable! You know, I said that not about Marvel Pictures; I said it about just anyone who does anything that he just makes a lot of money that doesn’t do any good for anyone except him! I said that was despicable!

So the headline was Coppola thinks Marvel Pictures are despicable! Which I never said at all! And I don't think it’s true! But boy did I have a hassle with that one! So, because sometimes you know it’s the headlines that argue rather than what is said!

Uh, any rate, I—I still do believe that! I believe that, you know your work if it benefits you! If you gain some, some wealth from it or some privilege, uh, if you, you know, as I said my friend George Lucas, think of how many young people he made happy with the 'Star Wars' films! What he gave to them!

And I mean besides those people, usually when they get a lot of do re mi, like George, he’s giving it all away anyway for education and stuff! And, and, and as it should be! So yes, if we were all sufficientaires, there would be no poverty!

No, well that’s a powerful statement to end on. Well, thank you so much, Francis! I hope— I hope we can do this again! I'm pretty confident the entire community that’s watching would love this to continue for hours, but thank you so much!

Francis: It’s my pleasure and my honor, and you know I never spend any time with, with students! I consider myself a student, as you know, and I never—I never speak, spend time with them if I could hear them and stuff! I learned every bit as much from them as that they could possibly learn from me! And, and my respect to you—what you’ve invented, Sal, is really important and wonderful! Helps so many students get through stuff that they think they can’t understand, and you teach them that they can understand!

Well thank you, appreciate that so, so much! Maybe we’ll do some videos together in the near future!

Okay, ciao!

Well, thanks everyone for joining us! You can tell I went way over, uh, because frankly it was just a fascinating conversation! And I guess we don’t really have a hard stop! I hope, I hope Francis—uh, I didn’t keep him from something else! But um, as you can tell, Francis is the type of person that you wish you could, you know, have multiple evenings chatting about pretty much any topic!

But hopefully you enjoyed that! Uh, is today is Friday already? Uh, so, and I'm actually going to be on a staycation next week! Uh, you know, people said where are you going on your vacation? I'm like Mountain View, which is where I live! Um, uh, but so we won’t be having the live stream next week, but, uh, the week after we’ll be back!

So thanks everyone for joining and see you then!