Francis Ford Coppola
An American by birth and Italian at heart, Francis Ford Coppola now has his sights set on Latin America and is learning Spanish. This cinematic giant, best known for directing “The Godfather” trilogy and “Apocalypse Now,” will find that the language comes in handy now that he has a production firm in Argentina and hotels in Guatemala and Belize and is preparing to start shooting “Tetro,” a film about an Argentine family in which Spaniards Javier Bardem and Maribel Verdú have starring roles.
Q. Do you read in Spanish?
A. That’s my hope, but at the moment I’m learning. I strongly support the idea of the United States being part of an American entity larger than one single country.
Q. And in terms of literature?
A. The most exciting literature of the past eight decades has come out of Latin America. My hope is that (people) in the U.S. realize how wonderful American culture is as a whole and feel comfortable with bilingualism.
Q. Who is your favorite author?
A. (Jorge Luis) Borges, (Julio) Cortázar and Mario Vargas Llosa. But the Latin American literary tradition is vast and precedes all of them.
Q. Have you considered bringing any of their books to the big screen?
A.I would say that Borges was the inspiration for my last film, “Youth Without Youth,” a story by (Romanian author) Mircea Eliade but with a lot of Borgesian overtones.
Q. Why Argentina?
A. “Tetro” is a very personal story centered around an artistic and eccentric Argentine family of Italian origin. A story and a country with people that reminded me of the most bohemian type of romanticism.
