Even a Hollywood dynasty gets tired of rewatching their iconic films.
“The Last Showgirl” director Gia Coppola, whose grandfather is iconic auteur Francis Ford Coppola, said during Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s “Dinner’s On Me” podcast that she had to eventually watch “The Godfather” with one of her pals since no one in her family was willing to revisit it with her.
Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022, spurred two sequels, concluding with 1990’s “The Godfather: Part III.” Yet it took Gia Coppola a few decades to even get to see the first feature.
“I haven’t seen ‘Godfather’ until much later in my life because there was like a lot of pressure and intimidation,” Gia Coppola said, “but also all my family had sort of been a part of it and seen it, so no one really wanted to re watch that with me. It wasn’t until like my mid-late 20s when I saw it. A friend like sat me down and was like, ‘I’m going to watch this with you.’”
And despite her delay in viewing the film, Gia Coppola can’t help but admire it.
“I mean, it’s amazing,” Gia Coppola said of “The Godfather,” adding, “I hear so much about his process of it, like those stories I’ve heard over and over and over again. But to just see [it]… I mean, it’s an epic. It feels like a novel, all the nuances. I like when things have this sort of undercurrent of America and our hunger for that American dream and what that means.”
Gia Coppola also pointed to how Francis Ford Coppola’s filmmaking style and financing has impacted her own indie career. Francis Ford Coppola recently self-funded his latest epic, “Megalopolis,” which led to Gia Coppola to realize that she did not have to partake in the “waiting game” of Hollywood studio financing to make “The Last Showgirl.”
“I just wanted to make something,” Gia Coppola said. “I didn’t want to deal with the waiting game and ‘Oh, you can’t have this because you need that,’ and the algorithm of what gets seen or who brings value and bullshit. So why not just go and make a movie like how [John] Cassavetes used to? My grandpa [Francis Ford Coppola] always says, ‘Use the weapons at hand,’ and I’m so grateful that I have such a creative family that we could all come together and and make something.”
Gia Coppola previously told IndieWire that her debut feature “Palo Alto” further bonded her with her filmmaking family, which includes aunt Sofia Coppola, cousin and “Megalopolis” and “The Last Showgirl”-distributor Utopia founder Robert Schwartzman, and cousin Jason Schwartzman, who has a cameo in “The Last Showgirl.”
“After I made ‘Palo Alto,’ my grandma [late Eleanor Coppola], her movie was just coming out, and we were sharing this experience at the same time. We were both first-time filmmakers but from very different generations, but feeling a very similar emotion,” Gia Coppola said. “To get to share this with my grandfather, who obviously is a pro at this, just to get to spend time with him is awesome.”
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