Godfather Story Was Always a Metaphor for America, Says Francis Coppola: Highlights

New Delhi: Filmmaker Francis Coppola is speaking at Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi.

Here are the highlights: 

• To make a good war film, it has violence in it - very difficult to make it anti-war
• My idea always was that the Godfather story was a metaphor for America
• Wine is like music. The more you learn about it, the more you enjoy it (on owning a winery)
• Wine as we know it is basically a bottle of fermented grape-juice with a label on that - but it is much more than that... it is a story.
• All businesses I've been involved in are about story-telling
• On making Godfather Trilogy: I wanted to call the third movie 'The Death of Michael Corleone'
  
• People went to see the third movie wanting another installment for the first two but got something different
  
• There are now people who think that Godfather Part III is interesting compared to the other two
  
• Movies change over time because people watching them change in TV and cinema
• Godfather III made under terrible financial distress. Didn't want to call it Godfather III
  
• The audience will get anything it wants. Avoid films that are unduly violent, the responsibility lies with you
• Audiences can tell when it is fake but let's face it - cinema is a marriage of writing and acting. Ultimately it is in the choice of the story and how that reaches people
• On Apocalypse Now - It was the most daunting venture I went on. Absolutely no one wanted to be in my shoes, and I ended up owning it