The Path to Paradise

A Francis Ford Coppola Story

Sam Wasson

$70.95

Hardback

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English

Harper
28 November 2023

The Arts: General & Reference; Film, TV & Radio; Biography: arts & entertainment

"""Sam Wasson's supremely entertaining book tracks the ups and downs, ins and outs, of a remarkable career. . . . A marvel of unshowy reportage.""--New York Times

The New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. and The Big Goodbye returns with the definitive account of Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola's decades-long dream to reinvent American filmmaking, if not the entire world, through his production company, American Zoetrope.

Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only thirty. Through Zoetrope's experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than fifty years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker's dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis.

As Wasson makes clear, the story of Zoetrope is also the story of Coppola's wife, Eleanor Coppola, and their children, and of personal lives inseparable from artistic passion. It is a story that charts the divergent paths of Coppola and his cofounder and onetime apprentice, George Lucas, and of their very different visions of art and commerce. And it is a story inextricably bound up in the making of one of the greatest quixotic masterpieces ever attempted, Apocalypse Now, and in what Coppola found in the jungles of the Philippines when he walked the razor's edge. That story, already the stuff of legend, has never fully been told, until this extraordinary book."

By: Sam Wasson
Imprint: Harper
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 26mm
Weight: 508g
ISBN: 9780063037847
ISBN 10: 006303784X
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 28 November 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

"Sam Wasson is the author of six previous books on Hollywood including the New York Times bestsellers Fifth Avenue, Five A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern American Woman and The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Days of Hollywood, and Fosse, the basis for the limited series ""Fosse/Verdon."" With Jeanine Basinger, he is co-author of Hollywood: The Oral History. He lives in Los Angeles."

Reviews for The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story

"""Mouthwatering . . . . A sizzlingly vivid and -compulsive new book . . . . Wasson has a great journalist's eye for telling details and a great stylist's ear, washing the reader along on a torrent of prose that mirrors Coppola's own unfailing energy. Gorgeous turns of phrase abound."" -- The Daily Telegraph ""Enthralling . . . . A complex portrait of an artist whose unwillingness to compromise cost him dearly. Movie buffs won't want to miss this."" -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) ""A vivid biography of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and his production company, American Zoetrope . . . . A memorable portrait of an artist who has changed the cinematic landscape and whose work will endure."" -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ""Of all that has been written about Francis Ford Coppola, this book most accurately captures the film director's chaotic life . . . . Wasson has written a string of successful books about the entertainment business [...] but this one might be his best so far. Rich in detail, it's full of surprises and revelations, and impeccably researched and documented. For fans of books about moviemaking in general, and Francis Ford Coppola in particular, this is required reading."" -- Booklist (starred review) ""This new book by Sam Wasson (who already proved himself one of the great modern chroniclers of the New Hollywood era with the Chinatown making-of story The Big Goodbye) chronicles the road to heaven Coppola trod after descending to Hell with Apocalypse Now. The Vietnam War epic is already the subject of much reporting, but Wasson boasts unprecedented access to Coppola's personal archive--as well as a first-hand look at the making of a movie we can't wait to see."" -- Entertainment Weekly ""A gripping new book . . . vividly chronicling how the director leveraged his two great movies into an assembly line of cinema."" -- Deadline"