The Burbank Public Library presents The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story, with a conversation between the author and editor of the recently-released book, on Wednesday, December 6, at the Buena Vista branch of the library.
“They say you only live once. But most of us don’t live even once. Francis Ford Coppola has lived over and over again,” Wasson writes in the very first chapter of the biography.
“Coppola initiated a colossal, lifelong project of experimental self-creation few filmmakers can afford – emotionally, financially – and none but he has undertaken,” Wasson also says. “Through the artistic and social ingenuity of his company Zoetrope – in Greek, ‘life revolution’ – his living, dying, living production company and onetime studio, he has marshaled the stubbornly earthbound resources of filmmaking, business, technology, and the nature world to stage – and that’s what his Zoetrope laboratory is, a stage – literal worlds analogous to those of whatever characters he’s creating.”
Wasson was allowed complete access to Coppola’s archives and conducted hundreds of interviews with the famous filmmaker and many of those close to him.
“As Sam Wasson’s editor for three amazing books about the film industry, I’m delighted to be able to have a free ranging conversation with him and Burbank Library patrons about his newest book, which I think makes the powerful case that Francis Ford Coppola is one of the quintessential American dreamers,” commented Noah Eaker, Vice President and Executive Editor at HarperCollins Publishers.
“Sam Wasson’s wonderful book on Francis Ford Coppola is a not just a story about one man and his dreams about the nature and purpose of filmmaking, and it is not just an exploration of how Coppola thought the process of filmmaking might be organized in such a way as to foster the creative artist and develop talent,” commented Burbank Librarian Hubert Kozak.
“It is a parable about the perennial tension between art and business that has been there from the beginning of the industry, about the triumphs and price to be paid by the dreamer, and about those who, undefeated, have kept alive a vision of the promise and power of cinematic art,” he added. “This very moving book is for everyone who is serious about the art of film.”
Wasson is the author of several books, including Fifth Avenue, Five A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern American Woman, along with The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Days of Hollywood, A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards, Paul on Mazursky, Fosse, Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art and Hollywood: The Oral History.
For more information and to reserve seating for the event which begins at 7:00 p.m., visit the Burbank Public Library’s webpage.
The Buena Vista branch of the Burbank Public Library is located at 300 N. Buena Vista Street in Burbank. Plenty of free parking is available on site.
