All the women at his American Zoetrope studio, he suggests, could be outfitted in uniforms. "Jackets, and maybe those kind of flowing, 1930s pants," Coppola says, his enthusiasm growing along with the design's intricacy. Whether it's a sensible idea (a woman executive in the room looks doubtful), this seems to be a truly Coppola moment, marked by enthusiasm that spills over from his best-known realm, film, into any other that strikes his fancy. That spirit has turned him from a filmmaker into the head of an small empire, which includes the San Francisco-based American Zoetrope with its film and TV productions, the nearby Niebaum-Coppola winery and the New York-based Zoetrope: All Story literary journal.

Coppola's level of participation depends on the specific venture. In the case of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," for instance, he's listed as executive producer -- which, he acknowledges, can mean a limited presence. "When you're an executive producer, you try to be helpful, try to make sure the creators have what they need. You really give it over to the creative people," Coppola said on a visit to Zoetrope's Los Angeles office.

As for his name being attached prominently to such projects, Coppola explains: "I feel like it's a little bit exploitative to make it sound as though someone did something they didn't," he said. But in the entertainment business, "it means a lot to help people get going. So in that sense you're becoming a patron, hopefully, to creative people."

That's patron, as opposed to boss. Coppola is openly disdainful of mainstream Hollywood and a system he says gives unqualified executives power over artists. "The film power structure is absolutely idiotic. Of all the people who are studio heads, I would say only Harvey Weinstein (of Miramax) has half a right to be a studio head. He's a show-business person who picks a picture with his own opinion. Everybody else -- you just know that they're paid way beyond what they're worth because they're so terrified in their choices. So that cuts out the hope to do things in feature films that might push boundaries, although we keep trying," Coppola said.

His ire over studio practices have landed him in the courtroom. He sued Warner Bros., claiming it thwarted his chances to make a film based on the Pinocchio fairy tale, and won a multimillion-dollar jury verdict last year. (An appeal is pending.)

Television, he said, promises new frontiers. "It's an industry in tremendous flux and expansion. Here's something like DirecTV that didn't exist seven years ago, and suddenly it has 7 million subscribers," Coppola said. "I'm always astonished at how people, the real so-called smart people, are handicapping these innovations."

People in "the power structure never see an innovation as having any potential. When it does, they scramble all their resources to try to control it," he continued. Control is part of the reason he branched out from moviemaking into winemaking: "I'm a believer in being involved in competing things, so you're not just looking at the same six people who can determine your fate." He expresses admiration for longtime friend George Lucas, who flew solo on production of his new "Star Wars" film and, by managing without studios, "demonstrated he could take the whole thing away from them." But when Coppola rhapsodizes about the joys of developing a palate for wine, it's clear more than business is at stake. "Once you make a friend with wine, like music, it can go as far as you want."

Coppola, who has gone from box office triumph to the brink of bankruptcy more than once, contends that what's missing for many Americans is fulfillment.

"I know people who are so rich and so successful and so miserable. You think this person has everything you could ever dream of, fame and fortune and talent and artistry and all that," he said. "That's the key word for me these days. What really is fulfillment, what do you really need? I bought a jet recently. I'm in L.A. I have this beautiful jet. I ask my son, 'You want to go with me, go fishing in Costa Rica?' He tells me, 'I can't, dad.'"

"So then what is fulfillment? It had nothing to do with the jet."
salon.com | June 9, 1999

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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