Francis Ford Coppola has always viewed his films as living pieces of art, and continues to tinker with many of his masterpieces decades after their theatrical bows. He famously altered “Apocalypse Now” twice, revising the original theatrical cut with 2001’s “Apocalypse Now Redux” and 2019’s “Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut.” He also reworked his polarizing “The Godfather Part III” to reframe it as an epilogue (“Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone”). And he spent $500,000 to re-cut “The Cotton Club” for a restoration that premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2017.
Sofia Coppola followed in her father’s footsteps as a celebrated auteur, but don’t expect “Lost in Translation Redux” any time soon.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Sofia Coppola was asked about her father’s passion for continuously revising his work. She revealed that he has encouraged her to feel empowered to do the same with her own films, but she isn’t interested in changing them.
“My dad loves to recut his movies, and he’s always saying, ‘You can do that!’” Coppola said. “I don’t have any desire to. I feel like they are what they are, even with their baby fat and awkwardness, that’s what I was thinking about at that time.”
While Coppola says she is hesitant to change her films after the fact, she has spoken about the way her work can be publicly reappraised over time. She recently reflected on the initial box-office failure of “Marie Antoinette” and expressed gratitude for the passionate fanbase that the 2006 film eventually found.
“I’m always happy that I get to make what I want to make. I was happy we got to make that movie, but nobody saw it,” she said. “It was a flop. So the fact that it’s lived on and people talk about it has been really satisfying because so much work went into it. It makes me happy that now it’s kind of found its way and people enjoy it.”
