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Francis Ford Coppola (; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He was part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. After directing ''The Rain People'' in 1969, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as co-writer, with Edmund H. North, of ''Patton'' in 1970. His directorial prominence was cemented with the release in 1972 of ''The Godfather'', a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, earning praise from both critics and the public before winning three Academy Awards—including his second Oscar (Best Adapted Screenplay, with Mario Puzo), Best Picture, and his first nomination for Best Director. He followed with ''The Godfather Part II'' in 1974, which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Highly regarded by critics, it brought him three more Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture, and made him the second director, after Billy Wilder, to be honored three times for the same film. ''The Conversation'', which he directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. He next directed 1979's ''Apocalypse Now''. Notorious for its over-long and strenuous production, the film was nonetheless critically acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. In 1990, he directed the second ''Godfather'' sequel, ''The Godfather Part III'', which he considers to be the series' epilogue. Coppola is one of only eight filmmakers to win two Palme d'Or awards. While a number of Coppola's ventures in the 1980s and 1990s were critically lauded, he has never quite achieved the same commercial success with films as in the 1970s.〔(Featured Filmmaker: Francis Ford Coppola – IGN ). Retrieved October 18, 2010.〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Francis Ford Coppola )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Directors Hall of Fame, Class of 2010 )〕 His most well-known films released since the 1980s are the dramas ''The Outsiders'' and ''Rumble Fish'' (both 1983), the crime-drama ''The Cotton Club'' (1984), and the horror film ''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' (1992). ==Early life== Coppola was born in Detroit, Michigan, to father Carmine Coppola, a flautist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and mother Italia (née Pennino). Coppola is the second of three children: his older brother was August Coppola, his younger sister is actress Talia Shire. Born into a family of Italian immigrant ancestry, his paternal grandparents came to the United States from Bernalda, Basilicata. His maternal grandfather, popular Italian composer Francesco Pennino, immigrated from Naples, Italy. Coppola received his middle name in honor of Henry Ford, not only because he was born in the Henry Ford Hospital but also because of his musician-father's association with the automobile manufacturer. At the time of Coppola's birth, his father was a flautist as well as arranger and assistant orchestra director for ''The Ford Sunday Evening Hour'', an hour-long concert music radio series sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. Two years after Coppola's birth, his father was named principal flautist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the family moved to New York, settling in Woodside, Queens, where Coppola spent the remainder of his childhood. Contracting polio as a boy, Coppola was bedridden for large periods of his childhood, allowing him to indulge his imagination with homemade puppet theater productions. Reading ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' at age 15 was instrumental in developing his interest in theater.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=An Interview with Francis Ford Coppola )〕 Eager to be involved in film-craft, he created 8mm features edited from home movies with such titles as ''The Rich Millionaire'' and ''The Lost Wallet.''〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Francis Ford Coppola )〕 As a child, Coppola was a mediocre student, but he was so interested in technology and engineering that his friends nicknamed him "Science".〔 Trained initially for a career in music, he became proficient on the tuba and won a music scholarship to the New York Military Academy.〔 Overall, Coppola attended 23 other schools before he eventually graduated from the Great Neck North High School. He entered Hofstra College in 1955 with a major in theater arts. There he was awarded a scholarship in playwriting. This furthered his interest in directing theater despite the disapproval of his father, who wanted him to study engineering.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=An Interview with Francis Ford Coppola )〕 Coppola was profoundly impressed after seeing Sergei Eisenstein's ''October: Ten Days That Shook the World'', especially with the movie's quality of editing. It was at this time Coppola decided he would go into cinema rather than theater.〔 Coppola says he was tremendously influenced to become a writer early on by his brother, August,〔 in whose footsteps he would also follow by attending both of his brother's alma maters: Hofstra and UCLA. Coppola also gives credit to the work of Elia Kazan and for its influence on him as a director.〔 Amongst Coppola's classmates at Hofstra were James Caan, Lainie Kazan and radio artist Joe Frank.〔 He later cast Lainie Kazan in ''One from the Heart'' and Caan in ''The Rain People'' and ''The Godfather''. While pursuing his bachelor's degree, Coppola was elected president of The Green Wig (the university's drama group) and the Kaleidoscopians (its musical comedy club). He then merged the two into The Spectrum Players and under his leadership, they staged a new production each week. Coppola also founded the cinema workshop at Hofstra and contributed prolifically to the campus literary magazine.〔 He won three D. H. Lawrence Awards for theatrical production and direction and received a Beckerman Award for his outstanding contributions to the school's theater arts division.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Francis Ford Coppola Biography )〕 While a graduate student, one of his teachers was Dorothy Arzner, whose encouragement Coppola later acknowledged as pivotal to his film career.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Francis Ford Coppola」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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