Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545125
46 C I N E M O N T A G E B O O K R E V I E W give you something to do. Come up with one good idea every day." Not even the presence of Coppola and Lucas on the same set could add much verve to "Finian's Rainbow," but a consequential relationship had been formed. Coppola prevailed upon Lucas to tag along as the for- mer made a far more independent-spirited feature for Warner Bros., "The Rain People" (1969), a drama starring Shirley Knight as a housewife who adopts the ethos of "On the Road." "We borrowed everything," said production associate Mona Skager. "Cars, everything. We had nothing. It was made on a shoestring. We didn't know where we were going. We would follow disasters, like a train wreck — we would go, and then Francis would rewrite the scene to the train wreck. And then we'd shoot the train wreck." Lucas was on hand to document all the cinematic commotion, but he was also writing what would become his first film, the sci-fi mood piece "THX 1138." "Francis would give him pep talks about the power of authorship," Fischer writes. Even more improbably, Coppola cajoled Warner Bros. into subsidizing a shelfful o f m o v i e s b y ro g u e f i g u re s i n c l u d i n g Lucas, John Milius, Carroll Ballard, John Korty, and, of course, himself. "For a small price — and entrusting Francis to oversee the projects as a producer, through a new company he called American Zoetrope — Warner Bros. could tie down a whole slate of projects from the finest film school graduates in America," Fischer writes. Jack Warner might not have gone for it, but stu- dio executive John Calley said yes. "Francis always lived on the edge," said Bart Patton. "He'd mortgage his grandmother if it could get him some extra money." This hectic early history of American Zoetrope is lively and well told. Th e p ro b l e m wa s t h a t " T H X 1 1 3 8," though beautifully visualized and boldly opaque, was about as companionable as its director. "We didn't have a lot of takes," said Maggie McOmie, who co-starred with Rob- ert Duvall. "Two, three. I just did what they told me to do." No matter how many takes were done, the resulting film was very far from a hit, but Coppola had bigger prob- lems. As Fischer tells it, debt collectors were in hot pursuit of American Zoetrope when Coppola consented to direct "The Godfather" at Paramount, primarily for its promise of a payday: $75,000 upfront and 6% of the net profit. Herein lies an irony: "The Godfather" was ostensibly made to provide life sup- port for American Zoetrope. "Everybody who knew Francis felt he was selling out," commented cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. Yet it turned out to be a mas- terpiece. So did the far more accessible and appealing film Lucas made in the wake of "THX 1138," 1973's "American Graffiti." "You gotta make a movie that's about people," Coppola advised Lucas. "Real people." So much for high art. Yes, both "The Godfather" and "American Graffiti" faced attempted and actualized studio intervention, as Fischer makes clear in his grippingly told mini-histories of their makings. Still, both were also firmly within P H OT O : P H OT O F E S T MONKEY AROUND: Spielberg directs Karen Allen in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."