Francis Ford Coppola on the Amateur

in the documentary Hearts of Darkness, A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse Francis Ford Coppola’s wife, Eleanor, chronicled the filming and production of her husband’s masterpiece Apocalypse Now. It’s an fascinating film, a meta-commentary of the American entertainment industry as a metaphor for American imperialism and the war in Vietnam. I highly recommend it.

The clip above comes right before the credits start rolling. A weary Francis looks forward to the return of the amateur who practices film making purely for the art. It’s a prescient glimpse to the world of YouTube and Snapchat artists where we find ourselves today, a refreshing support of new art forms from a lion of the old.

To me, the great hope is that now these little 8mm video recorders and stuff have come out, and some… just people who normally wouldn’t make movies are going to be making them. And you know, suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart, you know, and make a beautiful film with her little father’s camera recorder. And for once, the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed, forever. And it will really become an art form. That’s my opinion.