Live Cinema and Its Techniques - Softcover

Francis Ford Coppola, the Academy Award–winning director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, is creating a four-part "live cinema" movie based on his own family’s multigenerational history. He lives in San Francisco.

In this surprising new book—part memoir, part diary, part guide—Francis Ford Coppola reenergizes himself and the reader with his search for a new way of storytelling. Live Cinema and Its Techniques blends elements of Coppola’s autobiography, his encyclopedic knowledge of film and television, and his creative process toward a new language of cinema. — William Friedkin

This is a gold mine of a book, intensely personal, and a rocket ride to the potential future of cinema/theater/television.  It is simultaneously an intimate confessional and a magic key to the storehouse of Coppola’s hard-won sixty years of wisdom about writing, directing, actors, rehearsals, and groundbreaking technique, and his visionary hopes for the cinematic language. — Walter Murch

Invoking intimate details of his childhood, some that he’s never shared before, Coppola conjures up the magic world of television in the 1950s.  Readers interested in the new technology will find this an eminently user-friendly book, but it is also peppered with brilliant personal observations about the most basic principles and techniques of filmmaking that will also fascinate readers who have no interest in making live cinema but simply loved The Godfather. — Wendy Doniger, author of The Ring of Truth, and Other Myths of Sex and Jewelry

Coppola’s natural abilities as a storyteller, regardless of the medium, are evident here. Sections dealing with his relationship to the prehistory of live cinema are as personally revealing as they are fascinating. . . . This consummate filmmaker’s enthusiasm for cinema is infectious. — Publishers Weekly

A curious and exhilarating account of a master in his field wrestling with a new way to convey his vision. The book begins with an exploration into the history of television in its infancy, when nearly every program was brought to audiences live, and it is peppered throughout with personal asides about how this technique has dogged his entire career. . . . As in his films, Coppola knows how to tell a compelling story. Live cinema, in its new incarnation, and everyone it attracts, will benefit from his insights. — Michael Ruzicka (Booklist)