Roman François Coppola (born April 22, 1965) is an American filmmaker and music video director. He is the son of Francis Ford and Eleanor Coppola, and is known for his film collaborations with Wes Anderson.
Roman Coppola | |
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 Coppola in 2018 | |
| Born | Roman François Coppola April 22, 1965 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1983–present |
| Parents |
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| Relatives |
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| Family | Coppola |
Coppola serves as president of film company American Zoetrope. He is also the founder and owner of The Directors Bureau, a commercial and music video production company.[1]
Early life
editRoman Coppola is the son of documentary filmmaker, artist, and writer Eleanor Coppola (née Neil) and director Francis Ford Coppola.[2]
Career
editCoppola began his directing career by overseeing in-camera visual effects and second unit direction for Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which garnered a BAFTA Award nomination for Visual Effects. He has continued to do second unit direction throughout his career, including his father's Jack, The Rainmaker, Youth Without Youth, Tetro, and Megalopolis; collaborator Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited; and his sister Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette.
In the 1990s, Coppola established himself as an influential music video and commercial director. Through his production company, The Directors Bureau, he directed all four music videos for The Strokes' 2001 debut album, Is This It, as well as "12:51" for Room on Fire. His other music videos include clips for Daft Punk, Lilys, Moby, The Presidents of the United States of America, Ween, Green Day, and Fatboy Slim. His music video for Phoenix's "Funky Squaredance" was invited into the permanent collection at the New York Museum of Modern Art. He has also been a supporter of cousin Jason Schwartzman's musical side project, Coconut Records.
He also directed a commercial for Levi's White Tab in 1997.[3]
His first feature film, CQ, premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival[4] and was well-received critically. Set in Paris in 1969, CQ centers on a young film editor trying to juggle his personal and professional life while simultaneously juggling a science fiction adventure and his own personal art film. The film holds a 66% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 76 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "CQ is a stylish and fun homage to campy 1960s flicks".[5] Metacritic gave the film a 56/100 "mixed or average" approval rating based on 26 reviews.[6]
Coppola's second feature, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, debuted in 2012 at the Rome Film Festival. Charlie Sheen starred as the title character, a graphic designer dealing with a break-up. The cast also included Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman.[7] Reviews for the film tended toward the negative. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club gave the movie an F, saying that "it isn't a movie so much as a feature-length perfume commercial for a Charlie Sheen signature cologne with gorgeous packaging and absolutely nothing inside."[8] The Dallas Observer said that the film "might generously be described as cut-and-paste – or more accurately as 'throw stuff to the wall and see what sticks'" and it was "a clunker".[9] The New York Daily News gave Charles Swan III one star out of five, saying that "you want to swat it away" and that "maybe with this out of his [Coppola's] system, he'll think up something better."[10] Time said that the film "does not lead to a deeper understanding of Charlie Sheen. It does, however, demonstrate his compulsion for poor judgment and bad choices. But weren't we already convinced of that?"[11] Lisa Schwarzbaum, reviewer for Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a C and a milder response, writing, "The idea of this home-movie-with-higher-production-values directed by Roman Coppola is no less sweet for being unoriginal ... The execution, on the other hand, is perilously self-absorbed, a private party involving friends, family, too many fantasy sequences, and an abundance of costume and set design to create a notion of a stylized L.A. spritzed with eau de Playboy."[12]
In 2009, he directed series of commercials for the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G mobile phone line.[13]
In 2015, he directed a State Farm commercial.[14]
In 2018, he co-wrote the story for Wes Anderson's adult stop-motion animated science-fiction drama film Isle of Dogs, which was released to critical acclaim for its animation, story, musical score, and deadpan humor. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, praising it for taking risks, and saying: "It's smart and different and sometimes deliberately odd and really funny—rarely in a laugh-out-loud way, more in a smile-and-nod-I-get-the-joke kind of way."[15]
In 2021, he again collaborated with Wes Anderson for the film The French Dispatch, he co-wrote the story and served as an executive producer. It received generally positive reviews. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter praised the "hand-crafted visual delights and eccentric performances" and wrote: "While The French Dispatch might seem like an anthology of vignettes without a strong overarching theme, every moment is graced by Anderson's love for the written word and the oddball characters who dedicate their professional lives to it".[16] Writing for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw said: "It might not be at the very zenith of what he can achieve but for sheer moment-by-moment pleasure, and for laughs, this is a treat".[17] It was mentioned in lists of the best films of the year by The New Yorker (#1),[18] The Forward (the best movie),[19] IndieWire (#6),[20] Esquire (#38),[21] New Musical Express (#11),[22] British Film Institute (#23)[23] and Vogue (unlisted).[24]
Directors Bureau special projects
editCoppola is also an inventor and entrepreneur, responsible for the Photobubble Company, Pacific Tote Company, and a number of projects through the "Special Projects" arm of his production company, Directors Bureau.[25][26]
His company, Pacific Tote Company, produces a line of beach bags which are handmade in California and known for their signature multicolor designs.[27]
Filmography
editFeature films
edit| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Rumble Fish | No | No | Associate | |
| 1989 | Clownhouse | No | No | Executive | |
| 1990 | The Spirit of '76 | No | Story | Executive | |
| 2001 | CQ | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2007 | The Darjeeling Limited | No | Yes | Yes | Co-writer with Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman |
| 2010 | Somewhere | No | No | Yes | |
| 2012 | Moonrise Kingdom | No | Yes | No | Co-writer with Wes Anderson |
| On the Road | No | No | Yes | ||
| A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| 2013 | The Bling Ring | No | No | Yes | |
| 2017 | The Beguiled | No | No | Yes | |
| 2018 | Isle of Dogs | No | Story | No | Story with Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman and Kunichi Nomura |
| 2020 | On the Rocks | No | No | Executive | |
| 2021 | The French Dispatch | No | Story | Executive | Story with Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness and Jason Schwartzman |
| 2022 | The Seven Faces of Jane | No | No | Yes | |
| 2023 | Fairyland | No | No | Executive | |
| Asteroid City | No | Story | Executive | Story with Wes Anderson | |
| TBA | The Phoenician Scheme | No | Yes | No | Co-writer with Wes Anderson[28] |
Additional directing credits
edit| Year | Title | Second Unit | Other | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Bram Stoker's Dracula | Yes | Visual effects director | Francis Ford Coppola |
| 1996 | Jack | Yes | No | |
| 1997 | The Rainmaker | Yes | No | |
| 1999 | The Virgin Suicides | Yes | No | Sofia Coppola |
| 2003 | Lost in Translation | No | Additional director | |
| 2004 | The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou | Yes | No | Wes Anderson |
| 2006 | Marie Antoinette | Yes | No | Sofia Coppola |
| 2007 | The Darjeeling Limited | Yes | No | Wes Anderson |
| Youth Without Youth | Yes | No | Francis Ford Coppola | |
| 2009 | Tetro | Yes | No | |
| 2014 | The Grand Budapest Hotel | No | Special photography unit | Wes Anderson |
| 2023 | Priscilla | Yes | No | Sofia Coppola |
| 2024 | Megalopolis | Yes | No | Francis Ford Coppola |
Acting credits
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | You're a Big Boy Now | Baby boy in carriage | Uncredited |
| 1972 | The Godfather | Boy on street who attended funeral | |
| 1974 | The Godfather Part II | Sonny Corleone as a boy | |
| 1979 | Apocalypse Now | Francis de Marais | Redux version only |
| 1999 | Gunfighter | Bandido | |
| Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace | Senate Guard | Uncredited | |
| 2009 | Fantastic Mr. Fox | Squirrel Contractor | Voice |
| 2018 | Isle of Dogs | Igor |
Television
edit| Year | Title | Director | Executive producer | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | $2 Bill | Yes | No | No | Episode: "The Strokes" |
| 2013 | Arcade Fire in Here Comes the Night Time | Yes | No | No | Television special |
| 2014–2018 | Mozart in the Jungle | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2015 | A Very Murray Christmas | Associate | Yes | No | Television special |
| 2020 | Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special | Yes | Yes | No | Co-directed with Hamish Hamilton; Television special |
Short films
edit| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Other credit(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Bed, Bath and Beyond | No | No | No | Actor, cinematographer | |
| 1999 | Torrance Rises | No | No | No | Cinematographer | |
| 2011 | Fight for Your Right Revisited | No | No | No | Actor | Role: Café Patron |
| 2012 | ¡El Tonto | No | No | Yes | ||
| Modern/Love | No | No | Yes | |||
| The Mirror Between Us | No | No | Yes | |||
| Eugene | No | No | Executive | |||
| Die Again, Undead One | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| 2013 | Castello Cavalcanti | No | No | Yes | ||
| 2016 | Mommeostasis | Yes | No | No | ||
| 2023 | The Swan | No | No | No | Cinematographer |
Music videos
editCommercials and promotional videos
edit| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Levi's White Tab: Daytrippers | Yes | No | |
| 2004 | Burger King: Ugoff | Yes | No | |
| 2009 | T-Mobile: Icons, Comedians, Musicians | Yes | No | Series of commercials for the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G mobile phone line |
| 2010 | Stella Artois: Apartomatic | Yes | No | Co-directed with Wes Anderson |
| 2012 | Cousin Ben Troop Screening with Jason Schwartzman |
No | Yes | Promotional short for Moonrise Kingdom; co-written with Wes Anderson |
| 2013 | Prada: Candy | Yes | No | Co-directed with Wes Anderson |
| 2015 | Magic Jingle Elvis | Yes | No | State Farm commercial |
| 2017 | L'Oréal Paris | Yes | No | L'Oréal Paris commercial for new Elvive haircare line |
Awards and honors
editIn 2019, Coppola was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[29]
| Association | Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | 2013 | Best Original Screenplay (Shared with Wes Anderson) | Moonrise Kingdom | Nominated | [30] |
| BAFTA Awards | 1994 | Best Special Effects (Shared with Gary Gutierrez, Michael Lantieri, and Gene Warren Jr.) | Bram Stoker's Dracula | Nominated | [31] |
| Grammy Awards | 1997 | Best Music Video, Short Form | "Walking Contradiction" | Nominated | [32] |
| NYFCO Award | 2007 | Best Screenplay (Shared with Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman) | The Darjeeling Limited | Won | [33] |
| Rome Film Festival | 2012 | Golden Marc'Aurelio Award | A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III | Nominated | [34] |
References
edit- ^ "The Directors Bureau, New York and L.A. - Founded: 1996". Retrieved October 6, 2016.
- ^ "Les Gens du Cinema". Retrieved June 29, 2016.
- ^ Clark, Mairi (November 14, 1997). "BBH takes 60s theme for Levi's White Tab ad". Campaign Live. Retrieved September 25, 2022.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: CQ". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved October 24, 2009.
- ^ "CQ (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 11, 2013.
- ^ "CQ". Metacritic. Retrieved July 11, 2013.
- ^ E! Online, Charlie Sheen Heading Back to the Big Screen!
- ^ Rabin, Nathan. "A Glimpse Inside The Mind of Charles Swan III". The A.V. Club (Print). p. 20.
- ^ Pinkerton, Nick (February 14, 2013). "Charles Swan III: Not Even a Coppola Can Make a Charlie Sheen Vehicle Watchable". Dallas Observer. Archived from the original on May 23, 2013. Retrieved February 12, 2013.
- ^ Neumaier, Joe (February 7, 2013). "Movie review: 'A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III'". The New York Daily News. Retrieved February 12, 2013.
- ^ Pols, Mary (February 7, 2013). "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III: Boys Behaving Badly". Time. Retrieved February 12, 2013.
- ^ Schwarzbaum, Lisa (February 22, 2013). "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III". Entertainment Weekly. New York City: Meredith Corporation. p. 59.
- ^ "SplendAd - T-Mobile - myTouch - Comics - SNL".
- ^ "State Farm: Magic Jingle Elvis". The Mill. Archived from the original on December 27, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2017.
- ^ Roeper, Richard (March 27, 2018). "'Isle of Dogs': Wes Anderson finds beauty in exiled pups, sick but soulful". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
- ^ Rooney, David (July 12, 2021). "Wes Anderson's 'The French Dispatch': Film Review | Cannes 2021". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on July 13, 2021. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
- ^ Bradshaw, Peter (July 12, 2021). "The French Dispatch: Wes Anderson's ode to newspapers is a periodic delight". The Guardian. Archived from the original on July 12, 2021. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
- ^ "The Best Movies of 2021". The New Yorker. December 2, 2021. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
- ^ Goldmann, A. J. (October 28, 2021). "Eternally fascinated with Jewish culture, Wes Anderson delivers the best film of the year". The Forward. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
- ^ Lattanzio, Ryan (December 17, 2021). "The 50 Best Movies of 2021, According to 187 Film Critics". IndieWire. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
- ^ Schager, Nick (December 16, 2021). "The Best Movies of 2021". Esquire. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
- ^ "The 20 best films of 2021". NME. December 9, 2021. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
- ^ "The 50 best films of 2021". British Film Institute.
- ^ "The Best Movies of 2021, According to Vogue Editors". Vogue. October 21, 2021. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
- ^ "Roman Coppola". Nothing Major. Retrieved October 7, 2016.
- ^ Binkley, Christina (June 29, 2016). "Roman Coppola's Long-Planned Trip to Italy". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved October 7, 2016.
- ^ "2016 Los Angeles Times Gift Guide: Home & Design". www.latimes.com. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
- ^ Wise, Damon (September 18, 2023). "Wes Anderson Talks About Roald Dahl's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Teases His Next Movie, And Claims: "I Don't Have An Aesthetic"". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved April 7, 2024.
- ^ "ACADEMY INVITES 842 TO MEMBERSHIP". Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. July 1, 2019.
- ^ Hammond, Pete (January 22, 2013). "Exclusive Featurette: Original Screenplay Oscar Nominee 'Moonrise Kingdom'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved May 13, 2018.
- ^ "Film in 1994 – BAFTA Awards". awards.bafta.org.
- ^ Kot, Greg (January 8, 1997). "Pumpkins A Smash With 7 Grammy Nominations". Chicago Tribune. p. 12. Archived from the original on July 7, 2012. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
- ^ Douglas, Edward (December 10, 2007). "NYFCO (New York Film Critics Online) Loves Blood!". ComingSoon.net. Archived from the original on July 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017.
- ^ Brooks, Xan (November 19, 2012). "Marfa Girl triumphs at Rome film festival". The Guardian. Retrieved November 21, 2012.