tavis: good evening. from los angeles come i am tavis smiley. tonight, part 1 of iconic film maker francis ford coppola, the director of films like "the godfather: ab" and "apocalypse w ." he has a new film out called "tetro."

>> nationwide insurance problem supports tavis smiley. tavis and nationwide insurance, working to improve financial literacy and the economic and power and that comes with it. >> ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ >> and by contributions from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: we are honored to welcome francis ford coppola to this program, the iconic director and screenwriter responsible for so many fonda films over the course of history, including "the godfather" and "the godfather:

part 2" and bram stoker's dracula. he are some scenes from his new movie, "tetro." >> why did you come here? >> everything that i love or i am interested in, i picked it up from you. >> how did you find these? >> it was an accident. >> an accident? >> how could you do this to me? >> they are great stories. they do not have an ending. >> they do not have to have an ending. >> what has happened to our family? tavis: you do not see so much

black and white these days. >> it is a pity, because it is beautiful, and it is not just the absence of color. it is a whole different way to light. to me, it is almost more realistic, but there is a prohibition to do it in black- and-white because there is this idea of trying to get their money back, and they cannot get it back with television. there is a reduction of 50% if it is in black and white. tavis: you get a great comment was what you just said about what the industry wants and getting your money back. i do not want to put words in your mouth, not that you would let me, anyway, but how much of your consternation, frustration, challenge over the course of your year -- career has been in trying to balance what francis ford coppola once and what the industry once -- what francis ford coppola wants and what the

industry wants? >> it cannot lose money. it has to make money, and that totally makes sense, but my problem is that the cinema is like a very broad and varied, you know, and i love to go to movies on friday night with my wife and see a really entertaining movie, although more and more when i go, it already seems like i have seen the movie before, and all of the effects, everything, is the same. it's my idea is that there can be different kinds of films, that not every film has to be a sequel, you know? there could be a balance, and there could be a few black-and- white films, a few color films, as there used to be. hollywood made the greatest dramas ever made, beautiful movies, and now, because the theaters -- studios are owned by larger companies, and they are so concerned about their stock prices and making acquisitions,

they beat the subsidiary up to make money. in the old days, the heads of the studios where tough. they were like harvey weinstein, who is tough and serious, but he loves movies, and he is a showman. i think the old studio heads, who, incidentally, i worked for, like jack warner and sam goldwyn, they love to movies, and they love to to produce different kinds of films -- they love movies -- loved movies, and they loved to produce different kinds of films. it has been going on for two generations now. i t tnk that even television started out as a promising. in the 1950's, there were great writers writing, wonderful directors, like john frankenheimer doing "playhouse

90," and then they got the idea it of doing half-hour shows, and we had 40 or 50 years of that, so the audiences have been taught to expect sort of sameness serials, and situation comedies, and some of them were absolutely great, but they made the audience is more anxious to see the same thing over and over again. tavis: so how difficult is it to move to "tetro," breaking the mold, doing something different when you know that audiences have been trained to expect something? >> it is certainly very hard to get financed to do a movie like that, and is very hard to get a release, because even if it does well, the amounts of money it makes is so small compared to a blockbuster film, but, you know,

the good side, the blessing is that our country has a crop of just the most wonderful, young, independent filmmakers. i mean, we could name 20 names probably, and at the head of it, you could put woody allen, and that does not necessarily mean in age. filmmakers to do not want to make films to have a career and make a lot of money but to do something that they love and give us a variety, and these american, independent filmmakers i think are the envy of the world, and they are so promising, so the cinema is safe, i think. tavis: tell me again about "tetro." tell me about this black and white project. >> this is sort of the second film of my second career. when i was younger, you know, i wanted to write and direct films

that were in the spirit and inspiration of the great filmmakers who inspired really all of my generation. they were from europe. they were from japan. they were from all over the world, and we wanted to be sort of like they were and do that, and so, when i started out, when i was in my twenties, i wrote to several original screenplays, got to make one, but one i could not get money at all, and it was called "the conversation." i was married young, and i had kids, and i had this terrific family, and i had to make money, and his assistant i had at the time, george lucas -- he was not an assistant, an associate, ""francis, just do what they want and make money. you are the only one who can make money." and the only one i was offered was "the godfather," and it

changed my life, and i did it to make "the conversation" after "the godfather." but i thought i've is going to make these -- i thought i was going to make these "art films." you are not supposed to call them that alegria i thought i would make a little horror film once and awhile -- you are not supposed to call them that now. i thought i would make a little horror film once in a while. then i became a success, and when i got older, i thought, gee, i never got to ride those original stores, and i like writing original stories -- i never got to write those original stories. in this case, i was thinking, gee, i would really like to make

an emotional film, something that moves me. unlike movies like "on the waterfront," "the best years of our lives," and for me to be emotional, i have to write about my family, because that is where we learn to be emotional, and my family was interesting because it was a very, very talented family, in every generation. as you know, my nephews and my daughter are all important actors and film makers, so i was interested in the subject of, you know, rivalry with in the generation, because there is always bound to be someone, even not creative, but in every family, there is always one successful, so there are richer, and then the other honorable is not so rich, and, you know, -- and then the other on goal is not so -- sometimes, they help them -- and then the other uncle

is not. all of these passionate feuds among family members, who love each other, which is why it is passed and that -- which is why it is passionate. i took my own family. this is not real. none of that happens, but when you write, you tend to go around what you have experience -- not of that happened. -- none of that happened. tavis: you said that none of it was true. >> the story is fiction. you see the movies, some terrible t tngs happen, some really heartbreaking things happen, and that is not the case, and my father was not the mean sort of egomaniac, although he was a little bit of an egomaniac, but in a nice way, no, so i may be father more

real. he is very famous and very important, and the story, my dad struggled most of his career until the end, so i based on things that i knew, but the story never really happened. tavis: let me get personal, if i can, about your story, and let me start with a sequestered, but when you were a kid, where you called francis ford coppola prove your entire name was always used -- were you called francis ford coppola? your entire name was always used? >> no, i was called francy. one of my relatives was better looking and smaller and could be me up, but he never did -- protected me -- and could beat me up. he used three names, because we all had three names, and he was a writer, and i just wanted to be like him. tavis: what was his name?

>> my brother? i do not want to embarrass him. noneteteless, i wanted to be a writer just so i could copy him, so use his middle name, so i used my middle name, as i did with everything, just to copy him, and that is where i got the francis ford, the three names, although i heard it said never to trust a manbut, no, it soundo me, because that is like my formal name. if i was hispanic, i would be josé maria gonzales, so and so, but then, i would just be joe. use a francisis ford coppola, ad you say that the first time, -- you say francis ford coppola, and you say that the first time, and then you just say franceis coppola.

i wish somebody would call a francie. i asked my wife about why she will not call me that, and she told me she wanted to be married to a strong man. tavis: some of these members of your family tree, no particular order, your sister from "rocky," your daughter, sophia. >> this is her third day shooting her new film. there is steven dorf, and a girl with the last name of fanning. tavis: is that dakota? >> no, i think it is her

youngest sister -- younger sister. tavis: and then there is your cousin. >> yes, and robert is a rock star. my son is a director and producer in anototr movie, and then there were orchestra conductors, a famous opera conductors, and there are morbid there are relatives the people do not even know of -- how orchestra conductors, famous opera conductors. -- there were orchestra conductors. i think it came from the previous generation. we had some very talented people. both of my grandfathers were really extraordinary. one was a musician, a composer, and that was the one side of the

family, and as i said, there were some very famous, world- famous musicians on that side of the family that people do not even know that are related to us. but then, on the other side, in more of the area of the mechanical in geniuses, my grandfather built the first machine that made a sound for movies, so there was this tradition of that, and i think when there was talent popping up, more or less, it got supported. i know in our generation, we are thrilled to have kids that go into the arts, and i think today, and you know, in the past, they would be discouraged. "oh, no, be an accountant or be a doctor." but today, among your viewership, if you have a child who wants to be an artist or a dancer or an actor, encourage it, because it is a beautiful thing to be able to do that. tavis: it is beautiful, but it

is tough, and you know how tough it is, because your career was like that. >> it was like that because i like to say yes more than i like to say no. i was never afraid of risk. i think in life, there is only one risk you have, and that is the only one, and for all of these other things involving money and risking this and risking that, you should say yes and do it. there is only one risk in life, and that is that you are going to die and say, "gee, i wish i would have done this thing." i am never going to do that. that is the only risk, really, if you think about it, because we're all going to die. i think. tavis: no, we are. i have got some bad news for you. you are not going to get out of your life. >> well, at least when i go, i will be thinking about all of these adventures i have that -- you are not going to get out of here alive.

tavis: i want to stay with your family for a second. you would be filmmaking route when you could have gone the music route, given that you have both in your family. you were a kid, and you had polio. >> yes. tavis: and if i understand that yet, it was during that period when you started to focus. tell me about that. >> this epidemic was just a few years before the great salk -- the vaccines came, but there was a terrible epidemic in new york, and i was a part of it, and i was paralyzed for about 1.5 years, and i used to stay in the bed, and i had a ventriloquist puppets, and i had a toy museum projector -- movie projector that my grandfather gave me, and i used to sit there and play with my puppets and play, just generally entertain myself, and, you know, i do not know that i

had any talent or anything, but i would do the voices for the mickey mouse cartoons on my toy projector, and, you know, do my ventriloquism, jerry mahoney. tavis: this talent was born and nurtured when you're laying in bed, and able to walk. that is a pretty powerful story. >> yes, and then later on, i wanted to be a writer when i was 50 or 16, and in my family, some people got talent, and others did not -- when i was 15 or 60. i was not the promise and one by any means. -- 15 or 16. i was not a black sheep or a bad kid, but i was terrible in school, not good at anything, except science. i used to love to read about science, and what have you, but i think about writing, because i remember falling asleep in

military school and weeping because i had a talent, because i would write, and they would seem corny, and they were corny, and maybe what i still do is corny, but the thing about writing is if you really do it every day, put in the four hours every day at work at it, eventually, you start to get better. there is a god-given talents, those kids at school that can sink or draw beautiful pictures. they were just, like, nine years old, so how did they know how to do beautiful pictures? more than i had, which was just putting it in the daily worker, just try and try and try, and eventually, you are rewarded, i think -- which was just putting in the deal worked -- daily work. tavis: you have referenced "the godfather." what do you think looking back on that, in retrospect? >> i did not realize it at the

time, but i was blessed with the work of a wonderful writer and a fabulous man, mario cuzo. he was a very interesting man, and w w put together a terrific cast of characters. many of them were new, but not all. marlon brando. we had a wonderful cinematographer and great music, and it all came together, and it went to a public that was ready for it, that wanted it somehow, so i think that movies are pretty much like things lining up correctly, and the audience is part of it. the audience has to be ready for something like that. tavis: what do you recall that was happening in the country at that time that, as you put it, made the public ready? >> it was a confusing time for movies. they were trying out lots of formulas. nobody knew what would be successful. the last successful films where

the musicals, like "the sound of music" and, of course, the great "west side story," but there was confusion about what auauences wanted, and there had been some films about gangsters, and to some extent the mafia, but they have been flops. that is where i got the idea from. it was the great directors that turned "the godfather" down. i was the 27-year-old guy. i do not know how i got it, to be on this. i think they wanted somebody who was young and who they could push around -- to be honest. tavis: which you describe that as -- or would you describe that as the best fortune you ever had -- which you describe that as the best fortune you ever had? -- would you? >> at the time, i was always getting fired, and the company

did not like me, even though they had chosen me, and really, every week, it was, "this is the week you are going to get fired." but i did not roll over. i fought for the actors i wanted. i fought for marlon brando. it was o oginally supposed to be set in world war ii, modern for the end times because it was cheaper, and i ido not know whee i got the resiliency to fight back, but it was a very unhappy time in my life, and i did not think it was going to be successful, and i was just worrying about how i would support my kids, so i was shocked, and then my friend billy's movie came out, "the french connection," and i thought, wow wow, that is a movie. i was talking, and i said, "i guess, compared to that, 'the

godfather is a slow, boring mo vie compared to that." and he said, "you are right." i did n n get to have my dream, which was to write original stories, which is what i am trying to do now, so maybe it all worked out happily. -- work out happily. tavis: we are out of time, so i guess that is more of our conversation tomorrow night with francis ford coppola. catch us on the weekend on pri. and you can go to our website at pbs.org. thanks for watching. more with him tomorrow night. keep the faith. >> you spend time with your

family? >> sure, i did. >> good, because the man does not spend time with his family can never be a millionaire. you look terrible. i want you to rest well. >> it starts shooting in a week. >> i am going to make an offer he cannot refuse. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: i am tavis smiley. join me next time with more with francis ford coppola. >> there are so many things that wal-mart is looking forward to doing, like helping people live better, but mostly looking forward to helping build

stronger communities and relationships, because at your house, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance probably supports tavis smiley. tavis and nationwide insurance, working to improve financial literacy and the economic and part that comes with it. >> ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ >> and by contributions by viewers like you. thank you. >> we