“My film is not a movie. My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It’s what it was really like. It was crazy. And the way we made it was very much like the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle. There were too many of us. We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and, little by little, we went insane.”
– Francis Ford Coppola at the Cannes Film Festival, 1979
On paper the sentence “It is Vietnam” is utterly ridiculous, and is a common reference among some film friends of mine. But when you see it in context with his delivery I remember why I immediately admired him in my teenage years. Coppola’s ego was huge, but he was honest enough to express exactly how he felt. Which, is all you »
