After working together on two Godfather movies, Francis Ford Coppola and author Mario Puzo went their separate ways. As Puzo left for Krypton to work on the screenplay for Superman, Coppola descended into madness, disappearing to the jungle to film his chaotic masterpiece, Apocalypse Now. But ever the paisans, the bonds between Puzo and Coppola remained, and the two continued collaborating for years, even if only to get each other’s buy-in on a new project. At least that’s how the relationship appears from a newly discovered letter between the two, unearthed from the estate of the late producer Fred Roos.
Set to go on sale this weekend at the Rare Books LA festival, the letter, dated April 1, 1977, shows how candidly Puzo spoke to Coppola, the Academy Award-winning director of The Godfather, who presumably wanted to know what Puzo thought of the title of his next movie. “I think Apocalypse Now is a good title, even though most people don’t really know what the word means,” Puzo writes. “They think it meant [sic] the ‘ultimate catastrophe’ when actually it means ‘revelation.’ Try asking.” Anyone who didn’t know that’s what “apocalypse” meant, you’re in good company. Coppola’s handwritten annotations reveal that he didn’t either. Though he must’ve cracked open the OED because he adds that the word “also means the revelation of god.”
The letter’s annotations connect all the main players in The Godfather‘s production, including Roos, who later that month sent a blurb Puzo provided for an unmade Coppola project, Brotherhood Of The Grape, to Robert Towne, according to the annotations.
“This is a glimpse into the creative relationship between two greats of the scene, which has only come out into circulation by happenstance of being passed sideways (to Roos) out of the Coppola estate,” says Sammy Jay, senior literature specialist, for Peter Harrington Rare Books. “It allows us to see Coppola using his old collaborator Puzo as a creative sounding board, as well as asking his help in promoting a new project. In my line of work, you often get letters from great figures to minor figures, or from minor figures to great figures, but great figures to great figures is a pretty rare occurrence, in any field, and merits both attention and excitement.”
For those interested, here’s what Puzo wrote of Brotherhood Of The Grape by John Fante: “An authentic and moving novel of an Italian patriarch who fights the slipping of his heritage and his family into the mainstream of American culture. It is a tragi-comedy that makes you laugh so that you won’t cry.”
Coppola was clearly working through previously explored themes with this one, but Puzo doesn’t think his opinion mattered all that much.
“You can use that all or in part as you like,” he continues. “Quotes don’t help that much. The public [sic] and editors either like the book or they don’t. On this one I hope they do. I really did like it.”