Eleanor Coppola - Notes on a Life

Contents

To my family

PROLOGUE

I am an observer at heart who has the impulse to record what I see around me, what I experience. Ive shot documentary films and videos, but very often what interests me doesnt fit satisfactorily into the frame of a camera or find a way of expression in the artwork I do, so I write. What follows is a selection from my notebooks, both old and recent. In these pages I can see my deep, imponderable love for my husband and our children and the wealth of experiences their extraordinary talents have brought to my life. I also see conflict in my devotion to my remarkable family and a longing to be immersed as a working artist myself. And like every life, mine is formed by the times in which Ive lived and by tragedy and triumph.

Perhaps my family members would tell a different story, and maybe they will. I thank them for encouraging me to tell mine.

Part One

M AY 12, 1986 WASHINGTON, D.C.

I am sitting at an old wooden table in this rented apartment in Washington, D.C., our home for Franciss next film, Gardens of Stone, a military story involving the honor guard who bury the dead from the Vietnam War in Arlington Cemetery. Francis is doing a final rewrite of the script. Gio is here preparing to shoot video of the rehearsals. During the production they will be working closely together as Gio will be responsible for the video tap to the main camera. He will record what the camera is shooting so that Francis can review the shots immediately rather than wait for film to be developed, and he will be electronically editing sequences. It takes a lot of technical skill. I am reminded of how much Gio has learned from working at Franciss side since the age of sixteen.

On the table top in front of me are note cards with reproductions of Matisse paintings. I am writing thank-you notes for gifts I received on my fiftieth birthday last week. Early this year I began to realize my experiences over the years had stretched me, expanded both my threshold of pain and of exhilaration, pushed me far beyond what I thought were my limits. I felt the family had somehow survived the highs and lows of our lives. The children are well and essentially grown. [Sofia will be fifteen in two days, Roman just turned twenty-one and Gio is twenty-two, soon to be twenty-three.] They are healthy, loving and creative. My fear that our unconventional family life might harm them has begun to fade. I have nearly completed my part in raising them. I see a time of new freedom for me. A time to pick up threads of my creative life left behind at age twenty-six when marriage and family took over my focus.

By the time my birthday actually arrived, I felt happy and excited. Two days before, I had a dinner party upstairs at Chez Panisse surrounded by ten wonderful women friends. Alice Waters made a beautiful feast. I felt skinny and terrific in a black Donna Karan bodysuit and wrap skirt. Everyone looked radiant. All the gifts had something to do with flowers, a glass basket of miniature wild roses, a vintage flowered dressing gown, a silk scarf with a floral design, a small flowering tree, a photograph of flowers. I felt as if it was a message to me about blossoming. I told the story of visiting a Chinese fortune teller years ago who said, Your life is like driving a Rolls-Royce over a bumpy road until you are fifty, and reach the pavement. The road ahead looks smooth.

The next day Sofia and I left home in Napa and flew to Washington, D.C., to celebrate with Francis and Gio on location for Franciss thirteenth feature film. Roman arrived from New York City where he is attending New York University. I told Francis what I wanted was to do something I had never done before. On the Sunday morning of my birthday he said, Get dressed, were going out to brunch. We drove to the river. I guessed he had made reservations at a restaurant overlooking the water. Instead he led us down a gangway onto a boat. A dozen friends in Washington for the film production were already aboard, along with food, champagne and a band of gypsy violinists. We sailed slowly down the Potomac, stopping for a private tour of Washingtons beautiful home, and returned as the river reflected shades of purple and deep orange with the setting sun. I opened the gift from the cast and crew. It was a beautifully faceted Baccarat crystal flower vase. Alex [Tavoularis], from the films art department, took pictures of our family: Francis in the middle with Sofia and me each tucked under a large arm and Gio and Roman on either side as we sat on the back of the boat, our hair blowing wildly in the wind, smiling happily.

MAY 13, 1986

Yesterday was Mothers Day. Gio and his girlfriend, Jacqui, invited me for lunch. They finally arrived nearly two hours late, their arms loaded with bouquets. They had driven around Washington looking for flower stores not already depleted by holiday shoppers. They brought nine bouquets. We put them everywhere in the small apartment, arranged in my new crystal vase, in pots, pans and a wastebasket. I felt as if Gio was trying to make up for the hard times he has given me since his teenage years. This past six months he has changed, he is living with Jacqui, is happy and more self-confident and has grown closer to me.

After lunch they took me to the National Gallery and the Smithsonian. I was startled. I brought the children to museums frequently when they were young but when they became teenagers they refused to go. This was the first time a child of mine invited me to a museum. Gio had his camera; he took photos as we walked of Jacqui and me, of street people, of a crowded hot dog stand. I was interested to see what he chose to shoot, how he composed an image, sometimes on the diagonal. His photography skills are developing.

In the evening Jacqui made a salad and Gio barbecued steaks on the tiny terrace of our apartment, trying to keep the thick smoke outside. Francis got home just in time for dinner. We ate in a hurry. I had to catch the last shuttle flight to New York. Gio carried my heavy suitcase out to the waiting taxi. He gave me a lingering hard hug in his distinctive bone-crunching style.

A few hours later I arrived at our apartment in New York City in the Sherry-Netherland hotel, and entered through the side door into the little kitchen. Piles of dirty pans and dishes crowded the stove, the sink and tiny counter; the smell of leftover tomato sauce and garlic overwhelmed the small room. Roman, looking tousled and sweet, gave me a kiss and a hug. As I stepped further into the apartment I could see his clothes in mounds on the floor of the bedroom. He said, Yeah, I worked out a system, I only have to go to the laundromat once a month. There were guitars, drum pads, tapes, books and art projects strewn over the sitting room. His friend Greg was there. It looked as if they were having perfect college student fun.

I was happy to have seen two of my children on Mothers Day. I opened the doors to the part of the apartment that is usually kept locked and rented by the hotel when we are not using it, where I would be staying. It was clean and spacious. I noticed a smear of tomato sauce on the dining table. The boys confessed they had sneaked in with their dinner.