Twice in two days, Francis Ford Coppola will utter the same quotation. “Tolstoy once said that the great surprise of life is when you realize you’re elderly,” the great director says, slowly consuming a very small portion of silken tofu at a fine Japanese restaurant in Tribeca, which is all he’ll allow himself to eat for a midday meal these days. (Actually, it was the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky who said, “Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man.” But really, who’s quibbling?) What is age to one of the most storied risk-takers in film history but another convention to be broken?
He is 85 and keeping a schedule that would buckle men of 30. “Two days ago, I was here, and then I wasn’t here,” he says, dressed, as ever, as if on permanent tropical adventure. His cobalt-blue Hawaiian shirt is covered in palm fronds and bird silhouettes — just one of many loud-patterned varieties that a costume designer created for him, at his request. He has just returned from the Rome Film Festival, seemingly without a wink of jet lag. And the night before our lunch date, he was up till the wee hours at Nobu (the man loves Japanese food), happily chatting up admirers after receiving an award from the Directors Guild for his contributions to American culture, specifically his vivid cinematic depictions of New York City — such as “The Godfather,” “The Godfather Part II” and the movie he now likes to refer to as “The Death of Michael Corleone.”
