‘Supremely entertaining.’ New York Times

‘Mouth-watering . . . Sizzingly vivid and compulsive.’ Daily Telegraph

Acclaimed writer Sam Wasson weaves together an extraordinary portrait of Coppola, having conducted hundreds of interviews with the director and those who have worked closely with him. A man who is charming, brilliant, but also plagued by restlessness, recklessness and a desire to operate perpetually at the extremes. It is a story inextricably bound up in the making of one of the greatest quixotic masterpieces ever attempted, Apocalypse Now. That story, already the stuff of legend, has never been fully told until this extraordinary book..

The book presents the highs and lows of both his personal and professional life, as Coppola sets out to transform the process of making movies.

Sam Wasson masterly captures the larger-than-life figure of a man who pursued a vision of the world of movies and all the wonder of what that would be.

What makes this book unique from any other survey of Hollywood’s history is that it is the history of an art form through the words of those people who created it – from Harold Lloyd to Katharine Hepburn to Warren Beatty to Jane Fonda and beyond, including directors, writers, producers, editors, designers of sets and costumes.
As such, the authenticity of the text is irrefutable.
The material in the book – gathered over the decades by the American Film Institute – has never been published before, has never been heard before.

It is comprehensive – a monument that will never age nor be surpassed.