Thoughts on the 4-8-24 Total Eclipse

I knew the eclipse would be passing my way, but I didn't give much thought other than it would be something interesting to witness. After all, I had seen a partial eclipse in 2017 and many lunar eclipses, but never one in totality. 

I live in Dayton, Ohio, but I drove two hours north to Holgate to witness the event with my parents. We switched between watching local and national news coverage of the eclipse as the path traversed across a swath of North America. Anticipation was growing that this stretch of rural Ohio would be part of a rare astronomical phenomenon.

When the afternoon arrived, there was bright sun with minimal cloud cover. The time of totality would be 3:10:49pm, as the time drew closer it began to gradually get darker. About 10-15 minutes before, it was darkening inside the house as if a storm was on the way. I kept checking with my eclipse glasses until totality arrived. 

Although I knew what was coming from a practical sense, I still wasn't quite prepared for the sensory overload of when it happened. It got dark - fast! Birds were flying lower. Insects were buzzing. Shouts and cheers could be heard around the small town. And the transformed sun in the sky, a black and simmering silver sphere, it was both wondrous and unnerving. It felt new and old at the same time.

One's eyes aren't exactly sure what to do. Gaze at the eclipsed sun (Venus also appeared) or take in the sudden darkness, your cognition is thrown out of balance. Time slows down as if in a waking dream. The mysterious and overwhelming power of the universe has revealed itself.

Part of what makes an eclipse special is that it's such a fleeting experience, a brief glimpse into eternity, a tenuous link with the past and future. I find myself playing the moment over and over, trying to replay it like a movie reel. But unless one has unlimited funds to seek eclipses out; for most it's a one-time occurrence.

For the rest of the day my parents and I reflected on what we witnessed. We all agreed it was far more profound than we expected. The sudden swift to normality was a bit jarring! My Mom cooked a chicken dinner and were glad we saw it together.

One is reminded life moves in the blink of an eye - and it can often be confusing and contradictory. We question our decisions and lament the futility of trying to find the time to do things. Yet for a few minutes the universe reminds us we exist, and it exists - and in that space we see the wonder. 

Book Review: The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story by Sam Wasson

While Francis Ford Coppola is mostly known today for directing The Godfather films, Sam Wasson's latest book The Path to Paradise offers a fresh perspective on Coppola's importance to modern cinema. The book also will serve as an excellent contribution to books on the New Hollywood era. Its intense focus on Coppola also separates it from the rest, letting the reader get immersed in Coppola's bouts of megalomania and inspired moments of inspiration.

Path to Paradise is not a conventional biography, but appropriately took a cinematic approach, centering the narrative with Coppola and his family in the Philippines during the production of Apocalypse Now, while inserting flashback chapters. The prologue and final chapter provide a glimpse into Coppola's latest project Megalopolis, his decades long in the making vision of a modern Utopia. At the book's core is Coppola's film company American Zoetrope, which he started in 1969 with George Lucas.

Lucas is another major figure in the story. A star film student at USC, Lucas was an intern on Coppola's 1968 studio musical Finian's Rainbow. Both connected and shared a distaste for the studio system, leading Coppola to make The Rain People, a film mostly improvised and shot on the road. Invigorated by the experience, Coppola envisioned his own studio as an alternative to Hollywood, one that would use cutting edge technology and place art above commerce. Based in San Francisco, American Zoetrope quickly got a distribution deal with Warner Bros, and Lucas's THX-1138 was the first project.

Wasson provides a colorful account of the early years of Zoetrope, but the money quickly ran out, forcing Coppola to start directing films for the studios to save his company, which led him to The Godfather. Coppola disliked the Mario Puzo novel as a trashy potboiler, but felt there was narrative skeleton there for a great film. Lucas would eventually form his own companies, Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic, and the success of Star Wars allowed him to achieve independence from Hollywood. Lucas's conservative approach to business separated him from Coppola, designing films to placate audience tastes, creating a rift in their complex friendship.

After making three masterpieces in a row, the two Godfather films and The Conversation, Coppola decided to adapt Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for the Vietnam War. Apocalypse Now was initially Lucas's project that he developed with screenwriter John Milius, conceived as a low budget war film to be shot on location in Vietnam. With Lucas tied up with the Star Wars films, Coppola imagined an epic statement more about the nature of man with the Vietnam War serving as backdrop.

Coppola planned for a four month shoot over the summer of 1976, but it turned into a project that consumed and obsessed him. While his wife Eleanor's film Heart of Darkness remains an iconic portrait, the book provides more of a psychological rollercoaster. At one point, Coppola decided he must become Colonel Kurtz to complete the film, nearly destroying himself and his marriage in the process. Once again, the book does a fantastic job of putting the reader into Coppola's headspace.

As a coda, Wasson ends the book with an account of One from the Heart, Coppola's follow up to Apocalypse Now that was a colossal flop. An expensive musical filmed on soundstages designed as an artificial Las Vegas, the project bankrupted American Zoetrope, and forced Coppola to work again as a director for hire through the 1980s and into the 1990s. 

The Path to Paradise tells an intimate story about art, technology, and personality during the 20th Century.  Coppola's vast imagination and personality seem to serve as elixir against the 2020s fervor over artificial intelligence. It will be curious to see Megalopolis once it's released to the world, but it will be a statement, and some will be paying attention.

Wasson, Sam. The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story. New York: Faber & Faber, 2023. Print.