Francis Ford Coppola Turned a Chicago Q&A Into a Surreal 2-Hour Manifesto

Francis Ford Coppola might be a prophet or he might have lost his mind — either way, he’s not boring.

Coppola took the stage at the Chicago Theatre for what was billed as “An Evening With Francis Ford Coppola.” This event was part of his 10-city tour behind “Megalopolis.” I spoke with Aaron Salazar, who attended the event and he shared his detailed notes of this wild night.

What followed was less an evening and more a whacked out spiritual odyssey into the mind of a man who either knows everything or has gone completely off the rails. Possibly both. Either way, the crowd was no doubt blessed to witness this.

There was no moderator. No script. Just Francis. Alone on stage. Rambling next to a whiteboard with a handwritten list of topics:

Time. Work. Money. Politics. Education. Law. Caste. War. Art. Sport. Celebration.

He rambled about how we invented time — and in doing so, we invented our own suffering. He mused that robots should do the toiling for us, maybe take over TSA and toll booths. “Waymo cars never hit old people,” he assured the crowd. Then he raved about EZ-Pass.

Grace VanderWaal then came out to sing “The Virgin Song.” Soon after, Coppola started talking again, something about jumping on a log and floating down a river? Sleeping on river ledges? (“don’t forget this takes time”). Regardless, that’s when the walkouts began.

He pleaded with the audience, “don’t marry your cousin, please marry a girl from another family. He shared that he wishes he could tap dance — that if he had known how, he might have defeated his childhood bullies by dancing on the lunchroom table, stealing their hearts through rhythm. He’s 85 and dreaming of tap shoes.

He talked about octopi (or is it octopuses?), claimed we’re all cousins (including maybe the Italians?), and got mad at Fox News for not calling humans geniuses. He said we all have a gift. “You may not know what your gift is, but you have it!”

At one point, a man asked to cross “War” off the whiteboard. Coppola nodded solemnly. “Let’s end war,” he said. And war was gone.

He discussed how the obsession with GDP and productivity has blinded us, and how the true measure of civilization should be creativity, play, and human development. He pitched UBI. He pitched democratic confederalism. He pitched abolishing term limits in favor of a “Council of 9” who draw straws and serve for a month and a half at a time. He wants government to feel like being the “officer of the day” at military school — a temporary honor, not a career.

At one point he started speaking in Italian and saying slurs that only he is allowed to say.

Some of the other topics tackled included the Human Development Index, Pipe Rock Theory, Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitcake Station,” homeschooling, term limits, and much much more.

There were some moments of pure groundedness — anecdotes about founding the American Film Institute with Gregory Peck and Sidney Poitier, about mentoring young artists, about being rich and broke at the same time, about giving his kids unlimited credit cards but telling them they’re not allowed to use it to make money.

He’s “broke now,” he says, but he’s got another small movie in him. And maybe some big ones too — if he can find the funding. “There’s more to life than stress,” he told us. “It’s the joy of living.”

Then he sang, alone, on stage.

Whatever you make of this, one thing’s for certain: Coppola, the legend who gave us “Apocalypse Now,” “The Godfather” and “The Conversation,” dreams big.