Francis Ford Coppola has shared an update on his health after being hospitalised in Rome for a heart procedure – find out more below.
Fear that the revered filmmaker was in ill health started spreading yesterday when Italian media outlet ANSA reported that Coppola was admitted to a public hospital on Tuesday morning for a scheduled heart procedure, but experienced a mild cardiac arrhythmia before the operation.
His representatives disputed these reports to Reuters as “not true.” “There was not an emergency. He went to the hospital in a car,” a US representative said.
A source close to the matter later told The Hollywood Reporter that the director is “resting nicely”, while a second source told PEOPLE magazine: “All is well and he appreciates everyone’s concern.”
Since then, Coppola has addressed the matter in a brief post on Instagram: “Da Dada (what my kids call me) is fine, taking an opportunity while in Rome to do the update of my 30 year old afib procedure with its inventor, a great Italian doctor – Dr. Andrea Natale! I am well!”
Prior to Coppola’s undergoing the procedure, he attended a special screening of his latest film Megalopolis at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts on August 1, where he spoke about death and his legacy, per SFGATE.
Coppola shared candidly: “I lost my wife a year ago, around this time. But my attitude for death is that I always lived my life so that when I was at the moment approaching death, I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, I wish I had done this and I wish I had done that.’ Instead I say to myself, ‘I got to do this.’ I got to see my daughter win an Oscar. I got to see my father win an Oscar.”
He continued, per the outlet: “I’m going to be so busy saying all the things I got to do that when I die, I’m not going to notice it. When I die, I’m not going to notice it. You know how your electric toothbrush just shuts off when you least expect it? That’s what death is like.”
Megalopolis, which released in September, is a sci-fi fable set in an alternate present-day version of America, where Adam Driver’s futuristic architect Cesar Catilina, who has the ability to pause time, is clashing with the conservative mayor of New Rome, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito).
The project was riddled with controversies, with an extra from the film saying she was left “in shock” after being kissed by Coppola on the set, and a trailer that included fake quotes from critics leading to a marketing consultant being fired.
It has also been met with mixed reviews, including a somewhat hostile reaction at Cannes. In NME’s two-star review of Megalopolis, Lou Thomas wrote: “The whole piece is so uneven, that at times it’s akin to watching a toddler being given free rein as an interior decorator. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you always should.”
You can view the original article HERE.
