Notes on a Life Review

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Notes on a Life ReviewConsider the problem of the wife who has a successful husband and has for decades put him and their family first, and her own aspirations second. It's not a novel problem, but is instead too common to be of much interest: let's just count on the woman to take care of herself and her family and her career as best she can. The situation might, however, be particularly interesting if the family moves in the highest of Hollywood circles, with many family members involved in moviemaking, and with the wife herself a successful filmmaker, artist, and memoirist. In the beginning of _Notes on a Life_ (Nan A. Talese), Eleanor Coppola says, "I am an observer at heart," and this is manifestly true, but she is also a reporter, whether in her movie _Hearts of Darkness_ which is a documentary about the making of _Apocalypse Now_ by her husband Francis Ford Coppola, or in her previous book which was a memoir of the making of that film, or in her other films about her children's films. As fits a memoir from a devoted and dutiful wife and mother, this is a book mostly about her family and about how she has cared for them. It may have all happened in extraordinary circles, but it is delightful to read this candid memoir and realize that for all the working trips to exotic locales, and the house in Napa Valley, and hobnobbing with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Eleanor Coppola's marriage and family are a lot like anyone else's. They come with problems, and she works on them, and gets things done, and she quite clearly loves what she and they have managed to accomplish.
An idea follows her all through the decades covered in the diary entries here: "I have an ongoing internal war, a conflict between wanting to be a good wife and mother and also to draw, paint, design, write and shoot videos. I focus on the family and imagine there will be time for my interests, but there rarely is." She does manage to make time for herself, but it isn't easy, and there were times she was deeply depressed. Her book often reflects on how she managed to solve the problem in her own ways, knowing that the problem was never completely solved any more than her children's (or husband's) problems were completely out of her thoughts. She has had to be an itinerant mom at Easter times: "I hid eggs in the hotel room in Trieste during _Godfather II_, in the tropical foliage at our house in Manila during _Apocalypse Now_, in the city park in Tulsa during _The Outsiders_, and in the apartment in NYC during _Cotton Club_." As she looks for her place in all this, it might be that she could come off as a whining overprivileged yuppie, but she maintains an amused tone and is constantly self deprecating. She is happiest when her family is all around her, and Frances seems to be the same way. She always has doubts about how well she is taking care of all of them, but she does love the job. When her daughter Sofia was working on Sofia's movie _Lost in Translation_, Eleanor went to see her in Japan: "As we hugged I could feel her thin arms and shoulders. I was glad I'd brought her a Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookies." There are paths not taken, and she is imaginative enough to wonder about them, but has little reason to regret where her eventual path has taken her.
_Notes_ is indeed excerpts from Coppola's notebook, arranged by general themes, with flashbacks through the decades to an old entry as a memory is triggered. Much of it is sweet, and some is deeply sad. A lot is funny; for a scene in _Dracula_, we are introduced to an unusual assistant on the film who is helping in a scene with Tom Waits: "The bug wrangler was standing nearby. He had several additional tins of maggots and beetles. He occasionally prodded the contents of Tom's plate to make sure they were all moving." There are lots of stars wandering through her life, of course. Note, for instance, Brando, whom she met on the set of _The Godfather_: "It was the first time I really understood what charisma was ... I felt as if I were standing in a special beam of light and he found me utterly fascinating." Through all the book, though, are notes of a creative woman taking (usually) the conventional marital role: "Over the years I stopped whatever it was I was doing to go on location with Francis and the children. I sincerely tried to be a good wife and mother to my family. For a variety of reasons, I haven't created a body of notable work in my life when many around me have, and I haven't yet made peace with that truth." I'd venture to guess that even if she had more exhibits, more documentaries, and more books to her name, she'd still have the artist's hunger to do more. There is also the mom's worry that she wasn't doing more for her children, a worry she is letting go of now that they are not children. Worries aside, "long consistent body of work" aside, _Notes_ is a beautifully written record of a life lived well, with the right priorities of convention assumed and convention shunned.
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