The Path to Paradise

A Francis Ford Coppola Story

By: Sam Wasson

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

“Sam Wasson’s supremely entertaining book tracks the ups and downs, ins and outs, of a remarkable career. . . . A marvel of unshowy reportage.”—New York Times

The New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. and The Big Goodbye returns with the definitive account of Academy Award–winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-long dream to reinvent American filmmaking, if not the entire world, through his production company, American Zoetrope.

Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only thirty. Through Zoetrope’s experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than fifty years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker’s dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis.

As Wasson makes clear, the story of Zoetrope is also the story of Coppola’s wife, Eleanor Coppola, and their children, and of personal lives inseparable from artistic passion. It is a story that charts the divergent paths of Coppola and his cofounder and onetime apprentice, George Lucas, and of their very different visions of art and commerce. And it is a story inextricably bound up in the making of one of the greatest quixotic masterpieces ever attempted, Apocalypse Now, and in what Coppola found in the jungles of the Philippines when he walked the razor’s edge. That story, already the stuff of legend, has never fully been told, until this extraordinary book.

©2023 Sam Wasson (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Great writing, horrible VO

Was this read by AI? So many mispronunciations it’s mind boggling. Convinced that no one supervised or edited the voiceover recordings.

Narrator Distracted from the Story

One day, audio narrators' performances may be competently edited, but until then we are stuck with voices that mispronounce so many common names that the listener can be pulled right out of the narrative into frustration. I feel sorry for authors who have much of their work mangled by unsupervised narrators.

Coppola’s relationship with Lucas and Eleanor’s intelligence and devotion

The authors style was jerky and impersonal. The dashing about through time and place and project was unnecessarily taxing to a listener. I came away feeling more distant from the characters than when I starred. I was glad when the book was over.

Narrator was awful

Sam Wasson gets too caught up in the mystical connection between Coppola's work and character growth, or regression, depending on your point-of-view. Fact is, he became a megalomaniac who shot himself in the foot repeatedly. And it seems he's doing it again... Allowing 12-year-olds to direct actors on set of a $35M movie?! Directing from his trailer, not on-set with cast and crew? It's clear he lost focus, became consumed and charmed by technology instead of what really matters....Wasson conveys this but is so over-enamored with Coppola's B.S. about "the future" he missed that this is the reason his movies got bad, bad, bad....

I agree with critics of the narrator. He mispronounced 90% of the names. How does a person pronounce the name Marcia as 'Marsee-ah" how is that possible? Or instead of saying Warner Brothers he says Warner Bros as in "hey, bro!" Continual mispronounced words and names. It takes you out of the passages.

Does anyone oversee these recordings? We're paying a lot for this, and get readings by ninth graders?!

Enjoyed immensely

It is not everyday you can listen to a book that reaffirms our own path in life. Coppola's zest for life is contagious and anyone with the desire to create should read about his life and passions. You will soon realize we only live once so we must make the most of it.

Narrator sucks shit

Can’t pronounce words. Doesn’t care about the story. Absolutely bananas when Sam Wasson narrated his other books so adeptly.

The terrible narration

It’s as if it were being read by computer. Warner Bros actually pronounced bros instead of brothers. LAX pronounced lax. And many others. It’s distracting and bad. Did no editor or producer listen to it before publication? It dies good book disservice.

Good book. Bad reader.

It’s a fascinating story about a complicated man and artist but it is nearly ruined by terrible narration. He mispronounces so many names and locations it’s almost funny. And the pronunciation shifts through, making it even more distracting. It’s almost as if it’s read by AI (maybe it was?).

How did this pass a basic QC?

Outstanding narration and story

The narrator was excellent. He was subtle but heartfelt. The story was riveting. Absolutely loved it!!!

Book is terrific, performance horrible

The narrator almost put me off this. He sounds like AI, pronounces Spanish and Italian place names like a Spaniard or Italian and mispronounces simple things like the name “Marcia” and calls Warner Brothers Warner Bros which I realize is stylized that way in the book but shows a complete lack of knowledge about the subject.