I am excited to have my new friend, Cori Coppola as my Parisian of the Month.
Where were you born and where did you grow up?
I was born in Hollywood in a little bungalow apartment. It wasn’t a great neighborhood, but it was one of those leftover bungalow areas that had originally been built for the larger studios. It was a two-bedroom with one bathroom, and I could go outside and play under the huge palm trees. Then we moved to Hancock Park which I loved, and I could bike or walk over to Larchmont Village every weekend. I went to a private school that was first in Beverly Hills, then they moved to a huge campus up on Mulholland Drive. It was longer to get to school, but it was beautiful up there, you could even see the ocean on a clear day from the football field. I was very much an L.A. girl, growing up in the 70s and 80s in a fairly laid-back atmosphere. In the late 80s, I went to boarding school for high school and spent most of my weekends venturing into the city, NY which was a lot of fun. I liked being a bi-coastal kid. I even played varsity field-hockey which was not a sport one played in L.A. (more a volleyball on the beach kind of place which I can do too!).
What was your first experience visiting Paris like, and how old were you?
I was nine-years-old when I first came to Paris. I was so excited and was so silly in my red beret tilted just so on my head. Laying eyes on Paris for the first time was like coming home. You know it when you see it and can feel it right through, I guess like falling in love. It was instant for me, and I had only been scheduled to come for the summer as a companion to a little French girl. My sister was the au pair for the girl and her brothers, and we went down to stay with her grandparents, we went sailing, there was a vineyard, every place I went just convinced me more and more that I was home, truly home. By the time September came, I begged my mother to stay, and I ended up spending most of 5th Grade (or CM2) going to public school in Paris. I studied ballet seven days a week under a strict Russian teacher who had been a prima ballerina. In my mind, of course, she was Alexandra Danilova, but I think I watched The Turning Point one too many times. Every Saturday, after school I would walk over the Île St. Louis, stop for a Coke, mostly at l’Escale, which is still there, and head towards the Marais where I would usually go to the Pompidou. I never ever got sick of going to that museum. I still get an annual pass because it is my favorite museum in Paris.
When and why did you move to Paris as an adult?
I’ve lived here a couple of times as an adult. But the most recent and permanent move was in 2001. I came with a duffle bag and my black Labrador retriever, a three-month apartment rental and a three-month job contract, but I knew I was never moving back to the U.S. I had made a deal with myself to move back, somehow, in the year 2000, but that year I was working in New York (at the World Trade Center no less), and I suddenly just made it my goal to find a way back. The why was really because when you know where you belong, you find a way to get there. Nothing gets in your way because all doubt gets kicked to the curb, and I can be extremely stubborn when I am focused on a goal.
Please tell us how you are related to the Coppola family of the film world?
So my mother and Francis were first cousins that grew up together. She and Tally (Talia Shire) were very close their whole lives, so I spent a large part of my childhood at her home and playing with her son Matthew (son of David Shire). I remember too when Jason and Robert were born (Schwartzman, sons of Jack), and I didn’t really get to know Sofia too well even though we are about the same age. Her mother Eleanor would send my mother boxes of Sofia’s clothes (she’s just a year older), so I had a lot of her hand-me-downs. She lived up in Napa and San Francisco, but we would go up for Easter and stay in his mansion in SF. My sister grew up playing with Nick Cage and his brothers as they are all about the same age. I haven’t seen much of any of them since moving here full time, but I don’t really think about it either. They are my family.
You recently produced a documentary about Pierre Cardin. Can you tell us about the film and the experience of working on it? Who were some of your favorite interviews in the film?
House of Cardin is such a special project for me personally. I met some of the most important people now in my life during this project. The directors David and Todd and I all had a rather magical connection that made working together very easy and productive, and I think that was what made the whole experience so special. Nearly everyone we met was magical in some way, especially everyone at Cardin. I enjoyed doing most of the French interviews, and I would have to say that my favourite top two were Jean-Michel Jarre and Jean-Paul Gaultier. They were both very kind and down-to-earth people who are very genuine about their passion for their work, and considering how well-known they both are, they still maintain an almost child-like fascination with life and are intellectually curious people. This trickled down to the people they worked with as well. They had the kindest people around them but also the hardest working. They both really left an impression on me.
Yumi Katsura with Pierre Cardin when she was studying haute couture in Paris
Jean Paul Gaultier
Cori & Philippe Starck
The directors with Naomi Campbell
What are some of your upcoming film projects?
I have recently begun working on an independent film project with the artist and film director Vincent Gagliostro. I have decided to really try to only work on projects that inspire me, and after several lengthy and intimate conversations with Vincent, I felt really excited to see his project get made. He has an amazing visual direction, and the story is so relevant, perhaps even more so now with everything going on in the world. It is early stages yet, and of course, now the world is on hold while we battle a virus that seems to know no boundaries. I have also pitched another feature documentary project to a major designer. Again, that is on hold right now, but I am hoping to get started on that if I can get all of the agreements in place. I had also begun work last year on developing an amazing documentary about mummies found in the Gobi Desert in China. I know I will be back up and running soon. This extra time is allowing me to more fully develop the direction I want each of these projects to take. I will keep you posted!
Who is Yumi Katsura and why are you writing a book about her?
Yumi Katsura is one of Japan’s greatest fashion designers. She is primarily known as a wedding dress designer as she is really the one who changed the wedding industry in Japan. Although she is well-known among the elite who can afford her wedding dresses and haute-couture, she is not a household name in the West which is a shame. One of her dresses is in the Costume Institute at The Met in New York, a washi dress, which is a stunning example of her delicate and intricately detailed designs. She holds the world record for the most pearls on a dress, and two of her wedding dresses are in the top ten list of most expensive wedding dresses ever made. In her late 80s, she is still a remarkably active woman. She never had any children but has earned the name “fairy godmother” to the women in Japan whose dreams she has helped come true. Her boutique in Tokyo is a very intimate experience, and she is very hands on with her clients. It was a funny coincidence to discover that when she had studied haute-couture in Paris, she had had Pierre (Cardin) as a guest teacher a few times. She even has a photo of an evening when she and the other Japanese students were at a dinner with him. He chose to take a photo with her. He often seems to know instinctively who will be a success, and he was often right. He hired Gaultier and Starck around the age of 17, and there are other examples of this. Yumi and I both really got along well, and she hired me to write her biography. I have not yet found the right publisher, but I am convinced that the right editor will love her story. She is a truly unique and inspiring woman, especially coming from Japan.
If you had an unlimited budget to produce a film, what would it be, and if it was a feature, who would you cast?
I love this question but I am torn between two types of stories. I have a great 1970s story about an up and coming actress who is mysteriously killed but the killer is never found, so a period piece that takes place in Hollywood, and I also have a more dystopian science fiction story that involves teleportation, parallel universes and something more dangerous even than A.I. If I go with the second one (possibly because I am currently re-reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, during lockdown, I would want a Harrison Ford-type. I haven’t thought much about the cast because I already have an image of my characters in my mind. My agent had wanted Liam Hemsworth, so I had started doing a re-write with him in mind. I am still working on this script right now.
What are some of your favorite French films?
There are about 100, but I have tried to only list the ones that really left a mark on me at a fundamental level.
Le Magnifique (1973) was, for me, one of the funniest films ever and spoke to the writer in me. Like many writers, much of my life has been spent inside some other land that I am living out in my head, and then there is the sudden interruption of “real life” that cuts into that blissful space, like the maid who suddenly appears on the beach, vacuuming while he is saving the beautiful girl and fighting off a group of armed assassins.
La Piscine (1969) is still one of my all-time favourite films to watch. I love the constant tension being played out, the actors were all perfectly cast in this respect, and to be honest, the clothes were absolutely dreamy too. Romy Schneider was an exceptionally beautiful woman, and since I was also a huge fan of Gainsbourge, I, of course, knew who Jane Birkin was, also a very stunning young woman. Alain Delon is a good introduction to gorgeous French men, so he certainly left an impression on me as well (blushing).
Plein Soleil (1960) is one of those films that you cannot help but be completely taken with. Alain Delon is absolutely delicious to watch, and the story is both romantic and terrifying at once. Patricia Highsmith is an excellent storyteller and translates to film perfectly.
Les Diaboliques (1955) is another favourite to watch. It is an excellent example of psychological horror. It is one of the great films with a hidden twist, and those are always the best, what you don’t see coming.
Diva (1981) is one of the films that made me want to live in Paris. I eventually made that dream come true by living in a huge loft in the 11th, my second apartment in Paris. I loved the minimalist touch, the empty space filled with the sound of opera (which is how I became friends with my neighbor who wondered who was blasting Maria Callas next door!). It was the first time I listened to music with the idea that it could in and of itself be a sensual experience, and I loved the idea of this illicit performance, unrecorded, to be heard only in the moment and remembered forever.
Le Ballon Rouge (1956) is one of those films you never forget. Another film that speaks to the mind of a writer or dreamer, a world, perhaps where a balloon might be your friend. It was also the notion of being somewhat an only child (my half-sister is nearly 10 years older than I am), so I had a vivid imagination. I am realizing through this interview, too, that I saw quite a few French films very early on in my life, and I think I must have fallen in love with Paris before I ever saw it with my own eyes.
A Little Romance (1979) while not technically a “French” film, it did take place in Paris and came out a few years before I myself would move to Paris as a young girl. It definitely stirred some romantic feelings, and as for many people, those feelings combined themselves into what has become a lifelong love affair with the city closest to my heart and being.
Pauline à la plage (1983) was rather eye-opening for me. I think I saw that before Le genou de Claire (1970) which I also loved. In general, French cinema has simply always been a part of my childhood and now my adult life. There are so many great French films, it is quite impossible to list them all!
Where do you live and what’s special about it?
I currently live in Rueil-Malmaison with my two daughters. It was certainly the right choice when the girls were babies. They used to attend the Waldorf school in the next town over. The whole area is very beautiful as we are right on the Seine. I walk on the Seine every morning usually for about an hour. It is truly peaceful. The Impressionnists were right to come to this area for inspiration. The banks are lined with weeping willow trees that float with the breeze, and there are families of ducks and swans that I have been watching for years. It is amazing that only 20 minutes outside of Paris, you have so much nature to enjoy. It was a wonderful place for the girls when they were little, but I admit, we are all itching to perhaps move back towards the city. As they get older, there is more and more to do with them or even for them to do on their own. I was wandering the streets of Paris from the age of nine, so as my youngest is already eight, it seems to be almost the right moment to move back to the city. I miss it and already spend most of my week at meetings in the city.
Why do you prefer Paris?
I prefer Paris to anywhere else I have ever lived, and I have lived in so many cities (Los Angeles, New York, Miami’s South Beach, Washington D.C., Nice and London). I guess there was just something magical for me that clicked the first time I came here as a child. As I said before, there was just a knowing that this was home. It was true love in every possible way. I have fallen in love here too, and there is no place more romantic that being in love in this city. Sitting at a café and kissing like there is no one around can only happen here. No one even notices because, it is of course Paris, a place where love abounds. The people here kiss when they meet, kiss when they part and are not afraid to be affectionate with one another. I love also the sound of Parisian French being spoken. It is also a city rich with history that can be found on nearly every corner, and there are so many hidden beautiful spots that you sometimes stumble upon, hidden treasure just behind a door. The bottom line is Paris is my true love. I feel free and at home here, totally and completely myself, in my element and fulfilled in my heart – it never gets old.
Click here to watch official trailer for House of Cardin.
Cori with Jean-Michele Jarre
The directors with Yumi Katsura, Japanese fashion designer
