Steven Spielberg proclaimed Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather the greatest American film ever made at the director’s American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award ceremony, Variety reports. Presented on April 26th on the AFI’s 50th anniversary, Coppola was honored by his peers and collaborators, such as Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Adam Driver, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, Dustin Hoffman, Ron Howard, C. Thomas Howell, Diane Lane, Spike Lee, Ralph Macchio, his son Roman, granddaughter Gia, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, who praised his dedication to film as an art form through both success and failure.
The speakers also shared fond memories of the influence and impact the filmmaker and his work had on them. Lucas, a lifelong collaborator, recounted how the pair first met on the set of Coppola’s first studio film, Finian’s Rainbow, which would lead to their founding of the production company American Zoetrope, and how Coppola had later defended Lucas’s American Graffiti from irate studio executives, offering to buy the project.
Spielberg, a fellow New Hollywood veteran, would go on to express how Coppola’s work impacted him and others, saying,
“The Godfather, for me, is the greatest American film ever made. Many artists can and do take a bow from their work on a page, on a canvas, on a screen, but our applause for you, Francis, is from a different kind of audience. When we’re young, it’s our parents we want to make proud, and then it’s our friends, and then it’s our colleagues, and finally, it’s our peers, but you, sir, are peerless.”
Coppola’s AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony will air on TNT on June 18th at 10 p.m. ET/PT, with an encore to follow on Turner Classic Movies on July 31st at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
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