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Who would’ve thought that Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, would have any connection to a forgotten automobile designer in Preston Tucker? Coppola taking on this project in 1988 seemed like another instance of the director making up for financial debts and accepting a for-hire gig. However, for Coppola, it wouldn’t have taken much research to recognize just how much he has in common with Tucker. Tucker: The Man and His Dream, starring Jeff Bridges, shows us that building vehicles and directing films aren’t quite dissimilar. Coppola’s dynamic career has demonstrated that art and commerce rarely coexist, but with a factory-assembled product like cars, artistic ambition is quickly suppressed under the capitalist machine.
Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Tucker’ Feels Semi-Autobiographical
Following the critical and financial disaster in One From the Heart, Francis Coppola’s career was in ruins, financially bankrupt, and seemingly a far cry from his halcyon days in the ’70s. As a result, he essentially became a director for hire, working on more anonymous projects like an adaptation of the popular S.E. Hinton novel, The Outsiders, and even the Michael Jackson Disneyworld short film, Captain EO. Tucker: The Man and His Dream, about Preston Tucker’s (Bridges) audacious but ill-fated attempt to revolutionize the car industry became a Rosetta Stone for understanding Coppola’s arc as a filmmaker.
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Tucker follows the titular figure’s uphill battle to fund his prized creation (the Tucker 48, also known as the “Tucker Torpedo,”) with contributions from financiers and shareholders. Tucker believes he’s found the way of the future with this extravagant automobile model featuring disc brakes and pop-out windshields. If the way Tucker boasts about his ultramodern innovation to his family and other manufacturers is evocative of another ambitious, independent artist defying industry expectations, that’s because it’s supposed to be. Before learning of his story, Coppola had been fascinated by Tucker since he first laid eyes on his car in his youth. He began collecting the rare Tucker 48s during the film’s extensive development process. Like Coppola, Tucker places no barriers between family and his professional life, as he indoctrinates his wunderkind designer Alex Tremulis (Elias Koteas) into his tight-knit family.
In the wake of Megalopolis, Coppola’s long-gestating passion project that finally hit theaters in 2024 to mixed (to put it very mildly) responses, Tucker has enriched in thematic weight. In hindsight, the Tucker 48 was clearly a stand-in for Megalopolis, a film about a creative titan with futuristic visions of the world, which Coppola had been working on for decades. Coppola portrays Tucker as a grandiose, almost mythic figure whose vision exceeds the shallow artistry of the mainstream automobile industry. Because of the director’s extensive history of struggling to get movies financed, the titular character doesn’t feel hubristic. If anything, he plays like a scrappy underdog, despite his highfalutin manner of entrepreneurship.
Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Tucker’ Examines the Struggles of Art and Commerce
Tucker also underlines Coppola’s unshakable optimism within a world of skepticism surrounding the collision of art and commerce. When Tucker is brought to trial for stock fraud, he gives a rousing speech about the predatory nature of capitalism. Although this climax reinforces how corporations prey on small businesses and entrepreneurs, Coppola takes solace in Tucker’s innovations, which are built into all cars today, having a lasting legacy far outweighing the impact of any corporate executive. Like many extraordinary thinkers ahead of their time, Tucker did not live to see his seismic contributions to automobiles become standard in the industry. Coppola, whose self-assuredness was responsible for producing some of the finest films in history, suggests that no ingenious artistic expression, whether it be Tucker, One From the Heart, or Megalopolis, will be lost to time, no matter if it’s disregarded upon release, as Tucker was considered a box office disappointment.
Before he adopted the screen persona as a lovable stoner in The Big Lebowski or a gruff, marble-mouthed Western star in True Grit, Jeff Bridges was a traditionally handsome, classic movie star, and nowhere is his innate charm more lively than in Tucker. While he exploits Tucker’s likability and wholehearted values, he never becomes saccharine, allowing the audience to reserve judgment over whether he’s a genuinely benign individual or a con artist. The message of Francis Ford Coppola’s film, aspiring for creative autonomy even if independence is futile, is unlocked by Bridges’ spirited performance. In the end, Tucker straddles the line between a cautionary tale and a motivational story.
Tucker: The Man and His Dream is available to watch for free on Tubi in the U.S.
Tucker: The Man and His Dream: In post-war America, visionary engineer Preston Tucker attempts to revolutionize the automobile industry with a groundbreaking car design. Facing intense opposition from established automotive giants and grappling with his own ambitious vision, Tucker’s pursuit of innovation challenges the entrenched power structures of the time.
- Release Date
- August 12, 1988
- Director
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Cast
- Jeff Bridges , Joan Allen , Martin Landau , Frederic Forrest , Mako , Dean Stockwell , Christian Slater , Nina Siemaszko , Marshall Bell , Peter Donat , Elias Koteas , Jay O. Sanders , Corin Nemec , Don Novello , Anders Johnson , Dean Goodman , John X. Heart , Patti Austin , Sandy Bull
- Runtime
- 110 minutes
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