Advice

I heard an interview with Francis Ford Coppola on Fresh Air last week.  I'm not a huge fan of his -- and by that I don't mean that I don't like his work, I've just never really known anything about him.  This interview was really riveting though, and really piqued my interest in his work and him as a person.  In the last part of the interview he gave me an enormous surprise when asked about advice to young filmmakers.

His advice to a man?

Get married. 

Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised, but his words really took me aback. I suppose my surprise is at least partially due to a Hollywood stereotype that includes disdain for marriage -- or maybe more accurately, disrespect for marriage.  Not that the rest of the country respects it all that much better than Hollywood does, but at least from the outside, there seems to be a pervasive flippant attitude about marriage amongst celebrity-types.

In the interview, Coppola goes on to explain that marriage makes a man a little more responsible and aspire to a more settled life.  At least it did for him.  Whether his experience extrapolates to the rest of society is an open questions, and a good one I think.

His advice to a woman, however?

Don't get married.  Because then you'll have a man wanting you to sacrifice for his career.

So, I suppose for the refreshing-ness of the first bit of advice, he throws in a little status quo too.

Marriage so often gets a bad rap, so his take on it was really refreshing for me to hear.  And marriage is hard, without question.  But marriage is also a blessing, and it was good for me to hear that from an unexpected place.

The interview lasts about thirty minutes and you can find it here.