Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgisan old friend of Coppola's who was invited to document the making of the film in Atlanta had a more positive view of the production.
“I have no idea where Francis gets his energy from,” Figgis said. “Watching an 84-year-old man holding that huge team together, and having enough brains to be able to direct the actors, the camera and everything… He was up every morning taking notes on the way to the set, or he is he discusses his ideas with Roman, his son. And at the end of the day he is also the producer, so he thinks about his interest rate.'
“Him and Shia [LaBeouf] had a wonderful combative relationship that was very productive,” Figgis added. “Shia had a lot of questions, and sometimes Francis would get stressed about a lot of other things and react in a certain way. There was also a lot of humor in it, so it was very entertaining… But sometimes it was [Francis] was like, 'Ugh, I can't deal with this,' and he just went to the Silverfish and directed from there.
