The Movie Movie Gang

George Lucas represents a new force in Hollywood--moviemakers who received their training in the film schools, not the studios. With Francis Ford Coppola, 38, as elder statesman heading a core group of four directors, the new artisans form a tightly knit tribe, remarkably-Tree of fraternal competition. Together, they have almost taken over the industry. Coppola scored with The Godfather, Martin Scorsese, 34, with Taxi Driver, and Steven Spielberg, 30, with Jaws, the top-grossing film of all time. John Milius, 33, directed The Wind and the Lion and has written several scripts; Producer Gary Kurtz, 36, produced both Star Wars and American Graffiti.

Film is their single frame of reference, the only thing they seem to think or dream about. For them history began about 1900, when the first murky images started flickering on whitewashed walls. Describing Lucas' happy marriage, Coppola can only call it "sort of romantic, like kids picking oranges in an old Jane Powell movie." There are notable similarities among the group. "They all seem to have repressed childhoods of one form or another," says a friend. "Marty Scorsese is asthmatic, Francis Coppola had polio when he was a child, and Steve Spielberg is slight of build, like George. They all work out their fantasies on film."

In American Graffiti Lucas did more than that. He worked out his entire adolescence. Set in Modesto, Calif, where he grew up, the film is the perfect image of bored, rootless teen-agers in 1962, the year he finished high school. Says Lucas: "I spent my teen years cruising McHenry Avenue in Modesto." At that time his only ambition was to race cars, but a near-fatal crash two days before graduation forced him to spend three months in a hospital. When he came out, he decided to go to college. After two years at Modesto Junior College, he entered the University of Southern California Film School.

At U.S.C. he met his wife Marcia, who has become a top film editor. In addition to Star Wars, she has cut Scorsese's Taxi Driver and his upcoming New York, New York. About that time, Lucas also met Coppola, who has become a soul mate. Says Lucas: "We are opposites. If Francis says black, I say white. He is impulsive, always on the edge of trouble. I am inherently conservative. We complement each other." When he was only 23, Lucas received backing for THX-1138, an expansion of a science fiction short he had started at U.S.C. Though the movie failed commercially, it was impressive enough to encourage Universal to finance American Graffiti.

Success does not mean much to Lu cas. He still drives around in a 1967 Camaro, eats junk food, wears sneakers, jeans, and baggy Shetland sweaters. His main residence is still a small house in the San Francisco suburb of San Anselmo. He and Marcia also own a work pad in Beverly Hills. When they are there, the banister is covered with an array of jeans and corduroy trousers --the working outfit for both husband and wife.

Lucas' goal is to be independent enough to make small, esoteric films. Marcia, however, wants him to continue directing movies like Star Wars and Graffiti, that everyone can enjoy. Both may have their way. Star Wars may well make Lucas a rich man, able to work on two levels. The movie may help the tribe as well. Instead of showing their friendship by pricking fingers and mixing blood like so many Tom Sawyers, the Big Four directors--Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg and Lucas--have traded scripts and sometimes even percentage points of the profits from their new films. They are not yet Metro, Goldwyn and

Mayer--but they are getting close.

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