The Godfather (1972)Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, Talia Shire
The British Film Institute (BFI) has a series of books called BFI Classics. They are short books, about 100 pages long, written by different film critics and scholars about classic films. After a long wait they have finally released Jon Lewis's book on The Godfather. My copy arrived in the mail last week but before I read it I wanted to have the film fresh in my mind so sat down to watch it this afternoon.
Michael Corleone (Pacino) is a recently returned war hero. He is the son of the respected and feared underworld figure Don Vito Corleone (Brando), though Michael is keen to distance himself from his father's business. When an up and coming drug dealer, Virgil Sollozzo, comes to the Don seeking his protection over his business in exchange for a share in the profits, despite the advice from his consigliere Tom Hagan (Duvall) that the drug trade is the new frontier for their business, Don Corleone is morally opposed to drugs so declines. Sollozzo organises a hit on the Don in response. While the hit fails, it leaves the Don in a critical condition. The running of his empire is handed over to his hot tempered son Sonny (Caan) and Michael finds himself slowly but surely being dragged into the family business.
The film is based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo. Coppola collaborated with Puzo on the screenplay, but it is amazing the way in which the film became Coppola's film. Puzo's novel is fantastic. It is incredibly readable, a real page turner, but is actually quite pulpy. There is a whole storyline that follows Johnny Fontane in his show business dealings which is not really explored in the film, not to mention all of that stuff about Lucy Mancini and her enormous vagina. Coppola took this intriguing but pulpy material and transformed it into an operatic cinematic masterpiece. Key to this was a slight change in the focus of the story. Like most of Coppola's films The Godfather is concerned with the family. For Coppola, The Godfather was not a gangster film. It was a film about a king and his three sons. This slight change in focus which turned The Godfather into this epic family saga, and in the process differentiated The Godfather from the many many gangster films which had come before. This idea of the family side of the mafia would then become a focus of later films like Goodfellas, before really reaching it's full fruition in The Sopranos.
The Godfather is Francis Ford Coppola at his best, even if he would not agree with me saying that. In the 1970s Coppola seemed to have struck this perfect balance between his art film sensibilities and Hollywood's desire for commercially attractive realism. But Coppola's personal interest has always lay with making more artistic, personal films (as is evident in the difference between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II in which he had more creative freedom), and as such his career has headed further and further away from realism towards art film, to the point that this one time commercial phenomenon now devotes his time to making films that no one really has an interest in except himself. As film critic David Denby said, "The day Francis Coppola abandoned realism for artifice has to rank among the saddest in film history."
This was a real meeting of the old and new Hollywood. From the old Hollywood you had not only the triumphant return of the legendary Marlon Brando, who Coppola had to fight tooth and nail with Paramount executives in order to cast, but also bit part appearances from old guard stars like Sterling Hayden and Richard Conte linking the film back to the old crime thrillers of the 1940s and 1950s. Then you had the real launch of the careers of the next generation of Hollywood stars; Pacino, Keaton, Caan, Cazale, Duvall and Shire.
What amazes me when I watch The Godfather is the way that the film manages to transport me. Coppola and his team have created this world. For starters, the film looks absolutely stunning (particularly on the recent restoration for DVD and Blu-ray). By this I don't just mean that in terms of the beautiful cinematography or the detail that has gone into costume and set design. The Godfather looks different to other films. The film has a very distinctive amber tinted colour palate comprised of browns and oranges and, of course, black. Visually The Godfather is a very dark film. So many scenes take place in shadows and darkness that you really need to have the lights off or draw the curtains to watch this one or you just won't be able to see things. These visuals combined with Nino Rota's iconic score mean perfectly complement the story and the performances and just captivate you as a viewer.
The primary criticism of The Godfather when it came out was that it glorified the mafia. Vito Corleone is indeed presented as an honourable figure, a man or principle operating in an environment without any (as demonstrated by his refusal to get his family involved in the drug trade). However, the audience is not really encouraged to identify with Vito. We are encouraged to see the world through Michael's eyes. Michael is a much less heroic and glamorous figure. Michael is a cold, calculating and ruthless businessman. The fact that people had come out of the film with admiration for Michael so concerned Coppola that it was one of the key factors in his decision to agree to make a sequel. In The Godfather Part II and the later Part III it is made abundantly clear that Michael is not a good guy. His sins overtake him, leaving him well beyond any possible redemption.
Not only was The Godfather a massive critical success, it was also a box office sensation. It became the highest grossing film of all time, holding that position until the release of Spielberg's Jaws three years later. We live in a time now where there is a reasonably clear distinction between films which are box office successes and films which are critical/artistic successes. Even something like Titanic which seemingly straddled both, winning a swag of awards as well as dominating the box office, received it's fair share of critical panning. But The Godfather survived the hype of being a box office sensation to come to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.
The film instantly impacted the popular culture scene. Brando's performance became iconic, as did the image of the horse head in the bed. Quotes like "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" and "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes" became part of the vernacular. What is most interesting though is the way that The Godfather impacted on the real life mafia. Many gangsters started seeking to emulate the characters from the film, characters who were essentially idealised versions of themselves. The values and ideals of the mafia were being learned from The Godfather rather than from previous generations. The fantastic HBO series The Sopranos took great delight in demonstrating the impact The Godfather had on it's characters, with constant quotations and referencing by characters.
I know it is lame and unoriginal to say this, but The Godfather is one of my favourite films. I think it is one of the absolute finest pieces of cinema ever made and I think it deserves every bit of praise that it gets. Obviously everyone has their own tastes. I happen to love gangster movies, which suits in this case, but even if you don't and therefore don't enjoy the film, you have to appreciate this perfect combination of absolute top quality acting, direction, writing, design, cinematography and music. This film just ticks all the boxes.
The British Film Institute (BFI) has a series of books called BFI Classics. They are short books, about 100 pages long, written by different film critics and scholars about classic films. After a long wait they have finally released Jon Lewis's book on The Godfather. My copy arrived in the mail last week but before I read it I wanted to have the film fresh in my mind so sat down to watch it this afternoon.
Michael Corleone (Pacino) is a recently returned war hero. He is the son of the respected and feared underworld figure Don Vito Corleone (Brando), though Michael is keen to distance himself from his father's business. When an up and coming drug dealer, Virgil Sollozzo, comes to the Don seeking his protection over his business in exchange for a share in the profits, despite the advice from his consigliere Tom Hagan (Duvall) that the drug trade is the new frontier for their business, Don Corleone is morally opposed to drugs so declines. Sollozzo organises a hit on the Don in response. While the hit fails, it leaves the Don in a critical condition. The running of his empire is handed over to his hot tempered son Sonny (Caan) and Michael finds himself slowly but surely being dragged into the family business.
The film is based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo. Coppola collaborated with Puzo on the screenplay, but it is amazing the way in which the film became Coppola's film. Puzo's novel is fantastic. It is incredibly readable, a real page turner, but is actually quite pulpy. There is a whole storyline that follows Johnny Fontane in his show business dealings which is not really explored in the film, not to mention all of that stuff about Lucy Mancini and her enormous vagina. Coppola took this intriguing but pulpy material and transformed it into an operatic cinematic masterpiece. Key to this was a slight change in the focus of the story. Like most of Coppola's films The Godfather is concerned with the family. For Coppola, The Godfather was not a gangster film. It was a film about a king and his three sons. This slight change in focus which turned The Godfather into this epic family saga, and in the process differentiated The Godfather from the many many gangster films which had come before. This idea of the family side of the mafia would then become a focus of later films like Goodfellas, before really reaching it's full fruition in The Sopranos.
The Godfather is Francis Ford Coppola at his best, even if he would not agree with me saying that. In the 1970s Coppola seemed to have struck this perfect balance between his art film sensibilities and Hollywood's desire for commercially attractive realism. But Coppola's personal interest has always lay with making more artistic, personal films (as is evident in the difference between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II in which he had more creative freedom), and as such his career has headed further and further away from realism towards art film, to the point that this one time commercial phenomenon now devotes his time to making films that no one really has an interest in except himself. As film critic David Denby said, "The day Francis Coppola abandoned realism for artifice has to rank among the saddest in film history."
This was a real meeting of the old and new Hollywood. From the old Hollywood you had not only the triumphant return of the legendary Marlon Brando, who Coppola had to fight tooth and nail with Paramount executives in order to cast, but also bit part appearances from old guard stars like Sterling Hayden and Richard Conte linking the film back to the old crime thrillers of the 1940s and 1950s. Then you had the real launch of the careers of the next generation of Hollywood stars; Pacino, Keaton, Caan, Cazale, Duvall and Shire.
What amazes me when I watch The Godfather is the way that the film manages to transport me. Coppola and his team have created this world. For starters, the film looks absolutely stunning (particularly on the recent restoration for DVD and Blu-ray). By this I don't just mean that in terms of the beautiful cinematography or the detail that has gone into costume and set design. The Godfather looks different to other films. The film has a very distinctive amber tinted colour palate comprised of browns and oranges and, of course, black. Visually The Godfather is a very dark film. So many scenes take place in shadows and darkness that you really need to have the lights off or draw the curtains to watch this one or you just won't be able to see things. These visuals combined with Nino Rota's iconic score mean perfectly complement the story and the performances and just captivate you as a viewer.
The primary criticism of The Godfather when it came out was that it glorified the mafia. Vito Corleone is indeed presented as an honourable figure, a man or principle operating in an environment without any (as demonstrated by his refusal to get his family involved in the drug trade). However, the audience is not really encouraged to identify with Vito. We are encouraged to see the world through Michael's eyes. Michael is a much less heroic and glamorous figure. Michael is a cold, calculating and ruthless businessman. The fact that people had come out of the film with admiration for Michael so concerned Coppola that it was one of the key factors in his decision to agree to make a sequel. In The Godfather Part II and the later Part III it is made abundantly clear that Michael is not a good guy. His sins overtake him, leaving him well beyond any possible redemption.
Not only was The Godfather a massive critical success, it was also a box office sensation. It became the highest grossing film of all time, holding that position until the release of Spielberg's Jaws three years later. We live in a time now where there is a reasonably clear distinction between films which are box office successes and films which are critical/artistic successes. Even something like Titanic which seemingly straddled both, winning a swag of awards as well as dominating the box office, received it's fair share of critical panning. But The Godfather survived the hype of being a box office sensation to come to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.
The film instantly impacted the popular culture scene. Brando's performance became iconic, as did the image of the horse head in the bed. Quotes like "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" and "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes" became part of the vernacular. What is most interesting though is the way that The Godfather impacted on the real life mafia. Many gangsters started seeking to emulate the characters from the film, characters who were essentially idealised versions of themselves. The values and ideals of the mafia were being learned from The Godfather rather than from previous generations. The fantastic HBO series The Sopranos took great delight in demonstrating the impact The Godfather had on it's characters, with constant quotations and referencing by characters.
I know it is lame and unoriginal to say this, but The Godfather is one of my favourite films. I think it is one of the absolute finest pieces of cinema ever made and I think it deserves every bit of praise that it gets. Obviously everyone has their own tastes. I happen to love gangster movies, which suits in this case, but even if you don't and therefore don't enjoy the film, you have to appreciate this perfect combination of absolute top quality acting, direction, writing, design, cinematography and music. This film just ticks all the boxes.
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