The year 2022 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the masterpiece The Godfather (The Godfather). For the occasion, the Paramount+ platform and the Paramount studio, once bailed out by the phenomenal success of Francis Ford Coppola’s film, are offering The Offer (review in box), a historical series mixed with fiction dedicated to this grandiose work. The initiative is not surprising, in that Hollywood has always liked to look in the mirror.
In the last month alone, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (A talent in solid gold), where actor Nicolas Cage self-parodies, and Xwhere apprentice pornographers are murdered on the farm where they came to shoot, offered contrasting examples of this fascination of the seventh art for itself.
Make the ordinary with the exceptional
Of Sunset Blvd. (Dusk Boulevardby Billy Wilder, 1950) to The Souvenir Part II (by Joanna Hogg, 2021), via Singin’ in the Rain (Let’s sing in the rainby Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952), 8 1/2 (by Federico Fellini, 1963), The American night (by Francois Truffaut, 1973), The Day of the Locust (The day of the plagueby John Schlesinger, 1978), Postcards from the Edge (Hollywood Kissesby Mike Nichols, 1990), The Player (The leaderby Robert Altman, 1992), Ed Wood (from Tim Burton, 1994), Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (Wes Craven’s Unusual Nightmare1994), Mulholland Drive (from David Lynch, 2001), Pass (by Bertrand Tavernier, 2002), or even The Artist (The artistby Michel Hazanavicius, 2011), to name a few, films set in the marvelous world of cinema, or in its less brilliant margins, form a sub-genre in themselves.
A sub-genre, therefore, of which the big screen does not have a monopoly, as evidenced by television series such as Surroundings Where barry (not to mention all those relating to the television industry). The Offer is, however, unique in that its foundations (but not all of its developments) are historical. In this respect, the fact that the series ties in with the story of a real film puts it more in line with mankby David Fincher, on the origins of the film Citizen Kane, Hitchcockby Sacha Gervasi, on the set of psychology (Psychosis), WhereShadow of the Vampire (The shadow of the vampire), of. Elias Merhige, both making of and pure fiction about that of Nosferatu.
save his soul
Whether or not it is based on facts, there is more to this self-reflexive tendency than mere vanity. In an essay published in variety in 2015, John Anderson went with this hypothesis:
“What’s consistent with movies about movies—a genre that goes back to Edison Studios—is that they always seem to be about transformation, which makes sense: the near-miraculous alchemy of light, words, and chemical products [ou pixels] in the art of entertainment makes cinema synonymous with change and reimagining. And given that one of the byproducts of transformation is redemption, it makes sense that saving one’s soul would be the other theme of movies about cinema. »
It should be specified here that for the artist, the soul is generally synonymous with artistic integrity. Hence the recurrence, in these productions, of protagonists confronted with innumerable creative and logistical difficulties, as well as the interference of fundraisers and other executives with an accounting mentality. Moreover, the antagonist in The Offer is such a character. Inexplicably relegated to the background in the series, Coppola for his part corresponded in every way to this idea of the “besieged” artist, as was evoked in a recent wide angle devoted to The Godfather :
“Coppola fought hard to impose his artistic vision. However, he was not in a strong position: despite good reviews, his films […] had not been successful, and the young director was struggling to feed his family. »
In short, in the face of so much adversity, each film is a miracle: a reality of which anyone who has known or has been interested in the process is aware. Depending on the sensibilities of the filmmakers lending themselves to the exercise, the variations are endless: satirical, hagiographic, tragic, elegiac, realistic…
The temptation of complacency
However, there is a risk in looking at yourself in the mirror in this way, introspection sometimes yielding to self-satisfaction. In The GuardianSteve Rose wrote in 2021 on the subject:
“But when these stories are rewritten into fiction and run through the machine that made them, they are prone to a mythological and generally self-satisfied glorification of Hollywood. »
If the films mentioned stand out, it is in particular because they avoid this pitfall. Many others do not escape it and, getting lost in a superficial narcissistic contemplation, in the long term leave no more traces than a selfie. It’s probably the fate that awaits The Offerwhose complacency is the least of the problems here.
Never mind, after television, the cinema will resume its rights to this story with the film Francis and The Godfather, in which Oscar Isaac will play Francis Ford Coppola. Let’s hope that for this second look back, the rear view mirror does not turn, again, into a mirror with larks.