On March 14, 1972, a page in the history of the seventh art was written. Indeed, at Loew’s State Theater in New York was held, that evening, the premiere of The Godfather (The Godfather), an adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel which remains, after 50 years, the most illustrious mafia chronicle. At the time, everyone involved needed this triumph, starting with the director, Francis Ford Coppola, whose career was going nowhere, and the Paramount studio, which had lost its former luster.
Coppola fought hard to impose his artistic vision. However, he was not in a strong position: despite good reviews, his films, including The Rain People (rain people1969), had not been successful, and the young director was struggling to feed his family, as he later said.
As for Paramount, a series of expensive flops, including the aptly named Waterloo, had damaged his reputation among the Hollywood giants. The studio was then owned by Gulf & Western, a conglomerate run by Charles Bluhdorn. Bluhdorn had recently placed the pugnacious and flamboyant Robert Evans at the head of Paramount’s production, giving him the mandate to restore the image of the venerable studio.
The two men had a lot of temperament, like Coppola, hence the impression of attending a series of cockfights when reading about the production of The Godfathera film that no one believed in.
Sergio Leone, Peter Bogdanovich, and Costa-Gavras, among other filmmakers, passed when they were offered the project.
It should be understood that the genesis of the film goes back to 1967, Paramount having acquired the rights of adaptation two years before the publication of the novel on the faith of a draft of 60 pages. The essence of the saga in the making was there, with this aging New York godfather, Don Corleone, who comes to bequeath his mafia empire to the only one of his three sons who tried to escape the middle, Michael Corleone.
Family first
Although he had acquired at a derisory price the rights to adapt what had become a bestseller, the studio seriously considered selling these to actor Burt Lancaster, who saw himself playing Don Corleone for a rival studio. Reasons for Paramount’s lack of enthusiasm? The failure of his recent mafia drama The Brotherhood (The Sicilian Brothers1968).
It is moreover in order not to lose the project that Robert Evans, in desperation, had resigned himself to hiring Coppola, whose only asset in the eyes of the studio resided in his Italian heritage.
Unimpressed by what he had read, Coppola initially declined the proposal, before changing his mind for purely pecuniary reasons. A second reading proved happier. The theme of the family challenged him, and he decided to make it the cornerstone of the film, to the great displeasure of Evans (who ended up agreeing with Coppola).
Coppola and Puzo worked on the screenplay separately, before merging the two versions. Fearing that the film would portray his community in a negative light, mobster Joseph Colombo, through the Italian American Civil Rights League, lobbied to have the word “Mafia” removed from the screenplay. In the meantime, Coppola won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for Biographical Drama. Patton (1970), which increased its room for manoeuvre.
Serial conflicts
The distribution of roles was not an easy task, however. The names of Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn and Laurence Olivier circulated… While Puzo and Coppola argued that Marlon Brando would be great as Don Corleone, the studio leaned more towards Ernest Borgnine, a veteran associated with recent successes, such as The Wild Bunch (The savage horde, 1969). Conversely, Brando accumulated bides whose production costs had often risen because of his whims.
So when Paramount bowed, Brando accepted a lower fee and promised in writing not to delay production — he needed it to work too. The same tensions arose for the role of Michael Corleone. Just about every established star and rising star was considered: Robert Redford, Martin Sheen, Ryan O’Neal, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty…
Burt Reynolds was a strong candidate, but Brando threatened to quit the film if hired by the studio. Coppola wanted newcomer Al Pacino from the start, seen as a junkie in The Panic in Needle Park (Panic in Needle Park1971).
“Evans, Bluhdorn and the other leaders hated the choices of cast of Coppola, especially Pacino, who they claimed was far too small to play the soldier who becomes the future Don. “A runt won’t play Michael,” Evans told Coppola,” reads an article by Vanity Fair published in 2009 on the occasion of the film’s release.
In the end, Robert Evans agreed to engage Pacino on the condition that Sonny, Michael’s boiling eldest, be played by James Caan. Coppola’s decision to give John Cazale the role of Fredo, the inept youngest, and his own sister Talia Shire that of Connie, the only daughter of the clan, however, did not make waves. For the account, almost the entire family of the filmmaker appears in the film, including his daughter, Sofia Coppola, then a baby.
life imitates art
The filmmaker developed a staging in the form of tableaus where the reduced light during the interior scenes would take on a marked symbolic dimension. It’s hard to believe now, as it’s part of the film’s visual identity, but Gordon Willis’ very dark cinematography nearly got Coppola fired.
“We can’t see anything! shouted the panicked studio, which received negative echoes from the set and which also found that Brando was mumbling his lines, including the famous “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse”.
When Coppola was refused to shoot the said sequence again, he understood that he was about to be replaced. In a fascinating example where life imitates art, the filmmaker took inspiration from Michael Corleone and got rid of all his enemies in one concerted attack. In an interview published by Empire in January 2022, Coppola explained, “I immediately fired everyone on my team who was pressuring me out. I went up there, and shot the scene a second time, and saved my life, basically, by firing all the people who were working to fire me. »
Like Cinderella
Finally, the film took the poster and people lined up in front of the cinemas. In the running for eleven Oscars, The Godfather won three: Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando) and Best Adapted Screenplay.
On the audio commentary recorded for the DVD in 2001, Coppola concludes: “While I was editing the film in Los Angeles, I was living in Jimmy Caan’s maid’s room because I had to keep my travel allowance to support my family […] It’s interesting because The Godfather is associated with all the money it made, but while I was shooting it, we lived in a small two-bedroom […] It’s funny given the subject of the film, but it’s basically a fairy tale. Cinderella that I lived. »
The saga would eventually have three films. In 1974, Francis Ford Coppola would sign another masterpiece with The Godfather Part II (The Godfather II), but that is another story.
The film The Godfather is available on most VOD platforms. The miniseries The Offeron the production of the film, is expected this spring on Paramount+.