Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Trilogy (Cambridge Film Handbooks)

Cambridge Film Handbooks

by Nick Browne (Editor)

In six essays written especially for this volume, The Godfather trilogy is reexamined from a variety of perspectives. Providing original analyses on the form and significance of Coppola's achievement, they demonstrate how the filmmaker revised the conventions of the American crime film in the Vietnam era, his treatment of the capitalism of the criminal underworld and its inherent violence, the power struggles within Hollywood over the film, and the contribution of opera to the epic force and cinematic style of Coppola's vision of an American criminal dynasty.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 1999

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book makes me so happy I never took film studies and was never any kind of academic. O poor academics! It seems you have to always write essays in which you must repeat certain words over, and over, and over again. Words like

Subvert
Ideology
Contradiction (usually preceded by "inherent")
Myth
Transformative
Authenticate

It's enough to make you put your head in a bucket and sing "The Teddy-Bear's Picnic" loudly and inanely several times over. Here's an example of the kind of sentences which make clouds cover the sun and bring a leaden feeling to the heart :

In other words, Bonnie and Clyde contains the kinds of contradictions we find in gangster films before it, and like them, it disguises these contradictions. However, Bonnie and Clyde masks its contradictions by playing up the myth of the rebellious individual and not recuperating its subversion of the dominant ideology.

(p113)

If I wasn't so softhearted Glenn Man, author of the above, would already be sleeping with the fishes. Or slouching with the unemployed, his choice.

But there is one essay in here which is fun, because it's the flimsiest and is full of fun facts.

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE GODFATHER

The studio executive who wanted to do Puzo's book hired Coppola because Richard Brooks, Costa-Gavras, Kazan, Penn, Schaffner, Zinneman, Lewis Gilbert and Peter Yates had already turned them down. No one wanted to make a movie about the Mafia! No thank you very much! Also, they said it glorified crime. Coppola got the job because he said yes, not because the studio thought he was such a burning talent.
Even Coppola hummed and hawed about it. His mate George Lucas convinced him to do it because it would be such a hit he wouldn't have to direct any of this commercial crap again…!

The studio didn't want Pacino or Brando. They had to be persuaded. They made a deal – James Caan for Sonny (Coppola didn't want him) and we'll okay the too-short new guy and the past-it old guy.

The Italian-American Civil Rights League badgered Paramount to remove the worlds Mafia or Cosa Nostra from the first movie. One member of this Italian-American negotiating team was Anthony Colombo, whose father Joseph Colombo ran a mob outfit in Brooklyn. When that fun fact emerged Paramount told the IACRL to take a running jump.

Anyway, the first two Godfather movies are brilliant, the third one is awful and this book would be given a concrete overcoat if I had any liquid concrete handy.

[Ryan Splenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great collection of essays that examine all three of The Godfather films, which were directed by Francis Ford Coppola. There is a nice section on the history of the production of the films, as well as sections on the mythology of the mafia and ethnicity breakdowns. This is definitely worth reading if you are a film fan.

[Randell Carlton Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

10.30.15- 12.24.15

[Alex Bledsoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Six think pieces about the Godfather films, five of which are pretty interesting (the one about the thematic connection to Italian opera struck me as thin). Film criticism is always an iffy thing, but these pieces aren't really trying to convince you of anything, just explore the themes and concepts implicit and explicit in the films. If you love the Godfather movies, you'll enjoy these; if you don't, these won't change your mind.