| The Godfather | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Francis Ford Coppola |
| Produced by | Albert S. Ruddy |
| Screenplay by | Mario Puzo Francis Ford Coppola Robert Towne (uncredited) |
| Based on | The Godfather by Mario Puzo |
| Starring | Marlon Brando Al Pacino James Caan Richard S. Castellano Robert Duvall John Cazale Sterling Hayden John Marley Richard Conte Diane Keaton |
| Music by | Nino Rota Carmine Coppola Carlo Savina |
| Cinematography | Gordon Willis |
| Editing by | William H. Reynolds Peter Zinner[1] |
| Studio | Alfran Productions |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | March 15, 1972 (US) |
| Running time | 175 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Sicilian |
| Budget | $6.5 million[2] |
| Box office | $245,066,411 |
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne,[3] the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte and Diane Keaton, and features John Cazale, Talia Shire, and Abe Vigoda. The story, spanning the years 1945 to 1955, chronicles the experiences of the Italian-American Corleone family. Two sequels followed: The Godfather Part II in 1974, and The Godfather Part III in 1990.
The Godfather received Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In addition, it had been ranked third – behind Citizen Kane (1941) and Casablanca (1942) – on the AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies list by the American Film Institute, and second when the list was published again in 2007.[4]
Contents |
During his daughter Connie's (Talia Shire) wedding reception, crime family patriarch Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) hears requests for favors, one of which comes from singer Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) asking for help in landing a movie role that will revitalize his flagging career. The Don's adopted son and family consigliere, Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), is dispatched to Hollywood to meet with wealthy studio head Jack Woltz (John Marley) to fulfill Fontane's request. Woltz angrily refuses to cast Fontane, but when he later finds the severed head of his prized racehorse in his bed, he changes his mind.
Upon Hagen's return, drug lord Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) asks Don Corleone to protect the rival Tattaglia family's heroin business. Disapproving of drug trafficking and fearing the loss of his political influence, he rejects the proposal and sends his henchman, Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana), to spy on Sollozzo and the Tattaglias, but they kill Brasi.
Sollozzo's men try to assassinate Don Corleone; he survives, but is severely wounded. Sollozzo then kidnaps Hagen and persuades him to offer Corleone's eldest son, Sonny (James Caan), the deal previously offered to the Don. As a warning, the Tattaglias send the Corleones fish wrapped in Luca Brasi's bulletproof vest to confirm that he "sleeps with the fishes". Vito's youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino), thwarts a second assassination attempt at the hospital where his father is recuperating, but in the process he is accosted by corrupt police Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden), who breaks his jaw. Sonny retaliates by having Tattaglia's son, Bruno, killed.
Michael, who previously wanted nothing to do with the "family business", volunteers to kill Sollozzo and McCluskey, and Sonny reluctantly approves. While meeting with them at a local restaurant in a supposed attempt to settle the dispute, Michael goes to the bathroom where a gun has been planted for him, returns to the table and kills Sollozzo and McCluskey. He leaves the country and takes refuge in Sicily, where he soon marries a young local woman named Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli). The third Corleone brother, Fredo (John Cazale), is sent to Las Vegas, where he is sheltered by Corleone associate Moe Greene (Alex Rocco). Open warfare soon erupts between the Corleones and the other members of the Five Families, while the authorities begin to clamp down on organized crime. Vito is particularly distressed when he learns of Michael's involvement, as he had always hoped for better things for his favorite son.
At one point Sonny impulsively leaves the guarded family compound to confront Connie's husband Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo), who has been abusing her. Sonny beats up Carlo on the street and threatens to kill him if he ever hits Connie again. When Carlo again beats Connie, an enraged Sonny speeds for her home. En route, he is ambushed and murdered by machine gun-wielding thugs at a toll booth. Meanwhile, Michael narrowly escapes death in Sicily when his wife is killed by a car bomb intended for him.
To end the gang war, Vito meets with the Five Family heads and settles their dispute, withdrawing his opposition to the Tattaglias' heroin business and swearing to forego revenge for Sonny's death. He deduces from the negotiations that the Tattaglias were acting on behalf of the more powerful Don Emilio Barzini (Richard Conte). With his safety now guaranteed, Michael returns home. More than a year later, he marries his longtime girlfriend, Kay Adams (Diane Keaton). As his father withdraws from active control of the Corleone family, and as Fredo is seen as incapable of shouldering the Don's responsibilities, Michael becomes head of the family business, which he promises Kay will be legitimate within five years.
Biding his time, Michael allows rival families to pressure Corleone enterprises and eat away at their revenues, disturbing the caporegimes. He directs them not to retaliate, disclosing plans to move family operations to Nevada while spinning off New York operations to family members who stay behind. Michael also replaces Hagen with his father as his consigliere; Vito explains to Hagen that he and Michael have longer-range plans for him and the family.
Michael travels to Las Vegas, intending to buy out Greene's stake in the family's casinos. Greene angrily rejects the proposal, deriding the Corleones as a fading power. Michael is particularly angered when Fredo, under the sway of Greene and his associates, warns his brother that Greene is too important to be cast aside.
Vito Corleone collapses and dies in his vegetable garden while playing with his young grandson Anthony. At the funeral, caporegime Salvatore Tessio (Abe Vigoda) arranges a meeting between Michael and Don Barzini, now seen as the dominant figure in the New York families. As Vito had warned Michael, Tessio's involvement signals his treachery; the planned meeting is intended to result in Michael's assassination. The meeting is set for the same day as the christening of Connie and Carlo's son, to whom Michael will stand as godfather.
As the christening proceeds, Corleone assassins murder the other New York dons and Moe Greene in Las Vegas. After the christening, Tessio learns that Michael is aware of his betrayal, and is taken off to his death. Michael confronts Carlo over his presumed involvement in setting up Sonny's murder, banishes him from the family and hands him a plane ticket to Las Vegas. After Carlo confesses he betrayed Sonny to Barzini, he is escorted to a waiting car, where he is garroted from behind by caporegime Peter Clemenza (Richard S. Castellano).
Later, a distraught Connie accuses Michael of having her husband killed. When Kay confronts him privately, he denies killing Carlo, an answer she accepts. Soon afterward, Michael meets with his capos, who greet him as "Don Corleone" and kiss his hand. As Kay watches from another room, the office door closes in her face.
Francis Ford Coppola was not the first choice to direct. Italian director Sergio Leone was offered the job first, but he declined in order to direct his own gangster opus, Once Upon a Time in America, which focused on Jewish-American gangsters.[5] Peter Bogdanovich was then approached but he also declined the offer and made What's Up, Doc? instead. According to Robert Evans, head of Paramount Pictures at the time, Coppola also did not initially want to direct the film because he feared it would glorify the Mafia and violence, and thus reflect poorly on his Sicilian and Italian heritage; on the other hand, Evans specifically wanted an Italian-American to direct the film because his research had shown that previous films about the Mafia that were directed by non-Italians had fared dismally at the box office, and he wanted to, in his own words, "smell the spaghetti". When Coppola hit upon the idea of making it a metaphor for American capitalism, however, he eagerly agreed to take the helm.[6] At the time, Coppola had directed five feature films, the most notable of which was the adaptation of the stage musical Finian's Rainbow–although he had also received an Academy Award for co-writing Patton in 1970.[7] Coppola was in debt to Warner Bros. for $400,000 following budget overruns on George Lucas's THX 1138, which Coppola had produced, and he took The Godfather on Lucas's advice.[8] Years later, he said that Paramount chose him because he was a young director (he only turned 31 a month into shooting) who presumably could be pushed around.[9]
There was intense friction between Coppola and Paramount, and several times Coppola was almost replaced. As early as the first week, Coppola was nearly fired when Pacino was badly injured, delaying production. Paramount maintains that its skepticism was due to a rocky start to production, though Coppola believes that the first week went extremely well. The studio thought that Coppola failed to stay on schedule, frequently made production and casting errors, and insisted on unnecessary expenses, and two producers unsuccessfully tried to convince another filmmaker to take Coppola's place. The producers scapegoated the other filmmaker when their attempt to fire Coppola became known. Because the producers told him that the other filmmaker had attempted a coup, Coppola says he was shadowed by a replacement director, who was ready to take over if Coppola was fired. Despite such intense pressure, he managed to defend his decisions and avoid being replaced.[9]
Paramount was in financial trouble at the time of production and was desperate for a "big hit" to boost business, hence the pressure Coppola faced during filming. They wanted The Godfather to appeal to a wide audience and threatened Coppola with a "violence coach" to make the film more exciting. Coppola added a few more violent scenes to keep the studio happy. The scene in which Connie smashed kitchen dishes after finding out Carlo was cheating was added for this reason.[9]
The film was originally budgeted for $2 million, and was scripted as a modern adaptation. However, when Coppola got his hands on the script, he was adamant that it be set in the same time period as the book, from 1945 to 1955. This required a large number of second unit shots, some of which embarrassed Coppola at the time.[9]
Coppola's casting choices were unpopular with studio executives at Paramount Pictures, particularly Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone. Coppola's first two choices for the role were both Brando and Laurence Olivier, but Olivier's agent refused the role, saying, "Lord Olivier is not taking any jobs. He's very sick. He's gonna die soon and he's not interested" (Olivier lived 18 years after the refusal). Paramount, which wanted Ernest Borgnine, originally refused to allow Coppola to cast Brando in the role, citing difficulties Brando had on recent film sets. One studio executive proposed Danny Thomas for the role citing the fact that Don Corleone was a strong "family man." At one point, Coppola was told by Paramount president Charles Bludhorn that "Marlon Brando will never appear in this motion picture". After pleading with the executives, Coppola was allowed to cast Brando only if he appeared in the film for much less salary than his previous films, perform a screen-test, and put up a bond saying that he would not cause a delay in the production (as he had done on previous film sets).[10] Coppola chose Brando over Borgnine on the basis of his screen test, which also won over the Paramount leadership. Bludhorn in particular was captivated by Brando's screen test; when he saw it, he exclaimed, "What are we watching? Who is this old guinea?" Brando later won an Academy Award for his portrayal, which he refused to accept.[11]
The studio originally wanted Robert Redford or Ryan O'Neal to play Michael Corleone, but Coppola wanted an unknown who looked like an Italian-American, whom he found in Al Pacino.[9] Pacino was not well known at the time, having appeared in only two minor films, and the studio did not consider him right for the part,[10] in part because of his height. Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Martin Sheen, and James Caan also auditioned.[10] At one point, Caan was the first choice to play Michael, while Carmine Caridi was signed as elder brother Sonny. Pacino was given the role only after Coppola threatened to quit the production; Caan stated that Coppola envisioned Michael to be the Sicilian-looking one and Sonny was the Americanized version. The studio agreed to Pacino on the condition that Caan was cast as Sonny instead of Caridi, despite the former's Jewish heritage and the latter closely matching the character in the novel (a six-foot-four, black-haired Italian-American bull). Coppola and Puzo would subsequently create a role for Caridi in the sequels.[12]
Bruce Dern, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen were considered for the role of Tom Hagen that eventually went to Robert Duvall. Sylvester Stallone auditioned for Carlo Rizzi and Paulie Gatto, Anthony Perkins for Sonny, and Mia Farrow auditioned for Kay. William Devane was seen for the role of Moe Greene. Mario Adorf was approached for a role as well. A then-unknown Robert De Niro auditioned for the roles of Michael, Sonny, Carlo, and Paulie. He was cast as Paulie, but Coppola arranged a "trade" with The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight to get Al Pacino from that film. De Niro later played the young Vito Corleone in Part II, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role.
To some extent, the film was a family affair for Francis Ford Coppola. Carmine Coppola, his father, who had a distinguished career as a composer, conductor and arranger, wrote additional music for the film and appeared in a bit part as a piano player, and Carmine's wife, Italia Coppola, was an extra. The director's sister, Talia Shire, was cast as Connie Corleone, and his infant daughter, Sofia, played Connie's and Carlo's newborn son, Michael Francis Rizzi, in the climactic baptism scene near the movie's end.[13] Coppola also cast his sons as Tom Hagen's sons, Frank and Andrew. They are seen in the Sonny-Carlo street fight scene and behind Pacino and Duvall during the funeral scene.
Al Pacino, James Caan and Diane Keaton each received $35,000 for their work on The Godfather, and Robert Duvall got $36,000 for eight weeks of work. Marlon Brando was paid $50,000 for six weeks and weekly expenses of $1,000, plus 5% of the film, capped at $1.5 million. Brando later sold his points back to Paramount for $300,000.[14]
Most of the principal photography took place from March 29, 1971 to August 6, 1971, although a scene with Pacino and Keaton was shot in the autumn – there were a total of 77 days of shooting, fewer than the 83 for which the production had budgeted.
One of the movie's most shocking moments involved the real severed head of a horse. Animal rights groups protested the inclusion of the scene. Coppola later stated that the horse's head was delivered to him from a dog food company; a horse had not been killed specifically for the movie. This scene was shot in Port Washington, New York.[9][10]
In the novel, Jack Woltz, the movie producer whose horse's head is put in his bed, is also shown to be a pedophile as Tom Hagen sees a young girl (presumably one of Woltz's child stars) crying while walking out of Woltz's room. This scene was cut from the theatrical release but can be found on the DVD (though Woltz can still briefly be seen kissing the girl on the cheek in his studio in the film).
The shooting of Moe Greene through the eye was inspired by the death of gangster Bugsy Siegel. To achieve the effect, actor Alex Rocco's glasses had two tubes hidden in their frames. One had fake blood in it, and the other had a BB and compressed air. When the gun was shot, the compressed air shot the BB through the glasses, shattering them from the inside. The other tube then released the fake blood.
The equally startling scene of McCluskey's shooting was accomplished by building up a fake forehead on top of actor Sterling Hayden. A gap was cut in the center, filled with fake blood, and capped off with a plug of prosthetic flesh. During filming, the plug was quickly yanked out with monofilament fishing line, making a bloody hole suddenly appear in Hayden's head.
The opening scene of The Godfather is a long, slow zoom, starting with a close-up of the undertaker, Bonasera, who is petitioning Don Corleone, and ending with the Godfather, seen from behind, framing the scene. This zoom, which lasts for about three minutes, was shot with a computer-controlled zoom lens designed by Tony Karp.[15] The lens was also used in the making of Silent Running.[16]
The scene with Michael driving with McCluskey and Sollozzo avoided the use of back-projection because of cost. Technicians moved lights behind the car to create the illusion.
The cat in the opening scene used to hang around the studio, and was simply dropped in Brando's lap by the propman at the last minute.[17][18]
Locations[19] around New York City were used for the film, including the then-closed flagship store of Best & Company on Fifth Avenue, which was dressed up and used for the scene in which Pacino and Keaton are Christmas shopping. At least one location in Los Angeles was used also (for the exterior of Woltz's mansion), for which neither Robert Duvall nor John Marley were available; in some shots, it is possible to see that extras are standing in for the two actors. A scene with Pacino and Keaton was filmed in the town of Ross, California. The Sicilian towns of Savoca and Forza d'Agrò outside of Taormina were also used for exterior locations. Interiors were shot at Filmways Studio in New York.
A side entrance to Bellevue Hospital was used for Michael's confrontation with police Captain McCluskey.[20] As of 2007, the steps and gate to the hospital were still there but victim to neglect. The hospital interiors, when Michael visits his father there, were filmed at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary on 14th Street, in Manhattan, New York City.
The scene in which Don Barzini is assassinated was filmed on the steps of the New York State Supreme Court building on Foley Square in Manhattan, New York City.[21]
The wedding scene at the Corleone family compound was shot at 110 Longfellow Avenue in the Todt Hill section of Staten Island. The numerous Tudor homes on the block gave the impression that they were part of the same "compound." Paramount built a Plexiglas "stone wall" which traversed the street – the same wall where Santino smashed the camera. Many of the extras in the wedding scene were local Italian-Americans who were asked by Coppola to drink homemade wine, enjoy the traditional Italian food, and participate in the scene as though it were an actual wedding. Food was catered by "Demyan's Hofbrau" a restaurant on Van Duzer Street which is no longer in existence. The wedding cake was prepared by a bakery on Port Richmond Avenue.
Two churches were used to film the baptism scene. The interior shots were filmed at Old St. Patrick's in New York. For the baptism, Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 was used, as were other Bach works for the pipe organ. The exterior scenes following the baptism were filmed at The Church of St. Joachim and St. Anne in the Pleasant Plains section of Staten Island. In 1973 much of the church was destroyed in a fire. Only the façade and steeple of the original church remained, and were later incorporated into a new structure.
The funeral scene was filmed at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, Queens.[22] The toll booth scene was filmed at the then construction site of Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York on Long Island. It also utilized the former Mitchel Field, and the roadway used was once a runway.
The film is greatly respected among international critics and the public and is routinely listed as one of the greatest films ever made.[23] It was voted greatest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly,[24] and is now ranked as the second greatest film in American cinematic history – behind Citizen Kane – by the American Film Institute.[4] In the 2002 Sight & Sound poll of international critics, The Godfather (along with The Godfather Part II) was ranked as the fourth best film of all time.[25] Both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II were selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1990 and 1993, respectively.
The Godfather has a 100% "Certified Fresh Rating" on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 9.1/10 based on 74 reviews.[26]
The soundtrack's main theme by Nino Rota was also critically acclaimed; the main theme ("Speak Softly Love") is well-known and widely used (see Score Controversy for more information).
Director Stanley Kubrick believed that The Godfather was possibly the greatest movie ever made, and had without question the best cast.[27]
Previous gangster movies had looked at the gangs from the perspective of an outraged outsider.[28] In contrast, The Godfather presents the gangster's perspective of the Mafia as a response to corrupt society.[28] Although the Corleone family is presented as immensely rich and powerful, no scenes depict prostitution, gambling, loan sharking or other forms of racketeering.[29] Some critics argue that the setting of a criminal counterculture allows for unapologetic gender stereotyping, and is an important part of the film's appeal ("You can act like a man!", Don Vito tells a weepy Johnny Fontane).[30]
Real-life gangsters responded enthusiastically to the film, with many of them feeling it was a portrayal of how they were supposed to act.[31] Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, the former Underboss in the Gambino crime family,[32] stated: "I left the movie stunned... I mean I floated out of the theater. Maybe it was fiction, but for me, then, that was our life. It was incredible. I remember talking to a multitude of guys, made guys, who felt exactly the same way." According to Anthony Fiato after seeing the film, Patriarca crime family members Paulie Intiso and Nicky Giso altered their speech patterns closer to that of Vito Corleone's.[33] Intiso would frequently swear and use poor grammar; but after the movie came out, he started to articulate and philosophize more.[33]
| Academy Awards | |
|---|---|
| 1. Best Actor, Marlon Brando | |
| 2. Best Picture, Albert S. Ruddy | |
| 3. Best Adapted Screenplay, Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola | |
| Golden Globe Awards | |
| 1. Best Picture – Drama | |
| 2. Best Director, Francis Ford Coppola | |
| 3. Best Actor – Drama, Marlon Brando | |
| 4. Best Original Score, Nino Rota | |
| 5. Best Screenplay, Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola | |
| BAFTA Awards | |
| 1. Best Music, Nino Rota | |
The Godfather won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Writing (adapted screenplay) for Francis Coppola and Mario Puzo, and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Marlon Brando, who declined to collect the award and sent Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather to the Oscars in his place to explain his reasons.[34] The film had been nominated for eight other Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, Best Director, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound Mixing (Charles Grenzbach, Richard Portman, Christopher Newman).[35] The film also had a Best Original Score nomination but was disqualified when found out that Nino Rota used another score. Despite having three nominees of Best Supporting Actor award, they all lost to Joel Grey in Cabaret. It also lost the Best Director, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing to Cabaret.
The film won five Golden Globes, one Grammy, and numerous other awards.
Nino Rota's score was removed at the last minute from the list of 1973 Academy Award nominees when it was discovered that he had used the theme in Eduardo De Filippo's 1958 comedy Fortunella. Although in the earlier film the theme was played in a brisk, staccato and comedic style, the melody was the same as the love theme from The Godfather, and for that reason was deemed ineligible for an Oscar.[36] Despite this, The Godfather Part II won a 1974 Oscar for Best Original Score, although it featured the same love theme that made the 1972 score ineligible.
Although many films about gangsters had been made before The Godfather, Coppola's sympathetic treatment of the Corleone family and their associates, and his portrayal of mobsters as characters of considerable psychological depth and complexity[43] was hardly usual in the genre. This was even more the case with The Godfather Part II, and the success of those two films, critically, artistically and financially, opened the doors for more and varied depictions of mobster life, including films such as Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and TV series such as David Chase's The Sopranos.
The image of the Mafia as being a feudal organization with the Don being both the protector of the small fry and the collector of obligations from them to repay his services, which The Godfather helped to popularize, is now an easily recognizable cultural trope, as is that of the Don's family as a "royal family". (This has spread into the real world as well – cf. John Gotti – the "Dapper Don", and his celebritized family.) This portrayal stands in contrast to the more sordid reality of lower level Mafia "familial" entanglements, as depicted in various post-Godfather Mafia fare, such as Scorsese's Mean Streets and Casino, and also to the grittier hard-boiled pre-Godfather films.
In the 1999 film Analyze This, which starred Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, many references are made both directly and indirectly to The Godfather. One dream scene is almost a shot by shot replica of the attempted assassination of Vito Corleone (Crystal playing the Don and De Niro playing Fredo). In the 1990 comedy The Freshman, Marlon Brando plays a role reminiscent of Don Corleone. And one of those most unlikely homages to this film came in 2004, when the PG-rated, animated family film Shark Tale was released with a storyline that nodded at this and other movies about the Mafia. Similarly, Rugrats in Paris, based on a Nickelodeon children's show, began with an extended parody of The Godfather.
The 2005 Indian film Sarkar, directed by Ram Gopal Varma, with Amitabh Bachan in the lead role as a "Don" and his son Abhishek Bachchan as the equivalent of Michael, is modeled on The Godfather with due credits appearing at the beginning of the film.
In the DVD commentary for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, George Lucas stated that the interwoven scenes of Anakin Skywalker killing Separatist leaders and Palpatine announcing the beginning of the Galactic Empire was an homage to the christening and assassination sequence in The Godfather.
In 1975, Coppola edited The Godfather and The Godfather Part II together for TV, putting the scenes in chronological order and adding some previously unseen footage, but also toning down the violence, sex, and profanity. It is rated TV-14. This version of the story was called The Godfather Saga (1972), and made its television network debut on NBC on November 18, 1974. In 1981, Paramount released the Godfather Epic box set which combined parts I & II in chronological order, again with additional scenes not shown in theaters. In 1992, Coppola would again re-edit all three Godfather movies (The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III) in chronological order dubbed The Godfather Trilogy 1901–1980. It was released on VHS and laserdisc in 1993 and is currently available on Blu-ray Disc. The total run time for this version is 583 minutes (9 hours, 43 minutes). This version spanned five VHS tapes and incorporated new previously deleted scenes that had not been seen in The Godfather Saga. This set also included a sixth VHS tape: "The Godfather Family: A Look Inside" a making-of documentary.
None of these releases contains all the additional scenes in one package. The Saga contains scenes not in the Epic or Trilogy, the Epic contains scenes not in the Saga or Trilogy, and the Trilogy contains scenes not in the Saga or the Epic. Fans have longed for a complete release of the entire series[44] though Francis Ford Coppola has stated that the films were meant to be seen in their original form and has not agreed (as of 2008) to a chronological release.
The Godfather was released on DVD for the first time on October 9, 2001 as part of a DVD package called The Godfather DVD Collection.[45] The collection contained all three films with commentary from Francis Ford Coppola and a bonus disc that featured a 73-minute documentary from 1991 titled The Godfather Family: A Look Inside, plus a 1971 documentary. The package also contained deleted footage, including the additional scenes originally contained in The Godfather Saga; "Francis Coppola's Notebook" a look inside a notebook the director kept with him at all times during the production of the film; rehearsal footage; and video segments on Gordon Willis's cinematography, Nino Rota's and Carmine Coppola's music, Francis Ford Coppola, locations and Mario Puzo's screenplays. The DVD also held a Corleone family tree, a "Godfather" timeline, and footage of the Academy Award acceptance speeches.[46]
The restoration was confirmed by Francis Ford Coppola during a question-and-answer session for The Godfather Part III, when he said that he had just seen the new transfer and it was "terrific".
After a careful restoration of the aging first two movies, The Godfather movies were released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on September 23, 2008 under the title The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration. The work was done by Robert A. Harris of the Film Preserve. The Blu-ray Disc box set (four discs) includes high-definition extra features on the restoration and film. They are included on disc 5 of the DVD box set (five discs).
Other extras are ported over from Paramount's 2001 DVD release. There are slight differences between the repurposed extras on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc sets, with the HD box having more content.[47]
Paramount lists the new (HD) extra features as:
The Godfather, along with the other films in the trilogy, had a strong impact on the public at large. Don Vito Corleone's line "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" was voted as the second most memorable line in cinema history in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute.[48] The line actually originates in the French novel Le Père Goriot, by Honoré de Balzac, where Vautrin tells Eugène that he is "making him an offer that he cannot refuse".
An indication of the continuing influence of The Godfather and its sequels can be gleaned from the many references to it which have appeared in every medium of popular culture in the decades since the film's initial release. That these homages, quotations, visual references, satires and parodies continue to pop up even now shows clearly the film's enduring impact. In the television show The Sopranos, Tony Soprano's topless bar is named Bada Bing after the line in The Godfather when Sonny says, "You've gotta get up close like this and bada-bing! You blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit."
The Simpsons makes numerous references to The Godfather, including one scene in the episode "Strong Arms of the Ma" that parodies the Sonny-Carlo streetfight scene, with Marge Simpson beating a mugger in front of an animated version of the same New York streetscape, including using the lid of a trash can during the fight. The "All's Fair in Oven War" final scene shows James Caan being ambushed by hillbillies (Cletus relatives) at a toll booth, a parody of the scene when Sonny Corleone (portrayed by Caan) is shot and killed. The later episode "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer" parodies the film's ending scene, with Lisa Simpson taking Kay Adams' role and Fat Tony's son Michael standing in for Michael Corleone.
The Warner Bros. animated show Animaniacs featured several segments called "Goodfeathers," with pigeons spoofing characters from various gangster films. One of the characters is "The Godpigeon", an obvious parody of Brando's portrayal of Vito Corleone.
John Belushi appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch as Vito Corleone in a therapy session trying to properly express his inner feelings towards the Tattaglia Family, who, in addition to muscling in on his territory, "also, they shot my son Santino 56 times."
In You've Got Mail, Joe Fox, played by Tom Hanks quotes The Godfather, positing:
In March 2006, a video game version of The Godfather was released by Electronic Arts. Before his death, Marlon Brando provided voice work for Vito; however, owing to poor sound quality from Brando's failing health, only parts of the recordings could be used. A sound-alike's voice had to be used in the "missing parts". James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Abe Vigoda lent their voices and likenesses as well, and several other Godfather cast members had their likeness in the game. However, Al Pacino's likeness and voice (Michael Corleone) was not in the game as Al Pacino sold his likeness and voice exclusively for use in the Scarface video game. Francis Ford Coppola said in April 2005 that he was not informed and did not approve of Paramount allowing the game's production, and openly criticized the move.[49]
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