Week 1 –

Introduction Bill: Okay. Hi, everybody! Welcome to our Week One panel lecture with Professor Jon Lewis; I’m Teaching Assistant Bill Fetch; and this week, of course, the assigned film is Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. One of the major ways that we’re approaching this film is through a lens called the auteur theory, and what auteurism meant in 1970’s Hollywood, which was, as we’ll find out, a very tumultuous decade for Hollywood filmmaking. But we’ll get into that more later here. I’m here with Professor Lewis now, so we’ll start answering and asking some questions.

The Godfather’s Relationship to the Auteur Renaissance Bill: One of the basic questions I think we have to address is the roots of the significance of The Godfather in relation to what becomes the auteur renaissance. Can you speak about that a little bit?

Jon: Yeah. It’s the – you know, Godfather is this sort of landmark film for a handful of reasons. One is that it’s the first film directed by a film school, American film school-educated director, to really hit it big. And it comes at a moment in Hollywood history where you’ve got about a generation-long box office decline. Godfather comes along and it’s this huge success; it’s the most successful film since Gone With the Wind in 1939; so an unprecedented success. And the studios are really looking for an answer to their problems at the box office, and then along comes this movie and, at least briefly, they decided that these young filmmakers coming out of film schools. So, now, why auteurism? Well, the auteur theory, which was an argument actually put forward by French film critics in the 1950’s and 60’s was that one can find a kind of continuity in important quality films, in American film history, by looking at the works of individual directors who somehow, despite a Hollywood system that’s all about business, that somehow they can put their artistic signature on films anyway. So it’s people like Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock; and then, people like Coppola, who are in film school in the 50’s and 60’s are studying this auteur theory, so when they finally get their chance to direct, they really actually believe this stuff; that to be a real film artist, you have to be able to put your artistic signature on to what is otherwise a studio project. So, Godfather is a gangster film; there have been gangster films since 1915. So how do you make this gangster film yours? And Coppola put his signature on it and then, as we’ll see later in the term, we’ll see directors like Martin Scorsese, we’ll see Stephen Spielberg, William Friedkin, Terrence Malick, these directors who are directing films in genres that have been made before, but they are unique to this one artist’s sensibility…

Bill: Personal vision at play.

Jon: Absolutely.

Coppola’s Auteur Signature Bill: So on that note, let’s talk about some of the ingredients of Coppola’s auteur signature. Jon: The ingredients of Coppola’s signature are maybe less distinct than Scorsese’s, which we’ll talk about in Week Two. But certainly for the Godfather films, he’s interested in a kind of central thematic of family and business, and he’s really interested in the sort of impossibility in the contemporary era of balancing the two. So there’s a kind of thematic interest in that. There’s also a sort of thematic interest in assimilation; this notion of a kind of immigrant culture assimilating into American life, especially American capitalism. Visually, it’s a little more distinctive. In other words, we can recognize this visual signature not only in the Godfather films, but also we’ll see this in Apocalypse Now, where the same visual style that he uses for the gangster films he uses for the war film. And one of the key, what is called chiaroscuro, or Rembrandt lighting, which is the dramatic difference in light and dark in the frame. So, as you’ll see in, especially when Sollozzo holds Tom captive after he attempts an assassination on Vito, you know, that scene is sort of a primer on chiaroscuro lighting; but we’ll see it later in one of the famous – the beach party scene in Apocalypse Now. And that’s one of the keys to auteurism is seeing how a director uses the same kind of visual signature in two very, very different films, but that signature makes it immediately recognizable as his film. The other thing about Coppola is he’s very fond of set pieces, so there are these very elaborate sort of theatrical five, ten, fifteen minute scenes that are very unusual in contemporary filmmaking, which is about cutting fairly quickly. And he moves very much away from that and uses a lot of deep focus photography and puts a lot of pressure on his actors and on the mise en scene, on the design of the scene to make meaning in a film; and this is unusual, but something you’ll see in all of his films.

The Dichotomy of the 1970’s Auteurist Film and Prototype Blockbuster Film Bill: Staying with Coppola as a topic of conversation, but shifting things a little more broadly; it’s interesting that Coppola seems to bring a European art cinema approach to essentially an American business model. And it strikes me as ironic that he at once invents the 70’s auteurist film and a prototype for the modern day blockbuster. The Godfather was hugely successful financially and culturally. Can you speak to that seeming dichotomy a little bit?

Jon: Well, the seeming dichotomy does him in. I mean, for a director whose success in the 70’s was unparalleled, his failure in the 80’s was equally unparalleled. So, you know, part of the European sensibilities is what he’s seeing at UCLA when he’s going to film school. You know, there really isn’t a body of American work in the 50’s and 60’s that’s really catching him. What is is the French new wave, the British new wave, German expressionism, Italian realism – these are the things that really grab him. So he has an artistic sensibility that’s actually born of a university experience as opposed to directors and previous generations who just, you know, they apprenticed, you know. So, of course, they made movies like the previous generation. Coppola arrives, and he’s drawing from everyone; from Kurosawa, a Japanese filmmaker, to F. W. Murnau who is making German films in the 20’s. So I think the artistic sensibility comes from there. You know, Godfather was going to be a blockbuster anyway. I mean, the only thing Coppola could have done to screw it up – yeah, yeah it was a hugely popular book; it was a best seller. Everybody – it had – it’s what the industry calls a “previously sold” property. In other words, everybody knew it, everybody wanted to go see it. And unless the reviews came out and said, “Don’t see it. It’s terrible.” Which it clearly isn’t… well, the film was going to be a success. So it became the kind of prototype blockbuster and even had a sequel. It was one of the first “serious” movies to have a sequel. And the sequel is arguably even better than Godfather I – you should all see Godfather II; it’s really good.

Bill: But maybe hold on Godfather III for now.

Jon: Maybe hold on that, yeah. But anyway, it’s, in a way, he has nothing to do with why it’s a blockbuster, but he has everything to do with why it’s a European sensibility.

The Use of Violence in The Godfather Bill: So, maybe to switch gears to the way violence in the film is staged. It seems to be cinematic or cinematically staged. It’s a logical part of the narrative, but not necessarily a point to the film. Can you speak about how violence in Godfather is used?

Jon: Yeah. I mean, we’re going to see a lot of violent films this term because American cinema is violent. I don’t think I could do “contemporary American film” without showing films that have their fair share of violence. So then it’s, how do different directors use violence differently? And I do think that Coppola is interested in this idea of a set piece. So a lot of the violence – Sonny getting assassinated at the toll booth, getting killed at the bar, the attempted assassination on Vito, the killing of Sollozzo, and McCluskey in the restaurant – I mean, all of these are set pieces. So actually, you’re kind of rooting – and, of course, the brilliant final montage where Michael gets rid of all of his rivals – you know, we actually sort of root for the – in a way, we root for the – get engaged by the cinematic expertise behind the violence. So I think Coppola uses violence as a revelation about what’s wrong with American culture or even what’s wrong with gangster culture. Really, he kind of uses it as a kind of theatrical technique; which is arguably different from Scorsese, who we’ll see next week. He uses it in a kind of, I would say, quasi-religious thematic. I think Coppola’s less interested in what it does with the plot than how it’s staged.

Bill: Right, right. The baptism sequence in and of itself seems to be – the way the different violent acts kind of string that sequence along…

Jon: And at the end, I mean, you’re rooting for all of them to go right. Which is funny, because we barely know the characters he kills. Except for Moe Greene, we don’t know these guys. And he kills all of them and it’s like, oh, wow. And in the end, he’s won and we feel exhilarated. And I think Coppola’s playing with this, with the kind of theatrical aspect of this as opposed to the narrative story aspect of this.

The Dilemma Between Being a Family Man and a Businessman Bill: And, sticking with that theme of family and business, that seems to be, obviously, a huge part of The Godfather is the struggle between the two – can you talk more about that dilemma between a family man and a businessman?

Jon: Yeah. I think often one of the appeals of The Godfather as a story is when Coppola agreed to do the film, and he was very reluctant to accept the contract to do the film and only did so because George Lucas convinced him that if he did Godfather he’d never have to do a commercial film again, and that was actually Coppola’s aim, to never do another commercial film again. He announced in the press after he signed the contract that this isn’t the gangster story, it’s a family chronicle, it’s a family melodrama. And you could just see people at Paramount going, “Oh, no… I hope that’s not the movie he’s making; we want him to make Godfather!” But I think he understood that part of the appeal of Godfather was a kind of more universal conflict that a lot of us feel is – we have a decision to make in our lives; we have decisions to make in our lives that are often balancing, you know, work and home life. You know, you’re a college student now, you get a job offer in Wisconsin, the person you’re seeing gets a job offer in New Jersey – what are you going to do? You know? Or somebody says to work late, you have a Lamaze class… what do you do? You know, these little moments in our lives where we’re balancing two sometimes opposing tasks. And I think Coppola recognizes – it’s very large in Godfather – it’s, you know, do I tell my wife the truth and lose control of my criminal empire? You know, we’re not usually balancing criminal empires against things, but that’s what he does. And, in the end, we all see what he does; he closes the door. Okay. He decides on business. Now, his dad could have both, but it was a different world. And for Michael to succeed, he has to make a sacrifice his father doesn’t have to make.

The Warshow Essay - Capitalism Bill: Can I ask about the Warshow essay?

Jon: Yeah, sure!

Bill: So, one of the assigned readings this week is Robert Warshow’s The Gangster as Tragic Hero and he discusses this, I guess, concept called “gangster capitalism”. Can you just kind of roughly outline what that means?

Jon: Well, his argument is that gangster capitalism is really no different from any capitalism. That capitalism is built on treachery, it’s built on competition, it’s always unfair, it’s built on if you have an advantage you use it to basically crush your opponents, and that’s what Michael does. You know, when Michael wants the casino, he goes out and he says to Moe Greene, “How much will it take to buy you out?” and Moe scoffs at him, laughs at him, says, you know, “I don’t have to sell it to you; I can maintain control of my casino and sell to Barzini.” And Michael just looks at him like, “Okay.” And then, 20 minutes later, Moe Greene’s got a bullet in his eye and Michael owns the casino. So it’s kind of like, most people to get ahead in their business lives don’t have to shoot somebody in the eye, but sometimes you, in a more figurative way, you have to step over somebody. I mean, really, the president of , for example, okay, he hasn’t assassinated anybody so far as I know, but to think that he hasn’t had to crush a few opponents who were in the way or play boardroom politics seriously, had to play an advantage when he got it… you know, of course he has. And I think what’s attractive about the gangster is that the gangster doesn’t have any of the timidity that the rest of us good citizens have.

Bill: Keeps us from doing those things.

Jon: Indeed.

A Theory Regarding Coppola’s Childhood Bill: Now, you have a theory about Coppola’s childhood. Jon: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Bill: Could we talk about that childhood and that and that theory?

Jon: Yeah, it’s not very deep, Bill, but both Coppola and Scorsese were quite ill as children. Scorsese had asthma; Coppola had polio, it was a terrifying disease in the 40’s. A lot of children either died from polio or they were crippled. Famously, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president, was confined to a wheelchair because of it. And not a lot of kids had a kind of “normal life” after that, and when Francis Coppola got polio, his parents thought, I think partly they thought, you know, “wow, he’s going to have a miserable life. He might die.” So, you know, he had an interest in films as a young kid, so they just sort of lavished – you know, I’m a parent, I would have done the same thing, you know, this terrible thing happened to my child; I want them to have everything to make them happy – so they made him happy by buying him all of this film equipment and then he becomes a filmmaker! In Scorsese’s case, he had asthma and I think he, like Coppola, became one of these children who didn’t play with other children that much because he was sick, so he watched everything. And I think there’s also something to be said about these two guys who were the great directors of their generation – I think, kind of hard to argue that – both of them share this experience, this childhood experience of being confined and being watchers as opposed to participants.

The Story Behind Coppola Being Chosen to Direct The Godfather Bill: Right, right. Just a couple more questions, I think, for this week. The backstory regarding the production of The Godfather is fascinating. Could you maybe talk about the story behind Coppola getting this job?

Jon: Well, he was somewhere between seventh or tenth choice, and he was totally, I mean, they wanted initially everyone from Fred Zinnemann, who had done From Here to Eternity; to Peter Yates, who did Bullet, which was this cop film shot in San Francisco which is quite terrific; to Constantine Costa Gavras who did political thrillers and wasn’t even, you know, it’s hard to imagine what he would have done with Godfather; Elia Kazan who had done On the Waterfront… I mean, all of these guys names came up, and Richard Brooks was the one that the studio really wanted, and he had done In Cold Blood and Blackboard Jungle. And for kind of the same reason they all turned him down, and that was that they felt that, you know, in 1972 America, making a film about Italian gangsters was kind of politically risky or incorrect. So the studio got the big idea – actually, it was Peter Bart who was the sort of second in command under the head of production who was Robert Evans, he got the great idea of, why don’t we just hire an Italian-American? They can’t say it’s anti-Italian because an Italian is directing it. And they looked around, and there’s this young guy they think they could control. You know, this young guy straight out of film school, wrote a great script for Patton that later won the academy award, Coppola’s first academy award. So they knew he could write, which was also helpful; they knew that the novel had to be adapted, so they needed someone who could write and direct. And they thought, you know, he’s a kid, they thought, he’ll be so happy, he’ll do whatever we want. And then he turned them down, he said, “I don’t want to do it because it’s a big commercial film.” They finally convinced him, thanks to George Lucas, who told him, you know, “This is your path to freedom in the industry.” And then he set out and was completely uncontrollable. I mean, it’s one of the great object lessons in Hollywood. Peter Bart and Robert Evans were convinced that they had this neophyte that they could tell what to do, and Coppola absolutely had a vision for this movie and there was no moving away from that.

The casting, which is also a big thing in, you know, I can go a little into that… they did want Brando because he was seen as “trouble” which he kind of is. But can you imagine this movie without Brando? It’s unimaginable. And so they made him screen test; the studio said, Robert Evans told Coppola, “If you screen test Brando, then you can have him.” Knowing that Brando would never agree to a screen test cause he was one of the most famous actors in Hollywood. So Coppola called Brando in for “costume fittings,” not telling him that it was a screen test, and then shot, which was routine, shot the costume fittings. And then, cleverly got Brando to speak in character and to puff his cheeks out, because, you know, he was much thinner in those days than the character he played. And then, because he’d fulfilled the requirement, you know, getting him in to screen test, which it wasn’t, he got him. The other one was Al Pacino. He had seen Pacino in Panic in Needle Park, which is great, a great film, but nothing that would suggest that Pacino could play Michael, but he liked his face. And it was one of these things that filmmakers sometimes see. He said, you know, he really wanted an Italian face, you know, Pacino, especially young Al Pacino, you know, just really looked the part of Michael. And Michael’s screen testing was awful, and actually on some of the DVD extras, depending on the DVD, when you get Al Pacino’s screen test, it’s terrible. Which is funny, because he’s such a great actor. And it’s almost like Woody Allen, I mean, it’s really so off that it’s hard to believe. But Coppola still said, “That’s the face. I see it in my dreams,” he said, “That’s the face. So, meanwhile, Pacino gets hired to be in this other movie, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, for MGM , so he’s now not even available, but Coppola says he can’t shoot the film without him, so Robert Evans has his attorney, who happens to be a mob attorney named - and I can actually say stuff like this because it’s common knowledge – so Sidney Korshak calls up Kirk Kerkorian, who runs United Artists, and says, you know, “I need Al Pacino,” and he gets referred to this guy James Aubrey, who runs United Artists, and eventually – I can’t even use the language on screen right now that happens here – but basically, at one point, they finally get Pacino and James Aubrey, who works for Kirk Kerkorian, calls to release Pacino from his contract so that he can appear in Godfather and he says, “ The midget is yours.” And “the midget” is Al Pacino because he’s short. And then, just to quickly tie this up, later Robert Evans was asked how he got United Artists to cooperate and Kirk Kerkorian was building the MGM Grand Hotel at the time, and apparently Korshak asked Kerkorian if he wanted to finish building his hotel. It sounds an awful lot like the offer they give Woltz to get Johnny Fontane free of his, you know, the role in the war film that’ll make his career. So that scene, it’s sort of the art imitating life.

Bill: Right, a lot of cloak and dagger-y things happening here.

Jon: Well, these are scary gangsters is what they are, and it’s interesting that the film is also unimaginable without Pacino; he’s so fantastic in the film. And the only way they got him was through behaving like Vito , which I think is kind of cool.

Conclusion Bill: Well, we’ll probably wrap it up there. The Godfather is really interesting and in Week Four, we’ll see another Coppola film, Apocalypse Now, and these two films really sort of bookend the 70’s auteurist experiment in Hollywood. So look at The Godfather through that lens, maybe. You’ll also find in this week’s assignment folders some still images and film clips with John and I’s narration over them providing some critique and some analysis of what’s happening in those images and clips, and please enjoy the required readings and the supplemental readings, and, of course, enjoy The Godfather.