50 Years To Don Corleone – Francis Ford Coppola Speaks Up About His Classic Godfather

In the world of cinema, there are very few films that earned a high reputation, and still, people remember it with pride. Such movies gained the status of being one of the best movies of all time and stand tall in the list of top 250 movies of all time.

Among all those movies, there’s one movie that created a new era for mobster movies and changed the perspective of crime thrill drama.

Source: Express Tribune

The Hollywood classic mobster “The Godfather” is one of the iconic movies of all time. Starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, the film was based on a novel of the same name by author Mario Puzo.

It was the film, which made Al Pacino’s career and gave every other director full room to experiment with gangster movies.

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The director of the film, Francis Ford Coppola, is all set to be honored with his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and long 50 classic years after the release of his critically-acclaimed film.

The Godfather saga not only produced one actor but also in the sequel you get to see Robert De Niro playing a young version of Don Corleone.

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Francis also directed other classic movies such as Apocalypse Now, based loosely on Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, The Conversation.

In conversation with Godfather’s director Francis Ford Coppola

Francis sat down for an interview, where he shared that he didn’t anticipate that the film would gain that much success even after 50 years. He felt it would be a “special kind of failure”.

Source: IMDB

While talking with the variety, Francis still remembers the production of the 1972 film. He shared, he shared, “You’re always so anxious when these movies come out because of those first opinions; you hope it will go well and it’s not in your control.” He added, “But by far the greatest treasure is the test of time. When people are looking at what you did 50 years later, that’s an award in and of itself.”

Source: The Guardian

When asked about his feeling when the film was released, he said “I thought it was going to be a special failure. When you make a film going against the grain of what’s going on at the time, those kinds of films are tough. You’re not doing what everyone expects or wants you to do.”

On taking risks, he went on to add, “I once said the things you do when you’re young that you get fired for are the same things that, years later, they give you lifetime achievement awards for.”

‘I deleted some elements of the book’ – Francis Ford Coppola

Everyone knows that the Godfather is based on a famous novel written by Mario Puzo, but the director recently revealed that he took away many of the novel’s sensationalist elements and chose instead to focus on the Shakespearian plot at the heart of it.

Source: GQ

He went with the story of a powerful father and his three sons, and the battle for succession that ensues. He explained, “Mario Puzo wrote some beautiful novels, but he wrote The Godfather to make money,” adding, “Mario loved his family and he wanted to take care of them, so he wrote a book he thought would be a bestseller, but it was a bit of a potboiler.”

He shared how he stripped the story of what he didn’t deem necessary, saying, “I dissected that book very carefully and left out many of the pages, but Mario was all for it.”

Coppola went on praising the author Puzo, “That’s why his name is above the title. It says: Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, it doesn’t say Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather because he created it,” asserted the director.

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He added, “If you look at all my pictures, you’ll always see I put the writer above the title. It’s John Grisham’s The Rainmaker, its Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And it really should be John Milius’ Apocalypse Now. Because the writer does the heavy lifting.”

Just like Godfather, in the TV show world there’s Sopranos that holds the same energy and characters that make you fall in love with them.

‘I was created by Hollywood’ – Francis Ford Coppola

On the special occasion where he will be receiving a coveted star on the Walk of Fame, Francis shared, “Although it seems as though I’ve been a rebel against Hollywood I am a Hollywood creature.

Source: Den of Geek

I was created by Hollywood and I’m very proud of being part of the Hollywood tradition. If I can be part of this group, this wonderful tradition of Hollywood, it pleases me.”

When an interviewer asked him about big-budget movies, he replied that he loved Deadpool and other movies but filmmakers must take a risk when it comes to crafting beauty. He explained, “Cinema is supposed to illuminate contemporary life and make us understand what’s going on. So we need the artists to give us a vision of what’s going on.”

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He went on praising two of the great directors’ Denis Villeneuve and Cary Joji Fukunaga and consider them as “wonderful filmmakers on the scale of big-budget films”.  

He said, “I don’t think they necessarily get the chance to make the films in their hearts. I think they’re being asked to make movies that are not against the grain. We have an abundance of rich, great talent and I would give them more responsibility because they’re capable of it.”

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