All Time Best Pictures--#2 [Part 2]

Last week we began to look at The Godfather [1972], the #2 best picture of all time according to the WGA.

The last thing I told you last week was to see the picture, if you hadn’t already. It’s hard to believe people haven’t seen the film—it’s SUCH an icon—but many haven’t. Including—until recently—my husband.

Here’s the thing—he doesn’t like gratuitous violence and he’d heard about some of the scenes in the picture and thought it just wasn’t for him. But being the persuasive person I am, I convinced him that this was such a work of art—and not as violent as MANY pictures out these days—that he should watch it. So he did. And at the end I expected him to turn to me and say, “You were right—amazing film.” But instead he turned to me and said, “Never make me watch something like this again.”

And that’s the movies, isn’t it? You just can’t expect that what you like, others will like—even when you’re very close to those others!

So I can only speak for myself, and for me, this film speaks to something elemental in the human animal—what we’ll do for those we love and how far people will go to get what they feel they deserve.

Coppola, as the writer/director of the film [he shared writing credit with the author of the novel the film was based on, Mario Puzo] tells some great stories in his 2016 book The Godfather Notebooks. Here’s one he told when being interview by NPR:

“I was very loyal to the novel after I had derived what the movie would be, and it was set in the '40s. That was one of my first arguments with the producers, was I felt it should be set in the '40s. They had wanted ... [it set in the '70s] because if you make a movie during the contemporary period that the movie is being made, you don't have to have special cars, you don't have to have special costumes, you don't have to spend all of that money trying to create a period. ...

The film was only budgeted for $2.5 million. You have to understand, it's not like we could throw money around. My decision to make it in the '40s and have period cars and shoot in New York was already impacting the cost, so that's one of the reasons why I was so unpopular, but [the studio] also hated my casting ideas. They hated Al Pacino for the role of Michael and they hated Marlon Brando for the role of the Godfather. I was told categorically by the president of Paramount, "Francis, as the president of Paramount Pictures, I tell you here and now, Marlon Brando will never appear in this motion picture and I forbid you to bring it up again." ...

When he said, "I forbid you to bring it up again," I feigned that I just fell on the floor, on the carpet, and then I said, "What am I supposed to do if you tell me I can't even discuss it? How can I be a director if the part I think should be cast — you won't even let me talk about it?"

They said, "All right, we'll tell you it this way: 1) If he will do the movie for free 2) if he will do a screen test and 3) if he will put up a $1 million bond that he will in no way have any misbehavior that costs the overrun of the picture budget. Then you can do it." So I said, "I accept."

And his falling on the floor, begging, eventually got him what he wanted.

Why do I tell this? Because you need to know that it’s always a struggle. Coppola had just won an Oscar for screenwriting! Yet his judgment was in question and he had to really fight to tell the story his way.

Bottom line? Screenwriting is collaborative—which you’ve no doubt heard before, but really let it sink in—because you’re always going to have to please somebody as a writer and you have to be willing to compromise… because you’re NOT the director! Coppola was directing the film, he had more power than the writer alone would. If you can’t live with your work being changed, with being forced to compromise, then go write novels, because screenwriting isn’t for you.

Copyright © Diane Lake

24May20

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