The myth of The Godfather is enormous. Much has been said about the film, one of the great tragedies of contemporary cinema where film noir reached Shakespearean quotas. To the little surprise of an attendee, Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece reaffirms its greatness with each new testimony 50 years after its premiere. Neither the paraphernalia nor the accolades do it justice. It is a film that deserves to be seen at least once in a lifetime, and now it is possible to do it on the big screen in its commemorative return to theaters.
His masterful direction, excellent cast, superb script and an unforgettable soundtrack wrap a complex story that goes far beyond gangsters and the mafia. In addition to elevating the genre to the pinnacle of the seventh art, the film traces a broad vision of American society based on the drama of a family born in that criminal world.
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The masterpiece that almost didn’t exist
The Godfather changed the course of American cinema. Curiously, it was almost never made, due to the crisis that Hollywood was going through in the late 1960s, the lack of confidence of the Paramount studio in the film, and the rejection of the directors for “glorifying the mafia and showing a decadent vision of the world”. ”. Amidst all that chaos, Coppola took the reins on the project, but there would be many more obstacles to his vision being sustained during production.
The director had a condition to make the feature film. He didn’t want to make another movie about organized gangsters, but rather a story of power and succession. There was no better copy than Mario Puzo’s novel for this, but materializing the project was a challenge.
Paramount did not have high expectations and sought to launch a mediocre low-budget product, taking advantage of the fact that the book became a best seller. Every day was a creative fight between the director and the studio, but everything changed with the death of Sollozzo at the hands of Michael Corleone in fiction. Everything made sense with that scene, the studio was convinced and the rest is history.
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More than a gangster story
For Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather is a family chronicle and a metaphor for American capitalism. The main reason why it catches us is the drama of the Corleone, their union and the conflicts triggered by the succession of power. Broadly speaking, it is the famous story of a king with three sons set in the turbulent 1940s.
With half a century of life, the tape is in top form. The director made an immortal work that he wins with each revision and that remains as the apotheosis of the seventh art. So lavish that it shattered the confidence of Steven Spielberg, who almost quit for fear of falling short of Coppola’s greatness.