The Godfather

1) Relate what was discussed in class or the text to the screening.

The film “The Godfather” was and is one of the greatest films ever made. “The Godfather” came at a time in Hollywood when it was changing. The director of this film, Francis Ford Coppola, was one of the “film school brats” to emerge at this time. Coppola was one of the new and up and coming directors that came out of film school. This was his first major film, and it was a huge success critically and box office wise. It is still one of the greatest films ever made, and people compare every gangster film made to it still. 

2)  Find a related article and summarize the content.  

http://mentalfloss.com/article/62427/15-things-you-didnt-know-about-godfather

The article that I found for this film talks about 15 facts that everyone may not know about “The Godfather”. The list is very interesting. It talks about all the things that Paramount wanted for the film, but Coppola stood his ground and made the film he wanted to make. Which was for the better, and made the film an instant classic. One of the things I found interesting from the list was that Coppola asked all the characters to have family dinners as their characters so they could get into character and know their character’s inside out. Another interesting fact was that the horses head was real. They had gotten it from a dog food factory close by, which is really disturbing. The wedding scene was also shot guerrilla style, so as to seem more authentic. 

3) Apply the article to the film screened in class.  

The article only reinforced the idea that Coppola was a genius in his film making and stuck to his guns. “The Godfather” would not have been the same film if Paramount had gotten its way. They wanted someone different for the roles of Vito, Sonny, and Michael. To think of the film without Brando as the iconic Vito Corleone, is just ludicrous. He was the perfect part to play the patriarchal don. Brando may not have been the easiest person to work with, but he was the right man for the part. The Oscar he won proves that. The Oscar nominations for Pacino and Caan also prove that Coppola was right in his casting decisions. All of the decisions that Coppola made reflected back on the film. He knew what he was doing at such an early age in the business. Coppola made all the right decisions for this film, and that is why it is still a classic and one of the greatest movies ever made.

4) Write a critical analysis of the film

The Don about his "harmless vices"

The film “The Godfather” is of cinemas greatest master pieces, not only because of the great direction from Francis Ford Coppola, but because it gets the audience to root for the typical bad guys. Vito Corleone in the films of the 1920’s would have been a dastardly villain, twirling his moustache, making plans to take over New York. In this film he was the sympathetic family man, who just also happened to be the don of one of New York’s greatest organized crime syndicates. The main cast of characters for this film are what we call anti-heros in film today. But this film was the start of the anti-hero drama. These men do bad things. They shoot, torture, scare, and kill people, but they draw the line at selling drugs. Vito says he only deal with “harmless vices”, which is just racketeering, gambling and hookers. Those crimes he counts as harmless. I think that is ironic because there are people who are harmed in those “vices”, but to Vito and his crime syndicate, no one he can see is getting hurt, so he need not bother except to collect his finder’s fee. These men are reprehensible in their crimes, but in this film, and many others like it, we root for these men and their crimes. I think that is the genius behind Coppola’s storytelling. He made the audience want to root for Vito and Michael in the end. What the audience sees at the end of the film is Michael taking over for his father, and he does it in a hostile bloody take over. But the audience sees this as being justified. Michael Corleone ordered the hit on all of these men, but he was justified in doing this because these men stood in his way as don. I think that is the beauty of “The Godfather”, we root for the awful men because they have a family and want to provide for them. The men commit crimes for a living, but they do it with their family at their side, so it’s ok.