It's 1971. Re-write the Godfather saga

[pseudotriton ruber ruber]

All of a sudden you find yourself beamed into 1971, a month or three before principal shooting on THE GODFATHER (part I) and you find that Coppola has had you, as a random person from forty years into the future, transported to help him polish up his script and make artistic choices and avoid making stupid judgments.

The cast for GF I is all signed up, but you can have any cast or crew members replaced if your special knowledge guides you in that direction. Your will will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, but you can also advise on specific plot elements or lines in the script to be followed in any of the films to follow.

Personally, I would advise him to anticipate future sequels and make very generous offers to commit the cast to portraying their characters in sequels: Brando, Castellano (in GF, II) and Duvall (in GF, III) were influential in determining how the story lines would deal with their unavailability, to the deteriment of the sequels. As entertaining as Michael V. Gazzo was as Frankie Pentangeli, I'd much rather have seen Castellano playing Clemenza as a rat testifying against Michael before the Senate.

[Bryan Ekers]

Truth be told, I'm not sure how any hindsight-driven modifications could do anything but fuck things up, for the first two movies at least.

[grude]

I wish we had more insight into Michael's choices, I wanted a more sense of the tragedy in that it it was choices anyone could make. In the movie it seems more like Michael has been steeped in the culture since birth and is only kidding himself about leaving it.

[Saint Cad]

Write Godfather III at the same time.

[BrotherCadfael]

Never mind.

[wedgehed]

Godfather I - I wouldn't mind including the back stories of Al Neri & Luca Brasi from the book.

Godfather II - The whole hit on Michael thing never made any sense. Who opened the curtains, who killed the shooters (certainly not Fredo!), what was Fredo's part in the plot?

The kamikaze hit on Roth takes me out of the movie. I don't picture Mafia hitmen going on suicide missions.

Godfather III - I've never understood the hate for Sofia Coppola. She was the least problem in this mess. It might have been better if it had been made before Al Pacino lost his ability to be subtle, but I doubt it. Keep the papal intrigue, lose the opera & helicopter hit, leave Connie at home cooking the pasta. Or, do a complete rewrite to revolve around the RFK/Hoffa conflict.

[The Other Waldo Pepper]

The cast for GF I is all signed up, but you can have any cast or crew members replaced if your special knowledge guides you in that direction.

De Niro as Sonny?

[drastic_quench]

De Niro as Sonny?

An Italian as Sonny. Maybe Frank Langella.

[Little Nemo]

I'd have offered John Cazale a million dollar bonus if he'd quit smoking.

[pseudotriton ruber ruber]

OK to expand the OP, the GF franchise went off the rails when they lost Castellano and, to a lesser degree, Brando (whose character dying was the plot climax of the original, but who could have filmed "flashback" scenes, and even scenes where he was made up to look like Deniro at his oldest point, while Deniro could have been made up to look like the youthful Brando at his youngest, which would have been cool, and both actors would have liked doing that, too). But Castellano betraying everything the family stood for, loyalty, omerta, etc. would have been a gigantic kick in the ass that had less kick with Frankie Pentangeli (who's he?) doing the turncoat turn. Because Gazzo did a good job, I think we forget how much more powerful it would have been with Castellano doing the testifying.

But Tom Hagen was the real antagonist for Michael, the cynical good angel trying to legitimize the Corleone enterprises while Michael was tugged in the other direction in GF III--George Hamilton as a Hagen-manque? Please. Zero gravitas.

[Loach]

PRR I agree with everything you said. Clemenza needed to be in GF2. It was all about seeing the young Clemenza meet Vito and the family start and flash forward to seeing Clemenza now. Hell it would have been a better movie if they got a new actor to play Clemenza.

And I also always get taken out of the movie during the kamikaze hit.

[Saint Cad]

PRR I agree with everything you said. Clemenza needed to be in GF2. It was all about seeing the young Clemenza meet Vito and the family start and flash forward to seeing Clemenza now. Hell it would have been a better movie if they got a new actor to play Clemenza.


+1

I remember watching GF2 for the first time and thinking during the hearings "Who the hell is this guy?" His brother comes, he recants and offs himself. Who cares?

[Princhester]

I haven't seen III yet. I haven't read the books. I have trouble with the transition of Michael. He starts as the guy who wants out from the family, and who describes them (in the initial wedding scene, to Kay) as if they are from a criminal culture he feels alien from. He starts out as the guy who at considerable familial cost volunteers to join the army, despite coming from a family culture that (as Sonny puts it) thinks anyone who volunteers to risk their life for strangers is a sap. In other words, he seems to have real principles.

I understand how he then has little choice but to step up when Vito and Sonny are killed, but what doesn't seem to fit with the early indications of his character is why he doesn't merely step into the role in a minimal way and then wind it back. Instead he turns it up to eleven.

I guess the corrupting nature of his situation is the point of the series, but (to get back to the OP) it would help make it more believable for me if GF1 included maybe at least one element (prior to the deaths of Vito and Sonny) that painted Michael as a little more ambiguous in character. Give him a hint of dark side. It would make the rest more believable for me.

[Princhester]

... and I guess you might say that the hint of his dark side is his volunteering to make the hit on Sollozzo and McCluskey, but really that is a hot headed thing he agrees to do in direct revenge of his father. It isn't something that shows that what I interpreted as his basic distaste for the family business was corruptible.

[ministryman]

Write Godfather III at the same time.

Amen.

[grude]

I haven't seen III yet. I haven't read the books. I have trouble with the transition of Michael. He starts as the guy who wants out from the family, and who describes them (in the initial wedding scene, to Kay) as if they are from a criminal culture he feels alien from. He starts out as the guy who at considerable familial cost volunteers to join the army, despite coming from a family culture that (as Sonny puts it) thinks anyone who volunteers to risk their life for strangers is a sap. In other words, he seems to have real principles.

I understand how he then has little choice but to step up when Vito and Sonny are killed, but what doesn't seem to fit with the early indications of his character is why he doesn't merely step into the role in a minimal way and then wind it back. Instead he turns it up to eleven..

You articulated my only complaint with GF1 better than I could, it reminded me of Revenge Of The Sith where Anakin's turn to Vader made no sense, one small step to baby killing(literally!).

[Tamerlane]

The kamikaze hit on Roth takes me out of the movie. I don't picture Mafia hitmen going on suicide missions.

I doubt he had any expectation of undertaking a suicide mission, he just got unlucky. Michael's bodyguard was a professional assassin imported from Sicily specifically to give Michael a weapon he could trust close to absolutely after the failed assassination attempt on his own life ( i.e. he couldn't be 100% sure of his own guys ). He was doing just fine at eliminating Roth and Ola, but the Cuban military rushed security to the room before he could finish smothering Roth and he got caught.

[Loach]

I haven't seen III yet. I haven't read the books. I have trouble with the transition of Michael. He starts as the guy who wants out from the family, and who describes them (in the initial wedding scene, to Kay) as if they are from a criminal culture he feels alien from. He starts out as the guy who at considerable familial cost volunteers to join the army, despite coming from a family culture that (as Sonny puts it) thinks anyone who volunteers to risk their life for strangers is a sap. In other words, he seems to have real principles.

I understand how he then has little choice but to step up when Vito and Sonny are killed, but what doesn't seem to fit with the early indications of his character is why he doesn't merely step into the role in a minimal way and then wind it back. Instead he turns it up to eleven.

I guess the corrupting nature of his situation is the point of the series, but (to get back to the OP) it would help make it more believable for me if GF1 included maybe at least one element (prior to the deaths of Vito and Sonny) that painted Michael as a little more ambiguous in character. Give him a hint of dark side. It would make the rest more believable for me.

Marines, not army. But take into account that he was awarded the Navy Cross. He may start off with principals but he is already a killer.

[JohnT]

The kamikaze hit on Roth takes me out of the movie. I don't picture Mafia hitmen going on suicide missions.

If you're talking about the first guy (who wore black while in Cuba), I don't think it was a kamikaze - he just got caught.

If you're talking about the second guy (who met Roth at the airport), I seem to recall something where it was discussed that the man who was to shoot Roth had to have nothing to lose - i.e., he was already terminal from cancer, or he was due to be rubbed out but this was his chance to make amends.

[Loach]

If you're talking about the first guy (who wore black while in Cuba), I don't think it was a kamikaze - he just got caught.

If you're talking about the second guy (who met Roth at the airport), I seem to recall something where it was discussed that the man who was to shoot Roth had to have nothing to lose - i.e., he was already terminal from cancer, or he was due to be rubbed out but this was his chance to make amends.

I seem to recall someone saying that was in the book. Certainly not explained in the movie. The movie should stand on its own.

[JohnT]

Well, regarding GF2, the stuff with Roth isn't in the book - only the "early Vito" story was in the novel.

[Princhester]

Marines, not army. But take into account that he was awarded the Navy Cross. He may start off with principals but he is already a killer.

This doesn't do it for me. It's not specified what he did to earn his Navy Cross, but whatever it was it would have been based around heroic acts saving his buddies or bravery taking objectives that his commanders wished to take, in a just war. All actions that most good citizens would applaud.

It seems to me to be a long leap to go from that, to ruthless, cold blooded killings to not merely defend but to massively enlarge a criminal empire. Sure, the Navy Cross shows bravery and determination but it doesn't show bad character.

[Švejk]

... and I guess you might say that the hint of his dark side is his volunteering to make the hit on Sollozzo and McCluskey, but really that is a hot headed thing he agrees to do in direct revenge of his father. It isn't something that shows that what I interpreted as his basic distaste for the family business was corruptible.

When Michael suggests doing the McCluskey/Solozzo hit, Sonny says something to that effect, or more to the point: that Michael wants to do this because McCluskey slapped him around a bit. Michael, however, says it is not personal at all, strictly business, and convinces them by coming up with the plan to let the media portray McCluskey as a dirty cop. The point is, the way this hit is done is meant to show Michael not as a hothead but as a cool calculating businessman.

I agree, though, that the transition from the Michael we see at the wedding to this cool calculating Michael is difficult to follow in the movie and could have been done more credibly.

[Princhester]

I'm probably not putting it clearly. It's not that I have trouble with "cool calculating". Michael is never portrayed as anything but highly competent at what he sets out to do, and cool and calculating in how he does it.

It's what he wants to do not how he does it that jars a bit for me. He goes from someone who has distaste for his families illegal and violent ways, and shows real civic spirit in joining the marines, and then next thing you know he is expanding the family's illegal and violent ways and corrupting civil society.

[Morbo]

When Michael suggests doing the McCluskey/Solozzo hit, Sonny says something to that effect, or more to the point: that Michael wants to do this because McCluskey slapped him around a bit. Michael, however, says it is not personal at all, strictly business, and convinces them by coming up with the plan to let the media portray McCluskey as a dirty cop. The point is, the way this hit is done is meant to show Michael not as a hothead but as a cool calculating businessman.

I love the very slow zoom in this scene - showing Sonny, Tom and Michael at first, then closing in gradually to show only Michael in the shot at the end of his speech, signifying him taking power.

[Princhester]

I have trouble seeing how the slow zoom is supposed to signify Michael taking power: he is doing a fall guy's work in making the hit then having to leave the country, sidelining him and leaving Sonny to play the Big Shot role in having an underling do the work while he keeps his hands clean. I would have seen the slow zoom as signifying the enormity of what Michael is doing: a major act of criminality that will doom his formerly clean record and embed him into the family business.

[Mr Shine]

In Godfather part 1, get someone who can act without mumbling to play Vito.

[Morbo]

I have trouble seeing how the slow zoom is supposed to signify Michael taking power: he is doing a fall guy's work in making the hit then having to leave the country, sidelining him and leaving Sonny to play the Big Shot role in having an underling do the work while he keeps his hands clean. I would have seen the slow zoom as signifying the enormity of what Michael is doing: a major act of criminality that will doom his formerly clean record and embed him into the family business.

OK, yours is a better explanation of what I'm trying to convey - it also shows how he's clearly the most intelligent and cool-headed, foreshadowing the more major family role he'll play. IMO of course.

[wedgehed]

I was referring to the hit on Roth at the airport where he was met by the FBI. The hitman is Rocco Lampone, who earned his bones by killing Pauli Gatto. Lampone was later made a capo regime & was involved in the hit on Philip Tattaglia.

In Godfather II, Lampone appears to be head of security at Mike's Nevada compound.

Now, I can see Lampone being in Mike's doghouse for the security breach that almost resulted in Mike's assassination; but, is this really the guy you send to commit murder in full view of the FBI? What if he is captured? He has had enough direct dealings with Mike to cut any deal he desires with the feds.

It just doesn't work IMO.

[Osiris the 1st]

As to Michael's motivation, I think it had to do mostly with guilt, as well as love for/loyalty to his father/family.

Look at how he finds out that Vito has been shot. He and Kay are in New York apparently having a holiday. He shows no sign that he intends to visit or meet up with anyone from his family, distancing himself from them in order to distance himself from The Family. He only finds out what happened to Vito because it's on the front page of the newspaper. Now infer how he felt. Did he think, "If I was there, maybe this wouldn't have happened. If I had become part of The Family could I have somehow helped to avoid this?"

Now think about his anger when, with Police assistance another attempt is made on Vito at the hospital.

Just because he seem cold and calculating on the outside. It doesn't mean that he isn't raging on the inside.

[Loach]

As to Michael's motivation, I think it had to do mostly with guilt, as well as love for/loyalty to his father/family.

Look at how he finds out that Vito has been shot. He and Kay are in New York apparently having a holiday. He shows no sign that he intends to visit or meet up with anyone from his family, distancing himself from them in order to distance himself from The Family. He only finds out what happened to Vito because it's on the front page of the newspaper. Now infer how he felt. Did he think, "If I was there, maybe this wouldn't have happened. If I had become part of The Family could I have somehow helped to avoid this?"

Now think about his anger when, with Police assistance another attempt is made on Vito at the hospital.

Just because he seem cold and calculating on the outside. It doesn't mean that he isn't raging on the inside.

The scene at the hospital is the pivotal scene. When they are outside and he is telling the baker what to do, the baker can't light a cigarette but Michael's hands are steady. In that moment he realizes how suited he is for the family business. And one of the last times Pacino has been subtle.