The Godfather movies were just that, movies. They weren’t documentaries or historical documents. Artistic liberties were taken. The directors, writers, actors were looking for actions and scenarios to create a particular effect with it’s audience.
Note that Michael actually didn’t perfectly follow Clemenza’s instructions.
He was supposed to immediately let his gun hand down and drop the gun. (Presumably so not everyone would know whether he still had it.) But instead he started walking away, dropping the gun in a very visible way.
Am I wrong in my recollection that the Godfather Saga version had subtitles? The quotes given above mostly match my memory of the lines.
I always interpreted the lack of subtitles for that portion while zoomed in on Michael to represent that it didn’t matter what Sollozzo was saying, Michael was not going to listen. He was clearly conveyed as tuning out Sollozzo with Sollozzo’s voice kind of in the background and camera on Michael’s face. Pacino’s expression right before killing Sollozzo during this part is a pretty good.
Pretty good is an understatement. Pacino’s acting in that scene is marvelous. It’s the major turning point in his life, and he knows there’s no going back if he does the deed. You can see all the conflict, doubt and nervousness just in his eyes alone.
His non-verbal acting was amazing during the entire movie. Some of the best ever filmed. This scene and when he is talking to Carlo in particular. Seeing how subtle he was in this movie compared to how over the top he quickly became as an actor is remarkable.
In the book, when this scene is occuring, it’s said that Michael is so wrought up with what he’s going to do that he simply doesn’t comprehend what Sollozo is saying. By taking away the subtitles you get the feel of that.
There is problem with this part. In the scene, Sollozzo does not speak long enough in Sicilian to justify this lengthy translation.
I just looked that up myself. Puzo writes, “He could not understand a word the man was saying. It was literally gibberish to him.” So it does make sense that it would be subtitle-free.
The (possibly erroneous) translation of Sollozzo’s lines after the bathroom break are basically paraphrased from his pre-break conversation with Michael (in the book). Does anyone know what he actually says in movie at that point?
Well, it’s complicated somewhat by one of the victims being a police captain, but bodies begin falling in rapid succession so the cops have their hands full anyway.
I like this interpretation…
I never thought that the words were important, but I have been curious of what was said, as they subtitle other parts of the movie that were in italian, often very few words. There is quite a bit of Italian here, so even though ultimately the dialogue doesn’t make any difference, and Michael is going to kill them no matter what is said, the words could have easily been subtitled.
Others have mentioned Pacino’s non-verbal acting in this scene, and this could be another reason for no subtitles. If you were reading subtitles, you would miss much of the non-verbal cues from Pacino, his eyes or his slight changes in his facial expressions.
I think it is amazing. Pacino DID become over the top as an actor. I think the Godfather shows how much talent he really had. Maybe he was directed out of his acting skills in other movies, but what you see in the Godfather does not appear in many more of his movies over the next 40 years.
I should have kept reading. Thanks for this.
Puzo came up with the idea himself and researched the Mafia so well that many mob figures later insisted to Puzo that he must have been in the life. Puzo was deep in debt and as he himself said, “I have written three novels. The Godfather is not as good as the preceding two; I wrote it to make money…”
“I was forty-five years old and tired of being an artist. Besides, I owed $20,000 to relatives, finance companies, banks and assorted bookmakers and shylocks. It was really time to grow up and sell out as Lenny Bruce once advised. So I told my editors OK, I’ll write a book about the Mafia…”
“One day a writer friend dropped into my magazine office. As a natural courtesy I gave him a copy of the Fortunate Pilgrim. A week later he came back. He thought I was a great writer. I bought him a magnificent lunch. During lunch I told him some funny Mafia stories and my ten-page outline [of the Godfather]. He was enthusiastic. He arranged a meeting for me with the editors of G.P. Putnam’s Sons. The editors just sat around for an hour listening to my Mafia tales and said go ahead. They also gave me a $5,000 advance and I was on my way, just like that… As soon as I got my hands on the Putnam money, I naturally didn’t work on the book. (Luckily part of the advance was payable on the handing in of the complete manuscript or I would never have finished it.) The thing is, I didn’t want to write The Godfather…”