I have some DVDs from the bygone era and before they become non-functional, I am going to record interesting bits from these Director’s Cut editions. These provide valuable insights into the art of filmmaking and it’s amazing to see how great filmmakers adjust to the dynamic conditions, how much trouble they go to get the tiniest of details right and produce a memorable experience. Other movies in this series are
1. Coppola feels proud that he always gave the author premier position in the credits, adding the author’s name ahead of the title, so it’s Mario Puzo’s The Godfather or John Grisham’s The Rainmaker.
2. The cat in Marlon Brando’s lap was not planned. Coppola saw the cat running around on the set, he picked it up and put into Marlon’s hands. Marlon loved animals, the cat bonded with him and became part of the scene.
3. Coppola had open calls for actors before the movie and found two new talents who had little previous experience – Abe Vigoda as Salvatore Tessio and Salvatore Corsitto as Bonasera. Coppola says that a director should always throw the casting open for at least a couple of days to give someone like that a chance to be found.
4. They had about two and a half days to shoot the wedding scene and were under a lot of pressure. Coppola prepared a stack of cards, each describing the scene, like “Clemenza dancing and asking for wine.”
5. Luca Brasi played by Lenny Montana was a wrestler in real life. He was very nervous in front of Brando and kept fumbling his lines. So Coppola shot a scene of him practicing his speech in the garden to make his fumbling later on look natural.
6. The Godfather was shot in 62 days and cost $6.5 million. Coppola feels that he shot the movie sloppily and in a rush.
7. The shots of Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Jack Waltz (John Marley) walking in the garden were shot by the second unit in LA. The actors were not available so Coppola dressed up two of his friends and shot them walking in the garden.
8. In the scene of Jack Waltz waking up with horse’s head in his bed, the head was real. The head belonged to a horse that had already been slaughtered.
9. While shooting the scene of Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) meeting Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), Coppola came to know that he would be fired by the studio at the end of the week. It was Wednesday. Taking preemptive action, he fired four people – assistant directors and other staff members – who he suspected to be the spies of the studio and who were campaigning against him. This put the studio on back foot. Meanwhile, Coppola received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the movie Patton. This consolidated his position and he narrowly escaped getting fired.
10. The scene where Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) are exiting a theater on Christmas Eve was the very first scene shot on the first day. Later, Michael comes to know about the attack on his father and is scanning the newspaper for definite news. The newspaper shots were filmed by George Lucas who was helping Coppola with the production.
11. When the scene of meeting between Tom Hagen and Emilio Barzini (Richard Conte) was being shot, news came that there was going to be a snowstorm. Coppola never cancels a shooting due to rain or storm. He calls it “special effects for free” and shoots right through it. That’s what happened here as well.
12. For the scene of Michael visiting his father at the hospital, George Lucas suggested that they should include some empty shots of the corridors to build up the suspense but they did not have any. Then Lucas searched for some leftover shots, the footage of empty rooms and corridors after the actor had let the frame and the director had said cut. Coppola’s advice, “The seemingly unimportant things are as valuable as the important things.”
13. Al Pacino’s jaw was really wired so he can show that he really had difficulty in talking. Coppola did not want to shoot in the way it is usually done in movies where an actor gets punched in a scene and he is shown talking normally few scenes after.
14. In the montage scene of police cracking down on gangsters after Sollozzo killing, the man playing the piano is Coppola’s father and he is playing his own composition that Coppola loved.
15. Two weeks before the shooting started, Coppola invited the whole crew to a family dinner in the back room of a restaurant. Brando sat at the head of the table with Pacino, Jimmy Kahn and Duvall at his sides. Talia Shire, who was Coppola’s sister in real life and played Connie, brought plates from the kitchen and served. Coppola told them to improvise and act their characters. He believes that this went a long way in getting the cast comfortable with each other.
16. The baby getting baptised at the end is Coppola’s own daughter, Sofia Coppola. In the movie, she was baptised as a boy.
17. While editing in LA, the studio was paying such meagre amount that Coppola stayed in Jimmy Kahn’s maid’s room to cut down expenses and save some money to support his family.
18. As with casting of Brando and Pacino, the studio also vehemently opposed Nino Rota as composer. After many discussions, Coppola reluctantly agreed to put in a music piece suggested by the studio. That’s what you hear when Tom Hagen visits Hollywood.
19. Richard S. Castellano, who played Peter Clemenza, thought of the memorable line, “leave the gun, take the Cannoli” while shooting the scene where Pauli is murdered.
20. “In its own way, it is [an] unusual way to do a gangster picture, so personal and so.. so authentic in terms of Italian-American life.”
I was very unhappy during The Godfather. I had been told by everyone that my ideas were so bad and you know, I didn’t have a hell lot of confidence in myself. I was only about 30 years old or so.. you know, I was just hanging on by my wits. I had no indication that this nightmare was going to turn into a successful film, much lesser a film that was to become a classic. So I always feel for young people working, you know. Remember that those times when you feel that your ideas aren’t good or people putting down your ideas so you are getting fired, those are the same ideas that you are going to be celebrated for 30 years later. So, you know, you almost have to have courage.
Francis Ford Coppola
