The
Godfather Effect: Changing Hollywood, America and Me by Tom Santopietro
(In this exclusive article for Cinema Retro, author Tom Santopietro takes an introspective look at his motivations for writing his acclaimed book, The Godfather Effect: Changing Hollywood, America and Me and provides an extended excerpt from the book).
Arthur Laurents, the
author of Gypsy, West Side Story, The Way We
Were, Rope, and The Turning Point, once stated that
whatever book you think you’re sitting down to write, it will inevitably turn
out quite differently. That, in a nutshell, is exactly what happened to me in
writing my recent book The Godfather
Effect: Changing Hollywood, America, and Me. I thought I was sitting down
to examine the film trilogy I, along with millions of others around the world, love and obsess over. Write about the films I
did, but I also unexpectedly ended up delving into the history of Italian
immigration to the United States, learning about those, like my grandparents,
who left the horrendous living conditions in southern Italy and journeyed to
the United States for a new start in life. More to the point, and most
surprising of all, I also ended up writing about my own life, growing up
half-Italian in an overwhelmingly WASPy world of private schools and country
clubs. In the process I ended up confronting the irony at the heart of my
obsession with The Godfather: It took
The Godfather, or more specifically, The Godfather Part II, epic sagas concerning gangsters with whom I
thought I had nothing in common, to make me fully connect with a sense of being
Italian, fostering a pride in my heritage that had never previously existed in
my genetically half-Italian, but culturally three-quarters anglo upbringing.
Time
Magazine
dubbed The Godfather “The
Italian-American Gone With the Windâ€,
but for me it was more a case of the personal rather than the epic. One look at
the very young Don Corleone sailing past the Statue of Liberty in Part II, staring in awe at the new world
which awaited him, and I was overcome with a personalized emotion I had never
before experienced in a movie theater. There on the screen, in the person of
young Vito, was my grandfather, Orazio Santopietro, thirteen years old, twenty
lira in his pocket, arriving in America for the very first time. The power of
the image of this solitary boy made me realize for the first time in my
comfortable, cocooned, upper-middle-class life just what had transpired in my
grandfather’s lap to L’America. Thanks to Coppola and co-screenwriter Mario
Puzo, I finally got it. Well, it would take decades and the loss of both of my
parents before I fully understood, but that one image of young Vito and the
Statue of Liberty first opened the door to a sense of “Italian-ness†that had
heretofore utterly escaped me.
When The Godfather Effect was published early in 2012, I was actually
unprepared for the very personal letters and e-mails that I received from
readers. My previous three books dealt with the careers of music and acting
legends Barbra Streisand, Doris Day, and Frank Sinatra, and I had always
enjoyed hearing from fans of the stars. But—those responses had never been so
personal, so nakedly emotional, as the letters I received regarding The Godfather Effect. People all over
the globe love the Corleones- for all sorts of complicated reasons- and my view
of the immigrant experience through the lens of The Godfather seemed to remind readers of their own families and
immigrant ancestors. Italian, Irish, eastern European, Hispanic- we all have
ancestors whose journeys made our own twenty-first century lives possible. By
the time I received my fifth letter which began “I’m not Italian but your story made me think
about my grandparents and their own journey to the United Statesâ€, I realized
that the Corleones don’t just register as Italian-American: they are American. The
sort of personal response engendered by the book has little to do with my writing, but
everything to do with the intense reaction that the Corleones evoke in movie
audiences of all ages and ethnicities. Thanks to the work of extraordinary artists like Coppola, Brando and
Pacino, The Godfather, like all great
pop culture, provides us glimpses of our
own journeys and very American lives.
So- with that as
background I here offer an excerpt from the beginning of The Godfather Effect- part film history, part immigrant journey,
and a salute to two of the best films ever made. Not just the best gangster
movies, but the best movies. Ever.
(Continue reading for excerpt from the book)
(The following an excerpt
from The Godfather Effect.)
When Francis Ford Coppola
arrived at Marlon Brando’s home to shoot what was euphemistically being called
a “make-up test†for the actor’s role as aging Mafia chieftain Don Vito
Corleone in The Godfather, he had
exactly one thing on his mind: how to conduct what amounted to a screen test,
without insulting the world famous Academy Award winning actor he desperately
wanted for the title role. A legend at
age 47, the eccentric Brando had acquired a reputation for on set difficulty
and cost overruns that sent studio heads running in the opposite direction at
the mere mention of his name. His recent films had tanked at the box office,
and no one at Paramount Pictures wanted an actor they deemed a temperamental,
box office poison has-been to play the role of Don Vito. Time after time,
Paramount Pictures executives had vehemently stated that Marlon Brando would
never play the part. Never.
What those executives had
not counted on, however, was the determination of Coppola himself. Along with
his co-screenwriter Mario Puzo, Coppola had fixated on the idea of the
brilliant, mercurial Brando in the title role, and nothing could persuade him
to look elsewhere. Forget Burt Lancaster, Ernest Borgnine, Frank Sinatra,
Anthony Quinn, and every other Hollywood star who had expressed an interest in
the role. For Francis Ford Coppola, budding auteur, only one actor could
fulfill the complex requirements of the role. Now he just had to find a way to
finesse the test, so that the most acclaimed film actor of the past thirty
years did not realize that he was being screen tested for the Paramount
executives’ mere consideration.
It was actually
co-screenwriter Puzo who had originated the idea of casting Brando by sending a
handwritten letter to the actor couched in the most flattering of terms: “I
think you’re the only actor who can play the Godfather with that quiet force
and irony the part requires.†Don Vito Corleone would appear onscreen for only
one-third of the movie’s length, but Puzo inherently understood that an actor of Brando’s strength, one who
could dominate scenes and cast a presence over the entire film, would prove
crucial for sustaining mood and texture throughout.
The battle over Brando –
upstarts Coppola and Puzo pitted against the collective corporate weight of
Paramount Pictures and its parent company Gulf&Western- had dragged on for
months. Even when Paramount studio head Stanley Jaffe finally agreed to even
consider Brando for the role, a trio of potential deal killers was set
forth as conditions for the actor’s
employment:
- He was not to receive any upfront salary
- Financial responsibility for any
delays caused by the actor’s behavior would remain his alone.
- Regardless of having won an Academy
Award and starring in multiple films, Brando would have to screen test for
the role.
It was with these daunting
pre-existing conditions in mind that director Coppola now found himself driving
up to the privacy conscious actor’s home, the foliage-camouflaged entrance
designed to deter overzealous fans seeming almost symbolic of the torturous
path to production. As Coppola arrived at Brando’s front door, the question
remained: How best to wangle a screen test out of the film legend without
revealing the ego-deflating, temper inducing reason behind it. Fortunately for
Coppola, Brando himself suggested one solution to the problem with his
statement that a brief video of himself in make-up would help to allay his own
fears over his suitability for the role of an elderly Italian man. But- and it
was a big but- a test ostensibly made for Brando’s own reassurance, or to check
the make-up the actor envisioned for the role, did not necessarily resemble a
screen test suitable to win over studio executives already searching for
reasons to summarily reject the actor. With all of these problems running
through his mind, the still relatively unknown Coppola stepped through the
front door of the superstar actor’s home and began work.
Cerebral yet highly
intuitive, Coppola instinctively understood the necessity for underplaying all
elements related to the “test.†Knowing
the actor’s penchant for privacy and quiet, Coppola had brought along only a
skeletal crew. Setting out a few props of Italian food in order to inject a bit
of proper ambience, the director, as well as the few crew members assembled,
silently observed as Brando began stuffing Kleenex in his mouth to achieve the
look and sound he envisioned for Don Vito. Conceptualizing the godfather as a
“bulldogâ€, Brando utilized the Kleenex to accentuate a thrusting jaw and a
hoarse speaking voice capable of simulating the effects of aging. Pulling back
his long dark blonde hair and applying shoe polish to darken the hair to a tint
suitable for that of an elderly Mafia chief, Brando began his metamorphosis
into Don Vito Corleone. Speaking in the gravelly register he felt accurate for
a mobster he decided had previously been shot in the throat, the actor moved
about his home, adjusting his body language, fingering props and falling deeper
into character. Coppola was hooked- or perhaps more accurately- instantly felt
vindicated by his choice. Here, in the flesh, stood Don Vito Corleone. Just as
the director had visualized. Only bigger and better.
When the completed test
was replayed, even Brando himself, often his own harshest critic, was pleased
with the results, feeling that he had successfully captured the look of the aging
Mafioso-- “mean looking, but warm underneath.†Now Coppola had to convince the Paramount studio
executives to see things exactly his way. With nary a hit to his credit-
previous directorial efforts You’re a Big
Boy Now, Finian’s Rainbow, and The Rain People had all flopped in the one area that mattered
to studios- the box office- Coppola
faced a decidedly uphill task. What he had going for him, however, was a
bulldog tenacity at least the equal of Don Vito’s own, a nearly frightening
intensity of belief in his own correctness, and for all of his cerebral nature,
a certain street cunning and directorial intuition that allowed him to unveil
the screen tests in precisely the fashion which showcased Brando to maximum
effect.
When the time came to show
the “make up test†to studio heads Stanley Jaffe and Robert Evans, Coppola and
the film’s producer Al Ruddy cannily placed Brando’s test in the middle of
others, thereby heightening its impact. Duly pleased as Evans and Jaffe were-
Evans reportedly asked “He looks Italian-fine. But who is he?†- it
was the reaction of the formidable Austrian-born Gulf&Western chairman Charles Bluhdorn which assured
Brando’s casting. After sitting through the test, Bluhdorn bluntly barked: “Who
are ve vatching? Who is dis old guinea?†When told it was Brando, an amused and
impressed Bluhdorn signed off on the casting. In Coppola’s equally compelling
version of the screening, Bluhdorn “backed away†when he saw it was Brando, but
after watching the actor’s metamorphosis into Don Corleone, grunted “That’s amazing†and approved the
casting.
Brando in place, further
casting continued, and shooting finally commenced on March 8, 1971. Such was the anticipation of Brando’s
performance that in the blitz of publicity undertaken prior to the film’s
release, Paramount Pictures purposely withheld photographs of the actor in
costume and make-up as Don Corleone. Paramount knew they had a sure fire object
of audience interest on their hands with the world’s most famous actor playing a
murderous mobster familiar to millions of readers. What they didn’t know was
how the audience would actually react once they had sat through the film’s
three hour running time.
The answer came instantly
and not only in the form of nearly unanimous rave reviews received by star and
film alike. Such was the power of Brando’s portrayal, that when combined with
the golden hued cinematography, brilliant production design, and haunting
music, viewers across the nation completely capitulated: they didn’t just like
the film, they wanted to enter the world of the Corleones-- to become guests
themselves at Connie Corleone’s film opening wedding reception. Suddenly,
mobsters or not, Italians were no longer objects of derision- they were figures
fit for admiration.
Within days of the film’s
release, comedians, talk show hosts, and even politicians were not just talking
about the film, they were imitating Brando. Jaws thrust forward, voices lowered
to bullfrog register, and incessantly repeating “make him an offer he can’t refuse†until it quickly grew into an
instantly recognizable catchphrase, citizens nationwide were already channeling
their own version of Don Corleone. Poking fun out of both affection and approval, audiences were
surrendering to a nervous reflex which seemed to signal their own visceral
reaction to a character they found fearsome, admirable, and dare they admit
it--reflective of their own innermost fears and desires. An Italian- American
mobster- make that Italian-Americans in general-- had gone mainstream.
With this one film,
notions of ethnicity in American had been upended in rather spectacular fashion
.Mobsters these characters were, but in their proud self-assertion, embrace of
their own ethnicity, and love of family, lay complex, readily identifiable human beings. For the very first time,
Italian-Americans were not just embracing their own story, but telling it on
their own terms. In the wake of The
Godfather’s release, it seemed as if a popular Italian-American aphorism
might just be true: there did indeed now seem to exist two types of people in
the world: Italians and those who wanted to be Italian.
The lasting effect of The Godfather ran even deeper, however.
In detailing the saga of the Corleones, author and co-screenwriter Puzo was
examining nothing less than the state of America. His vision filled with an
understanding of the fundamental contradictions inherent in all human beings,
Puzo’s singular achievement lay in the ability to celebrate the virtues of the
Italian family while never losing sight of the tragedy lying at the heart of
the Godfather and America alike. What
Puzo and screenwriter/director Coppola delivered- brilliantly- was nothing less
than a disquisition on the madness, glory, and failure of the American dream.
In exploring that dream in distinctly Italian-American terms, they succeeded in
delivering nothing less than the Italianization of American culture.
Even to those who never
particularly cared to be Italian. Especially to those who had never cared to be
Italian.
Like me.
The
Godfather Effect is available on amazon.com, as an e-book,
and at bookstores nation-wide. For more information: tomsantopietro.com
Click here to order from Amazon