Francis Ford Coppola: The Godfather Was a Metaphor For America

New Delhi:

Hollywood directing legend Francis Ford Coppola, in New Delhi to address a session of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, spoke at length about his seminal film The Godfather, a 1972 crime drama that is considered one of the greatest films in cinematic history.

Mr Coppola described the film as a "metaphor for America," saying that "trying to do good and in the process doing a lot of bad" seemed to be the human condition over the course of history.

He also spoke about the challenges of adapting a book to film. He said, "A novel is tricky because it wasn't intended to be seen in two hours. The challenge is trying to find ways to collapse it and shorten it without destroying the original book."

Mr Coppola spoke specifically about having to condense the final events in Mario Puzo's original book in which central character Michael Corleone's revenge on his enemies occupies about 40 pages. In the film, the revenge killings take just a few minutes and are intercut with a baptism scene. The baby being baptized, incidentally, was played by Mr Coppola's daughter Sofia, now a well-known director herself.

Mr Coppola also answered a question on whether he felt that The Godfather, which dealt with the Mafia, glorified violence. He said, "That's always a problem with a war film. It's very difficult to make a good anti-war film because it has so much violence in it. Italians are associated with great people - great artists, writers, designers - and to have it reduced to these bloodthirsty gangsters is problematic. Avoid films that are unduly violent, the responsibility lies with you."

And here's how making The Godfather changed Mr Coppola's life. "I never intended to be an important Hollywood director. I wanted to make small, personal cinema. The Godfather was an accident that happened and turned out to be far more successful than anyone expected," he explained, citing late Bengali cinematic great Satyajit Ray as an influence.

There was never intended to be more than one Godfather film, revealed Mr Coppola. He also spoke about the final film of the trilogy being made under "terrible financial distress."

Mr Coppola said, "I wanted to call the third movie The Death of Michael Corleone. People went to see the third movie wanting another installment for the first two but got something different. There are now people who think that Godfather Part III is interesting compared to the other two."

Mr Coppola also famously directed war movie Apocalypse Now, a notoriously difficult project. He said, "Apocalypse Now was the most daunting venture I went on. Absolutely no one wanted to be in my shoes, and I ended up owning it."

The Godfather starred Marlon Brando and Al Pacino in the lead roles as Don Corleone and his son Michael. It won three Oscars including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay for Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, and Best Actor for Marlon Brando.

The Coppola family is one of Hollywood's most respected film dynasties. Francis Ford Coppola's children are Sofia, director of Lost in Translation, and Roman, writer of Moonrise Kingdom. His sister, actress Talia Shire, is known for her roles in The Godfather and Rocky series. His nephews are actors Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzmann.