‘I didn’t like it that much’

Francis Ford Coppola Megapolis is now in theaters and appears to have a divided audience. While the filmmaker self-financed the magnum opus, he reportedly struggled to release it as prominent distributors pulled out of the film. However, the film eventually managed to get a wide release but did not do well.

One of Coppola’s best films remains the classic The godfatherwhich earned him his second Oscar for his screenplay, which he adapted from the novel of the same name by Mario Puzo. Although Coppola was reportedly attracted to the story’s themes and setting, he was concerned by its blandness and decided to cut it from the film.

Francis Ford Coppola The godfather Significantly different from the book in one aspect

Enduring enormous battles to make a movie the way he wants is not new to Francis Ford Coppola. The filmmaker was known to have a disastrous production Apocalypse now and his latest film Megapolis faced several hurdles before being created. Even his best film The godfather had many problems during production, mainly due to his feud with the studio.

As he celebrated his 52nd birthday earlier this year, Coppola recalled the circumstances in which he got the job and how he first came across Mario Puzo’s crime novel. Despite not being interested in the Mafia, Coppola reportedly tried it because of the Shakespearean themes of development and tragedy in the story.

However, he reportedly had one problem with the way the story was presented in Puzo’s novel. He said (via BBC):

To me, and to anyone who remembers the original Godfather book, it had a lot of sordid aspects that were obviously left out for the movie, and for those reasons I didn’t like it much.

These ‘sleazy’ pieces contain a vivid description of the sexual escapades of Sonny Corleone and the p*dophilia of producer Jack Woltz.

Francis Ford Coppola The godfather It was a commentary on US power dynamics

The opening line of The godfather is as famous as any of the popular dialogues from the film that have become a staple of pop culture. It begins with the character Amerigo Bonasera telling “I believe in America” to Don Corleone as he talks about his daughter’s horrific r*pe. Themes of the immigrant experience in America are prevalent in the story.

Francis Ford Coppola was reportedly drawn to this part of the story and believed it was an allegory of how the US functions on the world stage and how it uses its power. He compared Michael Corleone to the growth of the country itself. He said (via BBC):

It seemed to me that Michael Corleone in the first Godfather, like America, really started with some ideals, freshness, and although he came from Europe, as America was really born from Europe, there were new ideals and new directions that were like that. inspiring.

The filmmaker reportedly made many parallels with the way the country had operated on the world stage and how it had developed itself into a superpower and interacted with other emerging countries.

The godfather is available to stream on Paramount+.