Godfather: That's How You Make a Movie
- Alphonso
- Sep 9, 2021
- 4 min read
"If a million people see my movie, I hope they see a million different movies."
- Quentin Tarantino
We are starting this post with a legendary prodigy director's quote as he is probably the person to make the best comment on how to make a good movie. And I will make a review about Godfather using this quote from Quentin Tarantino. In this post, I will talk about how Godfather became one of the best movies in the world, and at the end, I will talk about my opinions about the movie.
Note: This post will be about Godfather 1 & 2 as the 3rd movie is mediocre and not a legend as the first 2 movies.
Godfather includes different characters symbolizing many different things and themes. For example, Vito Corleone symbolizes both the balance between "crime and justice" and "family and work" together. Micheal Corleone symbolizes both finding yourself and loyalty. All the other characters in the movie also have at least one thing that they symbolize and every character has a purpose in the movie. And that's because you never see any purposeless scene. And when I talked about the movie with my family and my friends, I noticed something. Everyone likes something different about the movie, and everyone talks about a different part of the movie. So if I talked to 10 people, I heard reviews about 10 different movies. And I am sure that if talk to a million people, I will hear reviews about a million different movies. And I believe this is the biggest feature that makes Francis Ford Coppola's movie a legend.
Speaking about Francis Ford Coppola, I also need to talk about this amazing director. He literally filmed the first movie against producers' and Paramount Pictures' will. Francis Ford Coppola who was about 32 years old who hadn't filmed an important movie until that time started to film the movie. Coppola wanted to want to make a movie about the family relations of the mafia and a drama-based movie. However, Paramount was wanting a gangster movie with lots of action. Although producers were threatening him with firing, he took that risk and continued his dialogue-based movie which had a storyline that was improving slowly. And when producers saw the scene where Micheal kills Sollozo, Paramount Pictures changed their mind about the movie. Coppola also insisted on using the famous Godfather logo, while producers didn't want it. Still, he used it. And now, the movie is a legend with every aspect of it. And it wouldn't become one of the best movies in the world if Coppola didn't direct the movie and if he didn't insist on his decisions.
Another aspect of the movie that makes it so good is its screenplay. It is so realistic. It doesn't have parts that are just made to get the audience's attention and it has lots of natural scenes that don't include lots of action. However, in the Godfather, the parts that get the audience's attention are the natural parts. So this movie broke the classic algorithm of action movies, and it wrote its own.
I think I don't need to talk about the epic acting in the movie, but I also want to mention all the legendary actors of the movie. Marlon Brando was clearly the perfect Vito Corleone. However, I think the actor that has the biggest effect on the movie is Al Pacino. And it seems like Al Pacino also thought that he has a bigger impact on the movie, and he boycotted the Academy Awards by not coming to the ceremony. Although Diane Keaton had a smaller role compared to Brando and Pacino, I think also has a significant impact on the movie. James Caan's Sony and Robert De Niro's young Vito Corleone was also important roles in the movie that made the movie even better.
I talked about some features like a screenplay and directing of the movies to show you why the Godfather is an example of making a successful movie. Other things like cinematography and soundtrack of the movie are also of high quality, but I think it is quite clear that the Godfather movies really successful. So, I want to pass to the part where I will talk about my opinions.
My Thoughts
As I mentioned in the first part of this post, the Godfather movies are really good and they are some of the best movies in cinema history. And I am sure that many of the people who watched the movies liked it. But there is a war between those people who liked the movies. And this war is about is this movie really a perfect movie or is it a really successful movie but overrated? For me, the movie is not overrated, but the movie is overrated. (No, I don't have a personality disorder.) What I try to say is that this movie is theoretically perfect, but in a world where movies earn money from their action or nudity amount, I can't say this movie is perfect. I am not a person who watches those movies with lots of action and nudity, but if you want or not, the understanding of a movie changes, this is why movies like Godfather look overrated even if you are a person who tries to watch good quality movies. However, I believe that this shouldn't change your movie taste, and you should continue watching all those high-quality movies you want to watch even if people say they are overrated.
And personally, I think the most important thing you need to think about before watching the Godfather movies is their durations which are 2h 58m for the first movie and 3h 22m for the second movie. So it is really long when compared to the movies made nowadays. However, the Godfather movies use this duration really well, and if you would like to watch a movie like the Godfather with lots of dialogues and a slowly improving story that satisfies you at the end;
These movies are other good choices for you:
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