Original subtitles

In the early 1970s, Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola created two of the

most influential films in American motion picture history, recipients of

nine Academy Awards, including two for Best Picture.

Nearly 20 years later, Puzo, Coppola, and many of their original collaborators

assembled to make The Godfather Part III.

Here are their memories, spanning from 1970 to the present.

Then Paramount said, you cannot use, you're not going to use a real horse's

head. I said, well, how can you do it? Make one out of plaster. So as the date

approached, they sent a horse's head from Hollywood.

That was old, dusty and old.

Mr. Head.

Mr. Head.

The horse is a horse. They're going to be shot on one side and so on.

The pet lovers.

When they protested that, we ordered it from the same source where they get the

pet food. We wanted a horse that matched the real horse.

And then we had to put, even then, we had to put a certain dining pattern on

their head.

You know, I just remember about that thing.

We did that.

We kept this head on ice for a while, obviously, because I remember the day we

shot the scene, it was extremely hot out, and John Marley stayed in bed with

his horse's head in this heat. It was a little tacky, actually.

What's funny about the horse's head is that when I read the book, I read it

wrong. I thought that the horse was in the bed with him, and he looked at the

sheets, but now as I read it, that's the way it is in the movie.

In reality, in the book, the horse was there. The horse's head was there right

in front when he got up.

He looked at it, and that little misreading... It wasn't in the bed?

No, it led me to suggest it. I said, Brody, what if, you know, he discovers

it... He wakes up, he feels... Full of blank.

But that wasn't the way the book was, but I misread it that way.

As the movies were made, The Godfather became just kind of the biggest home

movie in history.

older brother but don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again

we're both part of the same hypocrisy

but never think it applies to my family

movies were very new to me and Duval would

say before each take he said no matter what you do you're gonna laugh on this

take

It's because I admire you and I love you that I kept things secret from you.

Do you expect me to let you go? Do you expect me to let you take my children

from me?

The Godfather was textured, or perfumed in a way, by our memories of our Italian

-American family.

I think that worked good when you played, that you hadn't been let up for

like 20 years. You've had this responsibility.

The thing that's different about Godfather III and Godfather II is that

Michael is different, but in order to see how he's different, we've got to get

a few tastes of it.

Because we need a little emotion. If we could put a little emotion, like in

three places in the movie, that would be the thing.

Just have the weight of the gravity. That's what does it.

You know what I'm saying is that you've never, from the time you committed that

first sin, you've never had the weight off of you.

Okay. You must have. You can't take it anymore. You have to be different. It

seems to me that whatever the film lay in at balance, that if I kicked it one

side, kicked it to being more personal and more soap opera or more emotional,

that that would be enough to kick it over, you know?

The audience has got to be like this during this thing. I mean, it's got to

be Jesus. This guy is cracking.

This guy is, for the first time I know, he's really worried that he did the

wrong thing. I mean, he's got a conscience.

I mean, how can we put the intensity of that in this moment alone? You see,

there's no one in the room except this corpse.

So he can speak freely, and you almost can see him by the coffin being very

emotional.

And then he says, where did I go wrong, is what he's saying.

Or is it too late for me? Are my sins too great?

Did I love too much or too little?

There's a point, like, you know, you get a virtuous man and he commits an

unvirtuous act.

He's so horrified that he's committed that unvirtuous act that it becomes even

more terrible.

The only trouble is these are all intellectual ideas, and we're trying to

get... Something really just emotional that the guy's speaking from his heart.

I mean, he's a guy who's clearly getting ready for death, and he's very worried

that he... It's like King Lear. He hasn't... He hasn't set things right.

My history with The Godfather was very much the history of someone in trouble.

I found the first movie very tough to do and very tough to finally pull off. I

was a young director.

I hadn't really...

I've done a lot of work and I had this opportunity to do this novel. I thought

of myself as a professional director making an adaptation of a novel.

I knew that as the book became more popular and more successful, I realized

that in a sense it was beginning to outclass me in that I wouldn't have

gotten the job had five months later the book become the sensation that it was.

And even in the early...

early weeks of the production i knew that they were not happy with what i had

done the kind of classic style that i chose in russia's maybe didn't impress

them but i you know i just wanted to survive it i knew that my ideas

regarding the casting were not popular had been a very difficult time to try to

convince the studio that my my notions about casting were right i remember he

having a lot of uh he was having a lot of problems every time he mentioned

brando's name one of the

executives, executives is the right word, said, if you mention his name

again, you're out.

And the guy who was then the president said, as president of Paramount

Pictures, these are his exact words, as president of Paramount Pictures, Marlon

Brando will never appear in this motion picture.

Let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is, Johnny

Fontaine will never get that movie. I remember I just sort of fell on the

floor and said to them, you know, at least give me a chance. They're all

right. If, number one, he does the movie for nothing, if he does a screen test,

and if he puts up a bond guaranteeing that none of his shenanigans will cause

a delay, you can consider him.

So I said, all right.

And I called up Brandon, whom I didn't know, and had made that contact, and

said, oh, what if I do some makeup tests, I said, to get around the screen

test. And I went, and I brought Italian cheese and cigars and stuff.

And we were just shooting and shooting, and he saw the cheese and went like

that, and he started to, like, take his hair and put shoe polish on. He says,

he's like a bulldog. He puts it like that. He goes, I want a hug, you know.

And he's doing this right there, and I'm shooting it, and then, like, he started

going... He put Kleenex in his mouth, and he had black. It's remarkable to

see.

Bona sera.

Bona sera.

What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully?

If you'd come to me in friendship, then the scum that ruined your daughter would

be suffering this very day.

And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies, then he

would become my enemies.

And then they would fear you.

Are you my friend?

In, I forget the amount of time, but a very short time, he knew the cast.

As a matter of fact, Bobby Duvall,

Al Pacino, and myself flew up to San Francisco to Zoetrope.

Eleanor, his wife, cut our hair, put a bowl over our head, cut our hair. And

with a 16mm camera, you know, we improvised and did some stuff.

And that was it, okay?

Hey, it's good, huh? It's good.

That cost him like four corned beef sandwiches, I think, the whole, you

know. I was more or less just sort of wandering.

I didn't know what was going on.

Movies were very new to me, and Duval would say before each take, he said, no

matter what you do, you're going to laugh on this take.

And I didn't want to laugh. I don't want to hear this, Sonny, but if your father

dies, make the deal.

It's easy for you to say he's not your father.

Wait a minute, it's easy for you to say he's not your father.

It's easy for you to say it ain't your father.

Fuck you and your asshole.

Very nice, Jesse.

Thank you.

Come on, you asshole.

You started it.

I know you don't want to hear it, sonny, but if your father dies, make the deal.

It's easy for you to say he's not your father.

I think Jimmy at the time wanted to play Michael, said, no, you should play

Sonny. Well, you know, and then I said, well, you read Hagen. I kept saying it

was Hogan.

Hogan said, no, it's Hagen.

And, you know, it was all like a joke in a way, because who knew what it was

going to be? But it was like, you know, I had seen Al on Broadway. I said, this

kid would be terrific for this. You know, I mean, we talked about it, you

know, informally. You see, I'm not saying, Sonny, you know, and saying,

Sonny, you know, or, you know, or Freddie, come here. I'd like you to

meet...

i'm not doing it how far to go so he does it in this very indirect way he

doesn't say look at my father is a criminal a gangster who has been shot

and he kind of tells her little anecdotes and at first it's nice even

when you're it's lighter it's fine but the scene is a serious scene when i read

the godfather whenever i would see the character of michael two i saw al's face

luca brasi held a revolver against hallie's head and

My father told Hallie that either his signature or his brains would be on the

contract. He wasn't a star, which was not

pleasing to the executives at that time. He didn't look like stars look like at

that time in the business.

So that when they were suggesting, you know, like Ryan O'Neill or Robert

Redford could be like a northern Italian, I already had Al's.

face ingrained.

Michael, why are all these people bothering your father on a day like

this?

Oh, that's because they know that no Sicilian can refuse any request.

For some reason, they were not happy with Al's test.

But I knew Francis wanted Al.

I was aware that they didn't want me.

And at one point, it was actually, you know, it seemed okay finally. I thought,

Francis, look, we'll do another movie together.

I was relatively young, so I didn't know quite... I thought, well, maybe they

were all like this. I had seen movies about Hollywood. I thought maybe that's

why all the screen tests.

Well, this is a slow wedding.

This isn't a wedding.

One night I got a call from Francis. He was in New York, and he said...

Jimmy, and I could tell from his voice, this was not his idea.

Jimmy, uh, uh, why don't you come in and test?

I said, test what? What, you got a Porsche? You want me to drive around the

block? What do you want? Test what?

He said, please, they want you to play Michael.

Why?

Please. So I went in.

168.

Michael, why are all those people bothering your father on a day like

this?

Well, that's because they know no Sicilian can refuse a request on his

daughter's wedding day. Oh, good.

I don't think we can name an actor that wasn't there.

They're all sitting around on cement floors from 7 in the morning to late at

night. Some guys talk like this. I mean, that guy's from all over the world.

They tried to kill him, my father.

They did.

They nearly did.

Mr.

Brazzi went after them.

And so the story goes.

The story goes that he killed six men in two weeks.

He killed six men in two weeks.

Six men in one week. And he kept sneaking Al in, you know.

At the end of the day, he kept testing Al, testing Al, you know.

It kept happening a lot.

And it was countless. They went on and on.

I remember saying at the time, you know, I just don't respond well to being

around where I'm not wanted.

Well, anyway, he just stayed with it. It was his tenacity that got me in there.

Luca Brazzi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his

brains or his signature would be on the contract.

That's a true story.

And a little point of memorabilia, that was Marsha Lucas, who was the editor,

George's wife, who cut those tests all together.

And she told me that she said, cast Al Pacino because he undresses you with his

eyes.

And Diane said, I said to Diane, I said, Diane, which one do you want? She said,

Al.

I knew Diane before the test.

We had a kind of immediate like for each other.

i think recognized that and thought that that would be useful in the picture

you're trying to scare me you don't want me to marry you oh i

that's very clever but it's not going to work i saw her in a movie called lovers

and other strangers and i just two things i just thought she was just i

just liked her myself i thought she was a cute woman you know i just was

attracted to her but also because she was so eccentric and kind of weird in a

way her delivery that i thought this character of k could be like really

straight boring character that maybe diane would bring some how are you

eccentricity to it fredo my brother fredo this is k adams

so what i'm saying is

that they spent four hundred thousand dollars or so on test and wound up with

the four corned beef sandwiches

I wish that you could get inside Al's head a little more, Michael's character,

because he's always such a master manipulator.

See, Michael has intellectual size so that he does have an inkling about his

tragedy. We could kind of like put the nail on there, really say it

emotionally.

But just have the weight of the gravity, that's what does it.

It's hard to get into Michael Corleone's head. I mean, he was such a creature of

the time that he lived in. Okay.

The father did what he did to protect his children. Then the child grew up and

did what he did to protect his children, but got himself into a moral quandary.

So he's worried that he's somewhere between the past and the future. And he

says, no, it's too late for me. Time has passed me by.

i was already hired as michael they kept saying well where is when is he going to

do something while we were shooting there were hints coming back to me

that i wasn't wanted and with more than hints people were actually you know

giggling when i go on on camera and the studio kept seeing these this footage

coming back and they said well he doesn't he sort of you know he seems

dull i was out i was out And then the Sollozzo scene came.

What guarantees can I give you, Mike?

I am the hunted one.

I missed my chance.

You think too much of me, kid.

I'm not that clever All I want

is a truce

That looked pretty good, I guess, when you could shoot a guy. They wanted me to

assert myself, so there, you know, there's that kind of assertion.

You got to go with the moment and see what happens and try not to plan too

much and see, you know... Like, I know, especially in that scene where I had to

tell Brando that Sonny's dead, we'd done one, two and three takes, and I usually

like to do one or two and that's it.

But Francis said, maybe...

Let's try another one. Take four.

And the other were fine. I would have been satisfied.

But take four, boom, was the thing that worked for me.

You know, that nobody can take it away from me now that it's in print, you

know, on film.

My wife is crying upstairs.

I hear cars coming to the house.

That's in the area of minor.

I think you should tell your dad what everyone seems to know.

I didn't tell Mama anything.

I was about to come up and wake you just now and tell you.

But you needed a drink first.

But this time, when I said Sonny died, something worked so right.

And now you've had your drink.

That's Sonny on the causeway.

He's dead.

Brando, it's a scene over the body. It was a wonderful emotional scene he did.

But before they roll, he says, Francis, could I have a moment?

He kind of gets himself ready, prepares himself emotionally, and then he does

it. It was wonderful.

About two, three days later, I had to walk across the room, and Jimmy said...

With his shoulders, you know, like, Francis, could Bobby have a moment? So I

go like this. Then I walk across the room and say, cut, Brando, give me a

dirty look.

I remember a thing that happened on The Godfather that when we were working on

it, I got the message that Bob Evans felt that there wasn't enough violence

in the picture and that they were going to literally send a violence director in

to kind of come in and do the violence.

I went that night with my sister Tally and my little boy Gio to the set.

And with Gio playing Carlo, who was like eight years old, nine years old, and

Tally being there, I think I may have had a video camera, but I went in there

and said, okay, violence.

You just told me to make you dinner.

Hey, bafangul, huh?

Oh, bafangul, you!

And we went down and we rehearsed it, and we thought, how interesting it would

be if she was pregnant and pitiful and hid behind the curtain.

Knocked down all the dishes. Then you go over there and knock down all the vases.

Then Gio, go in there. Here's this little boy going in with the strap.

hitting his aunt now run to it now break the window now crash the thing you know

Look at that scene. You see the scene directed by a man who knew a violence

director was coming.

And Francis is very open, you know, to... There were a few scenes

I remember. Once, at the beginning of the picture, I asked the prop master to

cut an industrial broom handle off and put it in my car. He said, Jimmy, it's

not in the script. I said, so what? I mean, just put it there, you know.

And sure enough, you know, when I got out of the car, it wasn't scripted, and

Francis didn't expect it when I fired it at Gianni Russo.

Come here, come here.

De Niro tried out for the part of Sonny.

And we shot a test from De Niro, which I think exists, that was so electrifying.

I think I did, did I do the screen test for Sonny? Yeah.

Me and 400 other, 4,000 other people or whatever we were.

You're going to take both of them out on me. You're going to take them. And you

know what they're going to do to you? And you know what you do when you knock

somebody off? You take a gun, you shoot him right up against his fucking head.

That's what you do. You get his brains all over your nice new Ivy League suit,

Michael. That's what happens.

How do you like that? It was spectacular, but it was Sonny really

like killer, you know, like nothing you could ever sell. I know you can do it.

All right, you prove it to me. You can do it. Go ahead, prove it.

Hey, what are you going to do?

Nice college boy, huh?

Didn't want to get mixed up in the family business? Now you want to gun

down a police captain, why? Because he slapped you in the face a little bit?

Huh? What do you think, this is the army where you shoot them a mile away?

You got to get up close like this, and bing, you blow their brains all over

your nice cyber league suit.

Come here.

But I never forgot that, you know, and later on when we were stumped on how to

do the young Marlon, I thought that he could be the young Brando.

i went to paramount i told them the idea they said no no one thing we were trying

to cicely uh when i was older brando had some thing in his mouth and i went to

the same dentist and just got a smaller one and i tried to like get a little

heavier for that period because he was a little older and a little you know a

little mature and so on

And so one of the things we were trying to decide was about the mustache,

whether I should have a mustache or not.

And it was a whole thing back and forth to make this commitment to have the

mustache or not to have the mustache.

So finally, I said, I think I said, you forget these things, but I think

the way I remember this, I said, well, why don't we flip a coin?

And just flipped a coin, and heads it's on, tails it's off, and it's always

heads, I guess.

The second movie, we had a disastrous

preview three weeks before it opened in San Francisco, and we made a lot of

changes that week, and then showed it in San Diego, and it seemed to play much

better.

And I worked very hard on Godfather II to try to have you feel what these

people were feeling because the story was a double parallel, which kind of

made it hard to follow one line. The main character was turning into a

zombie.

Connie, why don't you tell him marriage is out of the question and you don't

want to see him anymore?

He'll understand, believe me.

If you don't listen to me and marry this man,

you'll disappoint me.

I think the version that was shown in San Diego was more heavily intercut,

that each story interrupted the other more often.

Rather than 12 back and forth, there were 20 back and forth or something.

The direction that we went after that screening was to just clear the decks a

little bit, or a lot, actually, and let the story tell itself up to a point and

then go back to the other story and then let that story tell itself and go back.

So that was an ongoing struggle, which I remember Francis saying at the end of

that, if we'd only had two more weeks, it could have been great.

In Godfather II, at the end of Godfather II, as you remember, there's a scene.

where they flash back to the family and the happy days, and Sonny was still

alive, and everyone's sitting around the dinner table.

And in this scene, Brando was going to be there too, you know, as a small

cameo. And up until the very last minute, they expected Brando to appear

for that they have shooted.

Oh, honey, that's nice, eh?

Should I put the candles on now?

Yeah, go on. You help, all right, Carlos? Sure.

Unfortunately, when the day finally arrived, Brando didn't show.

There were legal problems, deal problems, etc.

So Francis improvised and came up with the idea of making the event that

everyone had gathered for Brando's surprise birthday party.

One feels the presence of Brando without seeing him, which almost makes him more

mythical and more of a memory than seeing the man's face would have done.

The second one was a continuation, and in a

way it was a kind of a descent.

in a way, into trying to hold on to everything and losing it.

You're nothing to me now.

You're not a brother.

You're not a friend.

I don't want to know you or what you do.

I don't want to see you at the hotels.

I don't want you near my house.

When you see our mother, I want to know a day in advance so I won't be there.

You understand?

Mikey.

Generally, making the godfather the first godfather was just like nonstop

anxiety and, you know, wondering when I was going to get fired. We had two kids

and I was pregnant with a third.

and it was a kind of a horrifying time because it seemed like at any moment the

whole thing would collapse and i remember once being in the men's room

and uh you know some crew members came in and they were talking you know like

you know what a piece of junk and that guy doesn't know what he's doing no one

knew when you were going to be fired on that first movie and so the thing is

just get enough footage in the can you know keep going keep shooting when i

look back at the pleasure of it it's it's it's i guess the pleasure looking

back is the thing That's the pleasure, that you're able to look back and that

you survived.

During the first few weeks of Godfather I, I gained a great deal of respect for

him, for what he had to go through, what Paramount was putting him through with

the second, not a second unit director, a second director following him around.

In case he was fired, you're out, this guy goes right in. And that's a fact.

When I hear people talk about how they liked some of those films years later or

that they were wonderful films, all I can think of is, you know, well, I wish

I had heard it then because I could have sure used the encouragement.

And when I think of the Godfathers, I think of Michael in that hat, walking

along that gravel.

Because that was a real turning point. Remember when Carlo is being garroted in

the car, and it does, and then afterward he walks, and he walks with the three

guys.

That's the image for me.

See, Michael was so wrapped in the fact that he was right, that what he was

doing was right.

that it blinded him and it blinded his heart. In other words, was I so sure

that I was right that I, you know, that's why he says, did my heart betray

me? This time, don't say give one more chance, just say give me the chance to

redeem myself, if you can remember.

See, anything that could show Michael really turning on himself.

Can we go?

I mean, the guy is really worried that he maybe is a bad man.

Finally, he's torn between good and evil. I mean, he's literally torn apart.

Maybe he's talking about one thing, and then he... I think when Francis and

Mario get together and start talking about this subject anywhere near and

around, it's still in them, and there's something that stimulates them about it.

And, you know, Francis is a good example of that saying, man's reach should

exceed his grasp of what's a heaven for.

I had heard about three throughout these years, but Francis saying he was going

to do it.

But Francis is funny that way. He'll give you little hints about things, and

he'll give you a little hint, and he throws it out. He says, you know, I

don't know, maybe I'm going to do this, but they want me to do this, you know.

And then you say, uh-oh, he's planning something. That's a couple of years

before it happens, too. Well, one of the things he does that's so brilliant,

several, two months before we started this film, He brought the cast to Napa

Valley, to his home, and to his little studio on

the outskirts of San Francisco.

And we sat around, we read the script, we talked, and he's brilliant at it.

Brilliant.

This last film is more than

A number after a title. It's not Godfather III.

It's the continuing saga of this Corleone family, of this march through

life that Francis is investigating.

You know, Michael, now that you're so respectable, I think you're more

dangerous than you ever were.

In fact, I preferred you when you were just a common mafia hood.

Okay.

Now can we talk common sense here?

All right. Okay.

Tony knows that you killed Fredo.

Michael's always been the kind of a character to me that made a choice early

on when he said he was going to go with his father to protect his father.

And from that point on has, in a way, paid for it.

I spent my life protecting my family. Let's be reasonable, okay?

That's your big thing, isn't it, Michael?

Reason?

Backed up by murder?

Oh, God.

Don't you hate me?

You hate me? No, I don't hate you.

I dread you.

I did what I could, Kay, to protect all of you from the horrors of this world.

That you became my whore.

I've always felt Michael had a kind of a disdain for gangsterism.

He's looking for a kind of... A face.

So that he can, uh... Turn everything back.

He wants to turn it back the way it was before it all started. You know, it's

always before he got into this kind of trouble.

I mean, he bit.

You know what I mean? He bit. And it's a lifetime.

It's really, can you go back again?

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

There's a lot of fear in Michael.

I think somewhere he understands now by three.

Our true enemy has not yet shown his face.

Three now is about how to sort of cope with all that's happened.

paved the way for the third generation.

Michael, this is Vincent Mancini, Sonny's boy.

How you doing, Mr. Corleone?

How you doing?

I'm doing good. How you doing?

Good party.

Oh, you like it? Yeah, I had to sneak in.

You're dressed for it.

I don't think Francis knew who I was.

He says that Paramount was suggesting some kid, you know, the Paramount

suggestion. Mark.

Who do they want now, you know, for the part?

Because apparently he had some wild suggestions from before, you know, and

who was going to play Michael Corleone, so... Who was this guy?

Is he Spanish?

Who do they... Early on in Napa, we were just going through readings.

Francis had kind of conceived Vincent as a combination of all the brothers and

the grandfather. He had kind of the, you know, the temper.

Sunny and... And then they will fear you. The smarts of Vito.

The calculations of Michael.

And the warmth of Fredo.

What's the trouble between you and Mr. Joseph?

Just trouble. I take care of it.

It's foolish of you.

Foolish of me?

Thinks a little foolish of this guy, don't you think?

Right?

Vincent. Right!

When I finally did Godfather II, I tried to end it, and then I felt, well, it's

over, basta, and went on my way, and then I kept hearing, oh, they want to

make another Godfather. I said, well, that's fine to want to make it, but, you

know, about what? I pretty much mined the emotional material of that family,

and it's not like other kinds of sequels where you just, like Sherlock Holmes,

drum up another adventure.

Francis never said no to me.

which encouraged me, because I always kind of thought that there is going to

be a moment in time when he is going to want to do it.

I said, the only Godfather film I would do after this is, you know, Abbott and

Costello meets the Godfather, you know, and you have the Abbott and Costello

and, hey, Abbott, the guy is over, you know.

We talked to actors like John Travolta, Sly Stallone. I mean, it took all kinds

of permutations.

Then, of course, they were all thinking, well, Michael would have a son and he

would go on and et cetera, et cetera. It became a Las Vegas story, became an

Atlantic City story in the casinos there.

But for me, the tragedy of The Godfather, which is the tragedy of

America, is about Michael Corleone.

By the end of Godfather 2, just like America in that period, Michael had

become wrapped in kind of self-righteousness and distrusted

everyone. Getting more and more like a paranoid person, like a Nixon.

There's no doubt that there's a thug sort of lurking somewhere in Michael,

but something that he doesn't really cater to or admit to. And even if he

does admit to it at times, it's not something he's comfortable with.

Don't. ever again give that kind of order not while i'm alive

i command this family right or wrong

it was not what i wanted

I think one of the reasons Francis was ready to do this third film is that he

really did have something he wanted to say, something about a man in his middle

age looking back on his life, reflecting on his successes, on his failures,

reflecting on his mortality, reflecting on his family and what he would be

leaving his family, his heritage.

And these are things that are very much on Francis's mind now.

In Godfather III, the difference is that Michael, who is looking for a kind of

redemption, his tone is rather than conspiratorial, it becomes confessional.

The thing we're asking for is the very thing that the film is asking for, is to

be able to get closer to his feelings.

You know, that he's such a...

insulated guy, Michael Corleone. He's so more disgusted with himself than another

guy would be. So then the question is, if he did all these terrible things,

maybe his heart gave him up, maybe his heart didn't protect him.

Always do murder, do murder, do murder. Did he jump to the murder solution too

soon?

Michael Corleone has a conscience and he's in pain because now he sees that

wherever he goes, death follows.

And this old man is only dead because he tried to help Michael Corleone. Everyone

is dead in his wake.

For me, the tollbooth scene is inspired by Dean Tavallaris' and Arthur Penn's

work in Bonnie and Clyde.

Kurosawa is the father of all violence in modern movies. Kurosawa via Arthur

Penn in Bonnie and Clyde and St.

Peckham Park.

So there is a certain way to treat violence, this more gory way that really

comes ultimately from Shakespeare.

How many takes?

One. Yeah, I had 147 squibs on me.

Just before we were about to go, he's wiring me, and he goes, I never put this

many squibs on a guy in my life.

I said, I don't think it was necessary for you to tell me that now.

There was always one weird detail there was always some little weird detail

before the violence happens Remember like in Godfather 2 when the light bulb

is out and the towel catches fire Or some little thing that causes you to

remember even though it may be very very short Got the idea from someone who told

me About how they had heard this is how people in that situation

would would wrap a towel around

a pistol and do this kind of slaying execution or whatever.

one day it was some Italian holiday and they said well the Monday is closed I

said closed you know we got our whole people here we got a lot of work to do

so we invented cafe production we just went to the Via Veneto and we got set up

on around you know this big long table and we just did our day's work sitting

in a cafe and I remember in that session we were going through everything and we

had the idea well what if in the middle of this big kind of summit meeting in

Atlantic City and all of a sudden all the

tables start shaking and everyone thought it was like an earthquake and

then all of a sudden a helicopter was killing everyone except you never saw

the helicopter let's go let's get out of here

Not to see the helicopter as a helicopter, but to see it from the point

of view of the people being killed, which is just that there's something up

there, which might be a helicopter, which is raining fire down on us.

So he just wanted to keep it mysterious.

As I said, there's always some little weird detail.

In the first Godfather, I think it was, we had the guy get shot in the eye,

which was disgusting.

But it was startling. And I want to do something at the end that was like that,

but he was a political figure, and the person who went in was totally unarmed

and had been through detectors, and yet he had to be able to kill him.

Violence is a very difficult thing for Francis in a way, because he really does

not like violence and doesn't like the violent aspects of the Godfather films.

And therefore, when he is going to do something violent in one of the films,

he always tries to find a way to do it that's a little different than what

you've seen before.

To have the actor simply go up there and break the guy's neck was a little tame

and expected.

Francis, later on in post-production, came up with a different idea of how to

do it, one that... most of us probably have not seen before, one that may or

may not even practically be possible.

I got this idea, you know, again from Kurosawa.

What if the guy just took, because this character wore big heavy glasses, just

took his glasses and just ripped his aorta open with the glasses because he

knew he would be wearing the glasses.

He always has like a gush of blood, you know.

You could kill him with a pencil.

I don't want to kill him with a pencil.

Okay, Antonio?

Okay?

Ready? Action!

In

the

original cut of The Glass's killing, which was first presented to the censors

you got a polaroid of that we uh were given an nc-17 rating for the godfather

film unless we were willing to trim back the the spurt and therefore we did so

for the final release of the film the actual

sort of real blood

Catholic ritualistic aspect of the killing was sort of lost a little by

having to censor it.

When I was a kid, my dad conducted a production of Cavallari Rusticana. I

used to go a lot with my father and sometimes he would let me sit in the

orchestra pit next to him.

i remember four or five things just impressed me so much one was the idea

that these men had an argument and then one bit the other's ear and drew blood

and that that was a sicilian way to do a duel and it meant it would be a duel to

the death come on vincent come make your peace he basically told me a brief

history of you know how this fits in in the operatic sense here are these two

men making their peace and then the one guy crosses the line for a second by

throwing in that one little has to say that one little uh derogatory comment

about his uh his origin and boom next thing you know the guy's

clamping onto his ear

the

first take i i guess i i missed the mark And I was a little, you know, carried

away. And when I ripped, I actually ripped the entire prosthesis off his ear

and some of his hair, actually.

And Francis liked the fact that I was taking the ear, the bits of ear still

were in my mouth.

He said, I like that, I like that. Do we have any hot dogs or anything that he

could put in his mouth?

Everything was always, you know, up for grabs, you know. It was only... the only

thing that was sacred was what in fact was in the can and if it wasn't in a can

it could change the next day i mean i think dean tavolari said that that with

with francis the script is like a newspaper and no one comes out every day

this is a conspiracy that it's got to have the feeling of a conspiracy being

unraveled and bam uh the solution is made and you guys are gonna fight back

arrange a meeting

You say how devoted you are to me.

You tell him your problems.

You ask for his help.

What problems?

That you want to run away with my daughter.

Only you know that if you do, I will become your enemy.

With Francis, when he gets set up in something, he's always going to go, and

he's going to reach, and he's going to try to go further than he did before.

when he said he was gonna do it when he first said it it was two years before he

said he was gonna do it because i think he had to ruminate about it and then

finally when it did come he had i think something he wanted to talk about

that

was two or three scenes

that are breakthrough scenes But I need to have the scene be, like, where people

get a little nervous.

We're into very subtle guilt stuff here, because who ultimately... If he's just

sworn in the life of his kids that he won't sin again, does he sin again?

It's the sin of omission.

He doesn't stop them.

But he's, like, really up a pickle here.

Very tricky.

Yeah, but it's interesting.

It's evil against good at this point over there. It's a real enigma he's

caught in.

Stop.

What would you do now?

We had the same dream.

Pop, pop, what would you do now?

When he reaches out to his father, I mean, what could his father give him at

this point? What wisdom is he looking for?

This wasn't enough time, Michael.

It wasn't enough time.

We'll get there, Pop.

We'll get there.

Maybe the guy...

thought he loved his family so much but maybe he was always a loner and that's

why he couldn't really you know he became too much the head of the family

in his mind and not enough in his heart you know a real father a real family

member always does what's good for the family see ya taking your picture

I always really treasured the times with the family and loved all of them very

much. I always thought that those get-togethers with my uncles and my

cousins always were high points to me.

And I learned to turn to them when I was in trouble. And I reached out wherever I

could for those things that I knew were definite because I had lived that way.

And as the movies were made one after another, more and more, The Godfather

became just kind of the biggest home movie in history. And my attitude was,

why not have Tally play the part? Because maybe it'll be good for her.

So you know what I did the first day when I went on the set, the first day? I

walked into the camera and knocked it down.

Because I didn't wear my glasses, and I was so nervous.

And Marlon Brando, as I walked right... I mean, and he came over to see if I was

okay, because it was a very large... So, naturally, the first day, the sister

knocks the camera down.

Why not have my father get his break so he can write the music? And why not put

my little baby in the baptism scene? At least I'll have always a memory of that.

It'll be like a home movie. I'll always be able to see what my kids look like.

Well, I remember one time we were in New York, Little Italy, and we were sitting

in the back of the old St.

Patrick's Cathedral in Little Italy. We were shooting some of the scenes, and he

just happened to lean over to me, and I remember him saying, he says, you know,

this is the church where we shot the baptism in part one.

And I looked around, I says, oh, wow.

You know, and I got kind of a little chill. I thought, this is great. Oh,

this is that same church. I didn't know that.

And he says, yeah, you see up on the altar there the baptismal font?

He says, yeah, oh, that's fantastic. That's right, oh, that's where you

baptize a little baby.

Then he says, now you see my daughter Sophia over there standing next to the

baptismal font, which she was, you know.

So I look over at Sophia, who's about 19 years old now.

Then as I'm looking at her, he says to me, she was the baby.

And it was like, whoa, it gave me that little, you know, it made the hair stand

up on my neck for a second.

Diane Keaton looked to me like she really hadn't held a child before

because I kept seeing Sophia's head sort of falling off her arm and it was all I

could do to keep from running up there and sort of propping her head up.

I'm your little cousin.

When my dad was writing the script, you know, he naturally based it on, when

he's writing about a daughter, he based it on me.

Who's your father?

I'll give you a hint.

He's Italian.

At the beginning, I remember going to Diane Keaton and saying, like, oh, my

God, I have to do this kissing scene with Anne in front of my dad, blah,

blah, blah. And she said, like, and I was, like, really scared to do it. I

just did not want to do it. And she said, oh, no, they're fun. They're

really fun to do, like, love scenes.

Because you get to, like, do all the things you're not supposed to do, which

you can't really do.

So then, then it was fun.

Cut. Very nice.

The Godfather was textured.

or perfumed in a way by our memories of our Italian-American family around the

ping-pong table eating or the wedding.

The greatest choice in the world, and the thing that made that picture, was

the fact that France is so family-oriented.

It's almost like you forgave everybody everything because they did it for the

sake of family.

So that part is important, that Coppola showed that.

the family side of that that that's that's the beginning and in the end of

the world is is a family and love and companionship you know no matter what

lifestyle you choose whether it be gangster politician or a school teacher

or whatever that's just part of his nature to have a family thing and he

made the film the whole style of and everything he He personalized it in a

way that he could understand, so it has a warmth, it has a romanticism about it.

It's trademark almost, you know.

His personal life was carried over into the film and vice versa. It sort of

overlapped.

Dance with your daughter!

Dance with your daughter!

Well, it does seem like he draws a lot from his personal life, family

experience. Then, of course, people tell me that...

that there's something related to Kay and myself.

It's the WASP wife who is not Italian, not really a member of the family.

It's always a little on the outside, excluded.

Diane recently said to me that, yes, she was modeling that role on me, and I'm

always a little startled to think that there's that much.

It is natural to feel like a band of actors or a band of family.

You know, it occurs besides, of course, Francis additionally trying to have

people come together with dinners and rehearsal periods, which are really

nothing more than creating kinfolk out of each other.

My idea is that when a cast early on can do something sort of sensual together,

eat together or in some way really participate together, that they get

certain kind of bias that stays with them.

And then much later, when you're in a scene and something happens, that comes

out and accounts for the kind of realistic response because the

preparation has prepared them for it. In the beginning, we did go up near Patsy's

up in East Harlem, and we all sat around.

We sat in positions at the dinner table as if it were the fictional family.

And I had Marlon sitting at the head of the table, and next to him was Jimmy

Conn. On the other side was Bobby Duvall, and my sister Talia was serving

the homemade-style food.

My job as the kid was to set the table.

In my male family, I wasn't allowed to talk.

But it was the right improvisation that was a very correct technique on

Francis's part. He started to create the family around the dinner table.

And little by little, you know, Jimmy Conn was showing off, trying to impress

Marlon with his jokes, and Al was looking intense and trying to impress

Marlon with his kind of sensitivity.

So we got to know each other, you know, kind of like a family outside the

fictional frame.

And naturally, if you're relaxed and loose and open, whatever, that's going

to carry over.

As Brenda was talking, Duval was for some reason making these mimicking faces

of him.

And so I moved away just to... So I thought, well, it's good for my

character. Randall and I sat by ourselves off in the corner and had a

few glasses of wine, a couple, maybe too many.

And he said, Jimmy, let me ask you something.

You know, if you could have anything you wanted, you know...

You know, anything, what would it be, you know?

So I was feeling in my cups myself, and I said...

I don't know, maybe, you know, be in love, you know.

Jeez, he goes, me too, me too.

Don't tell my wife, you know.

Everyone was doing what the rules were. They were doing it, and you knew you

were doing it in a crazy kind of way, and you couldn't help it. Because I

thought, what else are we here? We'd never be here anyway if it wasn't for

the movie.

Wonga Fa III was a little different because, you know, it was 18 years later

or 16 years later and everyone had become famous and rich and just to get

them all in one place was tough.

You know what's so interesting about this movie too, at least to me, I found

this kind of mind-crushing deja vu because we take this whole group of

people and then you're all standing there looking at each other.

On a location, dealing with a place, and dealing with actors, you dealt with 20

years earlier.

You know, and it's staggering, and you rarely get an opportunity ever, not

rarely, you don't get an opportunity ever to do a thing like that.

When you bring back the whole crew from the previous pictures, and you're using

old collaborators who knew each other over many years, who had gotten old

together, who had learned together.

has to have some flavor that will influence the theme, because it is about

a family being made by a family. I said to Elle years ago, and it's very true, I

said, we're the Voilandas.

We're the most dangerous actor in town.

But you know, something about a circus family is that you can do the difficult.

Stunts with your own family whatever goes on whatever goes on Which is

supposed to in the development and in the the rivalries and the joys of the

memories If it's a family member and you're doing a triple they'll catch you

So much of the way we work with the collaborators is in that way that that

has to sort of influence the movie.

Creating the possible things that could happen, the accidents that would happen.

I remember one scene in which Godfather's supposed to die.

And we had a break for lunch, and there was like about an hour left.

We put up two cameras that time, and we just said, well, this little kid didn't

want to play with Marlon, didn't want to do the scene, and if we didn't get it

and we broke for lunch, that would be the end of the light, and we would never

get it.

So Marlon had an idea. He said, look, let me show you this. He took the

orange, put it in his mouth, and I said, let's just roll because we've got to go

to lunch.

He's mad because we're losing the light.

You know, let's just do it. So we rolled with two cameras, and sure enough,

Marlon put the orange peel. If you see the shots, you see how there's an

accident. The kid reacted and ran around.

So sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle. I mean, that's what you hope to

do.

fundamental in the story if Michael really could talk to his father I think

Michael went to heaven and there he was greeted by Don Vito Corleone and he says

pop pop I'm here how did I do and the father says you forgot one thing and he

says what he said whatever I did I always listened to my heart and

Michael said I did too let him stay in the mood let's go

Just like that. Standing by to roll.

Goodbye,

old friend.

We won all our battles, didn't we? You and I.

Ah, Don Tomasino, we won all our battles, you and I.

And to what purpose?

My family still is in danger. You and your coffin. Only 90? You could have

lived a little longer.

And I could be nearer to my dreams.

You could have lived longer.

I could be closer to my dreams.

You know, like after Sonny died, that weakness, being wounded.

Because there's like pain to it.

It's so interesting.

Francis just can give you a narrative. I mean, he can stand there all day and

tell you what the characters are thinking.

This is so unusual.

There may be more Michael and Francis than me.

I won all my battles and still I failed.

Maybe he kind of sobs a little bit at that moment.

It's at this point everything now is different.

I think even to the point of saying I swear on the life of my children.

Why was I so feared?

How did your virtues...

Why was I feared while you were loved?

I was no less honorable.

I wanted to do good.

I tried to do good.

What betrayed me? What betrayed me? My mind, my heart. Or was it my heart?

I swear on the lives of my children, give me this one last chance to redeem

myself. I will sin no more.

No more.

Tell me.

Tell me, Dr.

Tomasino.

Why I chose...

condemn myself.

Why?

What betrayed me? My heart? My mind?

But if it could just have the one.

Want to get out of that heavy thing again.

That's good.

It is what it is. It is the natural evolution.

The film crew itself is a family that goes through three generations.

The story is going through three generations.

In life, if you put yourself in harmony with the natural way of things, you get

a much better result than if you try to go against that.