From Indias largest newsroom, I'm Meenal Paghel and this is
the Times of India podcast. 52 years ago, one of the best films
ever made in Hollywood was released.
We've done this episode when the film turned 50 in 2022, and
we're bringing back that episode today.
If ever there was a great example of how the best popular
movies come out of a merger of commerce and art, The Godfather
is it. That's Sopranos actor Edie
Falco, reading from Pauline Kane's review of The Godfather
in The New Yorker. This March 15th marked 50 years
since Francis Ford Coppola's godfather burst on movie screen
and became one of the most beloved films the world over.
The story of an aging mafia, Dawn and his family set in post
Second World War America, is based on Mario Puzo's racy novel
and became an enduring classic that has been called a master
class in writing, acting and directing.
It has led to numerous inspired lifts, including a Bollywood
film called Aatanki Aatank starring Aamir Khan and
Rajinikanth no less. Here's filmmaker Vikramaditya
Motwani on the impact that Godfather has had on film makers
and moviegoers alike. Vikramaditya Godfather turns 50.
That's proper middle age, even for films.
How do you think the movie has aged?
Honestly, the film hasn't aged one single bit.
It is fresh, It is unique. It is, it's incredible.
It's incredible. It's a master class in
everything. I mean and then this is an off
stair, you know, term of being a master, but it truly is.
It's a film that runs close to three hours long, but yet has a
phenomenal amount of minimalism of storytelling that he just,
you know, hits the right note at the right time.
It's that perfect, you know, mixture of it, of it being
gently paced enough, but yet there's that massive amounts of
tension that are building up, you know, through the entire
film until the very ending. It's a, it's really like when
you watch it. The Michaels, Michael's story,
Michael's character, Michael's story.
Michael's entire plot of, you know of of going from A-Z with
the characters. Something that you know that as
a writer, one gets very conscious of.
It's something that I'm constantly telling new writers
and you know, like just have your characters go from there.
Hey let them go to Zed. Don't even know A to B or A to C
you know like have the entire gamut of you know of a journey
that's a real character's journey that goes.
And Michael who starts off as being in his army uniform as you
know this guy who's like they're my family they're not me to
becoming the you know you've gone full 180 over there but
it's believable the 180 is believable.
The 180 you're you're with him on his journey.
You understand. You understand he's he's also
flawed. He's also egotistical.
He's also all those things. I mean, it's fast.
Cold, right? Eventually.
Very cold. Yeah.
Very, very cold. Eventually somebody who had
warmth and had love and understood his power understood
you know the you know of of and that development and there's a
whole section when he goes to Italy when you're wondering kind
of like OK you know you you think like why am I watching
this why am I seeing Michael Jordan in Italy especially with
what is what is about. And then you realize afterwards
that you know the it's it's the development of his sense of
power the development of his sense of of his sense of self of
his you know what he can achieve by just being who he is and how
he can get what he wants by being who he is.
So what was amazing was also the faith that you know Coppola and
Mario Fuzzo have in the audience.
I think that that is amazing and you know that that's a lesson
for all of us. It's like you know trust your
audience. And the last third of the film,
when, when they plot when when they've basically gone and
they've played Carlo, you know like when the other like said
that OK Tom Hagan is not going to be the conciliary is actually
going to be you know and so and the way they've played him into
that and, you know. But when it plays out and when
you realize who has been who who's betrayed who and the fact
that Carlo has to has to be, you know, gotten rid of there is
there is an amazing it's not like there's a nudge, nudge,
wink, wink, dekho. And they've trusted the audience
to get it. That's what really makes you
love the film because the film makers have have given you, you
know, like they've given you the keys in a certain certain sense.
We are also part of the conspiracy.
You don't need to be told you're also part of the conspiracy.
Get it. And that is very very.
It's beautiful. It's beautiful because you you
know you you you've been trusted.
It was a book that was picked up by Paramount Studios, which was
a kind of throwaway, let's make it for $1,000,000 kind of film.
We have the rights and let's make it.
So let's get Albert Ruddy, who's a producer who's known to get
films in under budget. Like that's his.
His speciality is not like he can produce great movies like he
can get it in under budget. Like that was a big business
decision. That was a bit and because at
that point of time your your big movies were working were love
story was the was was the big one at that time which was like
this is the film, this is the template of film that's going to
be working at the box office and that kind of stuff.
So the Godfather gangster drama let's get it to we have it,
let's make it sure it'll be interesting.
Let's get ready to do it. Ready goes and gets Coppola.
Coppola goes and gets Brando. The next thing you know the film
is out there and they get better to sign a contract where if he
delays the film he will pay for it.
They finish two days early. I mean, all that stuff is a part
of, you know, is is folklore. Coppola has written somewhere
that on the second reading, when I realized that I was going to
make Godfather, and on the second reading, much of the book
fell away in my mind. Revealing a story that was a
metaphor for American capitalism is the tale of a great king with
three sons, oldest given his passions, aggressiveness, second
his sweet nature, childlike qualities, and the third is
intelligence, cunning and coldness.
So he actually found the universal story within, and
perhaps you think that explains the enduring love that the
audience has for Godfather. Absolutely.
It's it's it is extremely relatable.
The film can really take place. You watch it.
It's like, well, this doesn't. Yes, it's it's part of the
American capitalist dream of, you know, capitalist folklore.
But it's a it's a you could place the same story in a in a
in the Shakespearean world put it back in the 18th century
quite honestly in in Russia of all places or in England or
anywhere else in India. I mean and and the same story
the same story works it's it's it's how the power you have to
use it responsibly not you know use it responsibly.
It's about, you know, who of your sons in a sense, you have
to be able to choose who are leading towards.
This is a, this is a tale of the ages today.
What we talk about about saying the hero's journey or whether
it's about a reluctant protagonist or whether you know
all those things that we talk about today, which are things
that are thrown around. Were these were these conscious
back then or, you know, was it? Honestly, I don't know.
But it has become, you know, a part of screen writing,
one-on-one in a, in a sense where you so many things from
the Godfather you refer to. And that's just the storytelling
part. There's also there's also the
the visual you know elements of it figure.
I mean the actors are all phenomenal and you know there's
there's great characters but what Gordon Willis did in in
terms of if of the shooting of the film was no one had done
that before to shoot a film with that sort of natural approach
and and it's still it's things that we still have to fight for
today to be able to sort of like say because everybody's going to
come and say yeah, it's very dark and it's very busy.
We can see characters, faces, we can see their eyes and you can't
have them in shadow. And 50 years ago, Gordon Willis
has done that and sort of broken every rule as far as it's
concerned. And I'm sure they must have had
panic at that point in time. But one tends to sort of like
forget the fact, yes, their godfather.
It's the top of the IMDb chart. It's one of the most loved
films. It's considered the greatest
film of the, you know, the history of cinema, all that sort
of stuff. But you also forget that it
made, when you take into account inflation has made a billion
dollars at the box office. That's the same amount of money
that Spider Man has made to us. You think about that.
It's a huge hit. It is a massive, massive,
massive hit, which gives a lot of us a lot of hope and a lot of
say, yeah, if the Godfather can do 50 years ago, what are we
worried about today? Why?
Why You still sort of like having boundaries around you
today? In the the 1960s there was this
movement away from the formulas of the studio system of
Hollywood as it used to be in the class.
In the great days of the studio system younger film makers
partly influenced by world cinema, partly influenced by
studying film for the first time formally were trying to make
more personal films And and and we're trying to do things that
were moving away from the old, more mannered forms of
expression in American cinema. And as as a result of that
starting with say films like, you know in the late 60s films
like Bonnie and Clyde. They began this whole movement
and and and let's not forget that film criticism also was
becoming a little more expansive around the same time.
So you know, so you you had the French who had come in with this
idea of the Oughtour theory around a decade earlier.
And then what happens is that this whole generation of
American film makers led by Francis Ford Coppola, which
which you know, the the kids with beards as they were known,
Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, who's who's possibly my personal
favorite, Spielberg, George Lucas, they just started making
these films in ways that they found interesting, working with
material that they thought they could do something personal
with. And and American cinema was just
changing in a big way. And I think The Godfather is
probably the film that's just the fulcrum of that that era.
It's, you know, right at the center of everything.
It gave so many important actors to American cinema.
It just brought a new aesthetic in terms of Gordon Wills and
Venice's, you know, incredible cinematography which which took
pulp material, Mario Puzo's pulp novel, and just turned it into
something very majestic and grand looking.
That's writer and critic Jay Arjun Singh, who says Coppola
almost didn't make Godfather because he wanted to move away
from the Ratio B movies he had made early on in his career.
I was having this conversation earlier with Vikramaditya
Motwani, and I was saying the same thing.
That this whole idea of adaptation, to turn it into
something which is almost Shakespearean in its kind of
depth, is what what great adaptations can do.
Since you bring that up, it's worth remembering that Francis
von Coppola himself was very reluctant to work with that
book. You know, he if you, if you
know, you know his history as a filmmaker.
He started off working as an assistant director with Roger
Corman on B movies, and in the early 60s he directed a couple
of very cheap B horror films like Dementia 13, Coppola and.
And when this book came along, he was trying to do something
more overtly respectable. He was, you know, thinking of
himself as as an artist who was going to do these things.
And he was. He looked at the Puzo novel and
like you said, it's a riveting, it's a page Turner, but it is a
pot boiler essentially. And he looked at it and said,
what sort of you can't make a respectable film out of this?
It will be a genre film and I want to do something else.
And he was very reluctant at first, but of course eventually
he stuck with it And then he when he managed to bully
Paramount into doing the things that he wanted like like getting
Brando on board, getting Pacino on board.
These are people who though the studio did not want at all.
You know the as you might know, Brando had a reputation for
being very difficult. He, you know it was perceived
that his, you know that the best of his days were over.
Pacino was you know there were Paramount executives who were
apparently just referring to Pacino very condescendingly as
that dwarf because of his height and then and they thought he
wasn't leading man material at all.
Coppola stuck with that and you know through a series of
decisions and and he, I think he just, he just took that novel
and elevated it into something else.
What do you think that Coppola did that that makes it such a
Seminole film? As lay audience, what we see, we
understand quality and we are immersed in a film.
But what as a filmmaker, what do you think that he did?
What were the cues that he he gave to the audience?
First and foremost thing he did was to just get a lot of
elements together and to you know orchestrate them and to
oversee them in in such a way that they really work well
together. You know, you you have the
actors of course the casting which you know we we we all know
about that. But but you know what to to work
with Gordon Willis's cinematography to create that
stygian, that dark stygian look to work with Nino Rota's score,
we just you know which which which you know all of us.
It is just part of our filmmaking, our film watching
mythology, right, that that music score.
I just found myself humming a little tune from The Godfather
Part 2 a few days ago without you realizing what I was doing.
It's just there and and it immediately puts you in a
certain mood, a certain frame of mind.
It's also worth say worth mentioning that popular after
his initial reluctance about the novel, at some point when he
really did become interested in making this film, I think he
brought a lot of his own personality and his his own
concerns into the film as well. You know, I was like I I, I
remember reading a biography once where where there was, you
know, his elder brother August Coppola, who was who was an
academic and a writer himself. He was always the chosen one in
the family and Francis was the younger brother was meant to be
the you know the outsider figure and eventually of course he he
became the big figure in in American film.
So. So that journey almost seems to
in some ways parallel the rise of Michael Michaels rise and
going past Sunny and in and in that context is worth mentioning
that that Francis for Coppola cast his own sister in the role
of Connie Pollyone Tilatalaya Shire.
And I think, I think the material became very personal to
him at some point. He started relating with it and
once that happened and all these other elements just came
together the way they needed to Brando Pacino, you know that
even the the, the smallest roles, the the grandness of, you
know, the the great set pieces of the film like the the the the
climactic see the scene with the with the intercutting between
the baptism and the killings that then becomes a commentary
on on this. You know, organized crime,
organized religion, everything. You know, a whole culture was
important. Which is your favorite scene
from The Godfather? Are we talking only about the
1st? Film or no, you can take, you
can take though I doubt if anyone has a favorite scene from
Part 3, but you can take the trilogy.
Well well well, well. I actually do have a favorite
scene from from Part 3. But but you know but well having
said of course that it's that it's not as good as the first
two And my favorite scene is this the unabashedly
melodramatic operatic finale with with with Michael's silent
scream and and that great burst of music over it.
And in the Godfather part three what's sticking with the God for
you know there are little little moments in the Godfather which
are just so we which which actually make the bigger
operatic moments even more interesting.
You know so. So that that scene where where
Michael is outside the hospital. His father's in hospital and
suddenly there's this crisis where these men are going to
come to the hospital potentially to kill to kill Vito.
And Michael has to put up that little pretence with with that
friend of his who's really nervous.
And that scene where Michael is lighting the cigarette and and
you know and he notices it's almost like he notices that his
own hands are not shaking you know he's he's up to this the
other guy is nervous like anything but Michael who up to
this point we've been led to believe is this innocent who who
is not meant to be in this mafia business.
He's found the steel in himself at that point.
Now it's it's such a small moment but it's so telling as
well. Part 2 has many great favorite
scene that I think some of the dissolves in Part 2 between the
present and the past. When we go back to Vito's youth
are are are so interestingly done.
You know the the the scene halfway through Part 2 where
Vito Colione has committed a murder for the first time and he
comes back to his family, sitting with his family and he
takes little Michael's had fingers in his hand and says
says an Italian your father loves you very much.
And it's that at exactly the midpoint through the film.
And it's it's a clear metaphor for for the father's, for the
father tainting his, his son's hands.
It's very obvious, but it's so well done that you just look at
it and say yeah, it's a great moment.
He'll 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. Be my friend, godfather.
Like you never told me you knew Giant Fontaine?
Sure. You want to meet him, huh?
Oh. Sure.
My father helped him. With his career well.
My plan. He did.
How? I have but listen to the song.
No Michael Vikramaditya Motwani advises all young film makers to
watch the famous opening scene of The Godfather, which
introduces the main characters and sets the scene.
It's a study in masterful filmmaking, he says.
It's 2025 minute in that wedding sequence, right, which starts
off which establishes everything.
It establishes the dawn and establishes this power.
It establishes characters. It establishes Tom, Hagan and
Sunny and his relationship with Michael and Michael and Kay and
Connie and the singer. I forget his name.
Everybody, right. Everybody has been established
in that opening sort of 2025 minutes in the film and it's all
and it's and that's a master class.
That's when you're like how, how beautiful and how amazing and
how interesting and yes, how and yet how minimal it takes one
run. I mean, and I mean just
examples. It's whether it's about, you
know, the dawn saying that I will not take a photo without
Mike. That moment in itself, right
says so much. It doesn't you don't dispel out
anything else. You're talking about a father's.
The fact that is Michael the favorite son.
Maybe Yes, that moment kind of does tell you, but it also gives
you the power that yes is waiting for the photo to be
taken. And he's like, screw it, I'm
just going to walk away. You're doing so many things.
You're establishing so many things in that one small moment
of him just walking away from the and with.
Very few dialogues. Exactly.
That's the thing. When you see, for example,
Connie, when, when, when What's his name?
Johnny. Fontaine.
Johnny Fontaine When Johnny Fontaine comes to the wedding
and Connie runs, you know, from the to come and greet him at the
gate and walks back with him again, it's telling you so much
about her character right there. You're talking about the fact
that she's genuinely excited. She doesn't really give a shit.
Part of the same point of time she so wants to show off the
fact that she knows Johnny Fontaine and she can sort of
like, do this and he's going to be jealous about that.
Tiny things like that establish so much about character.
There's, you know it, it, it really is.
And that's that's a master class in writing.
That's a master class in directing.
That's a master class. And so, like, knowing exactly
what. So if you look at, for example,
Michael's, Michael's arc, right. And Michael senses tends to feel
like, OK, this guy is, you know, the he is in the end of the day
the hero of the film. But if you sort of like plot his
arc, there's very few scenes. He's actually, there's not like
he's not there in every single scene.
He's like, OK, he's there in the wedding where you've established
the fact that that this is my family, I'm not that I'm a war
hero. I'm different from them.
The next time you see them is after the dawn has been shot,
right? And then Michael sort of sees in
the newspaper and he's like, should I have to go to my
father, He comes back to the father the father likes and he
needs to save the father. And then he, he has the moment
in the hospital where he ends up saving the father with that guy,
which is a great moment, which is his sense coming of age, of
the sense that I can do this. The next time you see him And
when he started talking about this is when he's when he's with
and he gets punched in that scene by the by the cop.
And the next time you see him is when he's telling them exactly
what should be done, forcing four scenes to establish the
fact that this guy is your dawn in the week.
And then of course, then there's the way Coppola does those
moves. You know, the there is that sort
of when when Michael is sitting in the chair and Tom is sitting
behind him, and when Michael starts talking, this is that
scene where he's saying this is what we should do.
And Sonny's still alive. Of course Sonny's still, you
know, the potential dawn. But Michael talks, and there's a
very gentle movement that goes into Michael and you land up at
him and Thomas sitting behind him, and you've already told the
audience that that's the dawn and that's the conciliary
sitting behind them. This is what it's going to end
up being that you're foreshadowing what's about to
come. Until the rest.
Well, in a month from now, this Hollywood big shot is going to
give you what you want. It's totally they.
Start shooting in a week. I'm going to make them an offer
they can't refuse. Both Mario Puzo and Coppola said
that they had researched into the lives of American gangsters.
Italian, American gangsters. So the gangsters were also
inspired to behave in a certain way, perhaps how it happened in
Satya. I want you to talk a little bit
about Vikram, about the role of minor characters.
You know, like, you know, we know Luca Brazzi, we'll talk
about Barzini, we know talk about Tom Hagan or Johnny
Fontaine. Your films are very tight and
small and contained in the sense of numbers of characters,
usually as a filmmaker, when should a film have multiple
characters and how? How is it that they become so
alive and so memorable for the audience?
It's to the purpose. I think the multiple characters
in The Godfather are important because they are important and
they all, all they are. They are important to the
storyline vis a vis your main characters when it comes down to
it. So the The Who is a threat to
the dawn and who needs to be taken care of and who's, who's a
friend and who's a foe. And I think that's where the
multiple characters start to become.
But again I would, I would, I would give a lot of that credit
to the writing, the directing and the casting and and of
course I mean the end of the day the acting.
But again it comes out of Coppola being able to I think
make those characters memorable. I mean if you take in take the
cop for example, I think Sterling Hayden was played in
again two scenes, two scenes, one where he punches and one
where he ends up getting sort of like short afterwards.
I mean so amazingly memorable because you just said what
you've given him and how he's played it and and and and and
the effect of why would you shoot his entire scene in a
close up, for example versus you know, so is he important, is he
not important? This is levels of information.
This is the information that the director that point of time
wants you to to have but it counts you know and you have to
you have to even Luca Brazzi in a sense, I mean has it's it's
literally his most memorable. Yes he comes to dawn and meets
him but it's the rehearsal outside which makes him like
that scene makes Luca Brazzi where he is and that's the
that's the I think that's the genius of sort of like you know
giving giving them personality like giving them personality
that you can sort of connect to and and and that you can like
not not keeping them out of the book or off the pages.
They come off the pages because they've been cast amazingly.
They've been given moments that really, you know, work for them.
It's the same with it's the same with Fredo, you know, and John
Kazal just being the phenomenal. I love a little bit of trivia.
I love, I love like, sorry I took my nephew to see this, for
example, who loves the godfathers as I come.
We have to see it in the theater and the sort.
And he's like that Fredo. And I'm like, whoa, because I'm
like, that's John because the guy did five films in his life
and all five films were nominated for best Picture.
They was like, that's a record I think that nobody's ever,
nobody's ever had. Again, I mean, Fredo is around,
right? You sense him.
And again, here's the genius of of the of the writings that
Fredo is always in the background for most of the film.
He comes into the foreground When it comes to Vegas, that's
the moment of Fredo comes into the foreground.
And again, he says one scene, you know, to to to chew up and
John Casale, just being John Casale is so brilliant, but he
has one scene to be able to sort of say that, my God, this guy is
a threat. You know, Fredo is also a
threat. He's the brother, but he's also
a threat to, you know, do I trust him or do I not trust him?
Fredo, you're my older brother and I love you.
But don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again.
Few films have glorified gangsters and violence in a
sense. Of course there is the the
tragic arc but it's also very sexy And at the same time he
then makes Apocalypse Now where which also violence is sexy.
But you know, it's really the most anti war film that that one
can find. How do you think Coppola has, as
a filmmaker, influenced the way we look at violence in cinema?
Pretty much everything you said, you know, I mean, you know, you
know, these things are subjective.
I mean and I imagine there will be many viewers who would look
at the the violence scenes in The Godfather and just be
entirely repulsed and just you know want to move away from the
screen and then you can you can make the argument that for those
viewers, you know it's at a moral level it's work because
it's made violence ugly. But but but I agree with you.
I mean, I I look at the the, the big set pieces, the big violent
moments in in the Godfather films and I I find it thrilling.
Say for instance, Tarantino, who's also very violent, but you
know his violence, while fun, has a cartoonish quality that
you know you can't take it seriously with Godfather if you
do take it seriously. No, absolutely agree.
And I mean and you know the little things like like that
that scene at the at the end of the part of the cross cutting
the murders at the end of The Godfather where where the guy
shot in the eye and his glasses sort of break, you know, as he's
being massaged. It's a you know it's it's a sort
of thing that it's a sort of scene where you can
simultaneously admire the filmmaking and say wow you know
this is pretty good filmmaking and it's it's so impactful and
at the same time think you know this is but this is really ugly
and nasty and you know and and it sort of brings you back down
to earth and says and and and you think you know all these
people that we've been finding so exciting, so interesting.
These characters they are doing stuff like this which is so yeah
so of course you do take it seriously.
You can even even while you find the filmmaking sighting.
I think the Tarantino, of course you know Kabir is part of a
different generation where it's all post postmodern.
And his cinema is very. Different, of course.
And there's and there's always this meta commentary this is
this ironic nudge winking at at films of an earlier time.
So. So so then as you see it became
becomes a bit cartoonish and too self refresher.
But yeah you know it's I would also agree with you that though
you I think you implied it that Apocalypse Now is on balance.
I think it's a more effectively unpleasant film than than the
Godfather films are in the sense that it's you know again it's
God set pieces it's got things that that will excite you
cinematically but there's this by the end it's depressing.
So in a way that The Godfather perhaps isn't because you know,
it just, you know, The Godfather leaves you with this tremendous
high of, you know, you know, for the, you know, all these
exciting things happening on the stream.
Violence in cinema has definitely been influenced by
not just by The Godfather, but also by by by those other
American films being made around the same time.
Scorsese films, Mean Streets and Taxi Driver and and a lot of
other films, even something like like Spielberg's Jaws, which
which, you know, was more more cartoonish and more populist.
But again, it it shows gore. It it makes certain things, you
know. It it it it it introduces this
thrilling music score when the shark attacks are happening.
From Hitchcock's psychological violence to real physical
violence. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And that is again part of the
trajectory of what was happening to American cinema between, say,
the 1950s and the 1970s where suddenly, of course, you know,
the censorship has been relaxed. It becomes easier to, you know,
coming back to Bonnie and Clyde, which was a very important film
in this whole movement with the climactic scene where where
Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are just riddled with bullets
and their and their bodies are dancing around like that.
It's it's all part of this this moment where where violence is
being presented in this, you know, no holds barred way, at
the risk of making it really exciting also and perhaps you
know, increasing the the tolerance threshold for viewers.
So viewers who you know who in the 1950s might have recoiled
at, at a certain sort of scene now in the 70s are finding it
much easier to watch really bloody really gory stuff.
So the so, yeah. So the so the godfathers played
a big part in that, I think. The president of Paramount told
me in these words, he says Francis, as president of
Paramount Pictures, I am telling you that Marlon Brando will not
be in this movie. Marlon Brando was only 47 when
he played the agent Vito Corleone.
He was in the midst of a career crisis with a series of flops
and he was battling his reputation as a hell raising
star on set. But with Godfather, which earned
him the Oscar for Best actor, Brando scripted a remarkable
late career turn around, says Vikram Aditya.
Marlon Brando. I mean Coppola somehow has taken
him and reduces him to big parts and yet which are like so great.
I mean whether it was Captain Kurds in the in the pop trips
now or who comes right at the end or even in Godfather, I mean
he's there but very, very few scenes.
And and Brando, I mean was also transitioning into a different
phase of his career at the time like that.
I mean, we have so many actors who are also transitioning and
it's a tough transition to manage.
One is I think it's Brando himself willingly coming on
board and saying, hey, I really want to do this, right.
And I think we have and we've seen a lot of actors are so
unwilling to to drop a lot of their baggage and baggage is a
very broad term here. They also unread.
I mean but here was Brando who was you know, saying OK fine,
I'll do it. You want me to be, you know, I
mean I don't it's not I don't have to be Adonis.
I I I need to be. I I can sort of like, you know
have the, the the jaws look that way and my hair like that look
older and and all that sort of stuff.
So yes, there is. And I honestly, I don't know
what battles there would have been between him and Coppola and
that kind of stuff. I mean clearly he did Apocalypse
Now, so obviously there was no problems.
I do think The Godfather, definitely it helped him more.
It it it, you know it, it brought the way De Niro and
Pacino in their career, especially in the 70s,
experimented with playing these kind of characters who were, you
know, great definitely. But also if you look at De Niro
in De Hunter for example, I mean he's not, he's actually in a
sense he is not the lead in it. But at the same point of time,
he's magnificent in that film and it's not a problem you're
you're you're, you know you're you're helping to sort of like
do the film, helping to sell the film or whether it's De Niro and
the mission or you know, it's all those kind of things like
you know you see Brando having set that tone.
But specifically with Brando, yeah, he he's not.
It's not a big part, definitely, but definitely it's not.
You know, Michael is the hero of the self.
Yeah. But when, again, when Brando's
given the moments to sort of like do what he has to do,
whether it's the opening scene in the wedding, whether it's the
one where he shakes up Johnny Fontaine, which is so
unexpected, like laughing. And then that scene, and of
course the end, the last scene with Michael, which is just
incredible. He is incredible in that scene.
He brings so much emotion to the bit when he's repeating himself,
you know that. Remember that the one who sets
up the meeting is the one who's going to betray you.
I think that. Giving all the life lessons.
Yeah, but the life look. But again, there's so much in
that moment. You're giving life lessons.
You care for your son, you're getting older.
You know your memory is clearly you know it's there's those kind
of things. At the same point of time it's
like you also do I know that I'm going to go is that why I'm
trying to just like you know get my, get all my get all my ducks
in a row am I trying to sort of like cross my DS and drop my
eyes before I go and that kind of and you know and all that
sort of stuff. So again, I mean in in writing,
directing, acting, you've brought in so much into one
moment there which tells you so much more than than what's just
on the page and he's he's brilliant in that in the film
and. And and and do you think Coppola
could have, should not have made Godfather 3?
Not if I couldn't refuse. Today's episode is produced by
Jayaraj Singh, Arun George and Sunay Marathi.
For a daily spotlight on people, ideas and stories that matter,
subscribe to us. We are available on TOI, Plus,
Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts and all other platforms of your
choice. For any news tips, reach us at
UI podcasts. At times, Internet dot in.