Tuesday May 21, 2024, Francis Ford Coppola will be Mouloud Achour’s guest in Clique, on Canal+. In an extract previewed on the show’s X account, the director made a statement that risks dividing fans of his films.
In 1972, Francis Ford Coppola directed The Godfather, followed by two other parts in 1974 and 1990, with Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, marking a success in the history of cinema.
On the set of Clique in May 2024, Francis Ford Coppola expresses mixed feelings about the impact of The Godfather, acknowledging the film’s influence on real-life gangsters while regretting its glorification of violence.
The director also reveals the difficulties encountered during the filming of The Godfather, particularly with the producers, but admits that the success of the film is based on the talent of the actors and the quality of Mario Puzo’s original work.
A saga which has earned him numerous awards… In 1972, Francis Ford Coppola directed The Godfather, in which Marlon Brando opposite Al Pacino. Faced with the success of the film depicting power struggles inside the New York mafiathe director released a second part in 1974 and a third and final episode in 1990.
Guest on the set of the show Clique, Tuesday May 21, 2024, the man who has been awarded five times at the Oscars declared: “Gangster movies have been around since the beginning of cinema. I read an article about Paul Muni, the actor in the original Scarface movie, and he said that real gangsters tend to copy gangster movies. It’s the case for The Godfather! Some mobsters, gangsters liked The Godfather, because they could copy the identity of the characters“.
Francis Ford Coppola: “It’s not something to be proud of”
According to him, The Godfather was hugely successful because it was the first gangster film that showed them having children. “Lots of children were running around the godfather, which was quite unusual for this type of film”, he estimated. And if this saga brought him a lot of money, Francis Ford Coppola made a shocking statement. “I’m not proud that The Godfather glorified murderers, You know. It’s not something to be proud of.”he revealed.
In complete transparency, the 85-year-old director confided: “I was very young when I made The Godfather, I was 29. I was broke, I had children, I had no money… From the moment I started working on it, like all the other films, has become a passion. Even if the primary motivation is money, then we find something to appreciate in this project. Whatever I enjoyed about making the film, I know very well that it was about killers and that’s obviously not something I condone.”.
Francis Ford Coppola: “I hated this shoot”
Thursday May 16, 2024, in the columns of Nouvel Obs, Sofia’s father and Roman Coppola revealed that he doesn’t have good memories of The Godfather. “I hated this shoot: producers kept trying to fire mebecause they were hostile to all my ideas, to the choice of Brando to interpret Don Corleone, to the photographic style adopted… I had to fight three weeks to make them accept Nino Rota’s music!he recalled.
Finally, Francis Ford Coppola nevertheless added: “If The Godfather is a good film, it’s thanks to all these great beginning actors, to the photography, to the quality of Mario Puzo’s novel. It was a stroke of luck!“.
