Some films, no matter their quality, will never be understood as more than adaptations of novels: think Harry Potter or even The Lord of the Rings. In some instances, however, films have managed to evade the adaptation-tag and be seen as great works in their own right. When it comes to this latter category, it is hard to think of a more enduring example than Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
There are various explanations as to how the film came to outshine the novel. One is that the film was co-written by the novel’s author Mario Puzo, an unofficial invitation for audiences to see the film as a final-draft, and not a mere recreation, of its source. Another is that, unlike other famous, film-inspiring novels, Puzo’s work is decidedly not for young readers. Reading or being read Harry Potter was a formative part of many childhoods; the same cannot be said of The Godfather. Yet another angle is that stories that comes across as mere “Pulp Fiction” on the page can somehow translate into being provocative and visionary when recreated on the screen.
That all said, the most obvious explanation as to why The Godfather, (henceforth The Film) outshined The Novel is that it is a similar, yet better, piece of storytelling.
When I watched The Film I presumed that its slow scenes were part of acclaimed co-writer/director Francis Ford Coppola’s auteurial style. The film takes its time in presenting the wedding of Vito “The Godfather” Corleone’s daughter, while slowly and understatedly introducing his family members, his henchmen, his clients and even the celebrity wedding singer. I was thus surprised when I turned to the novel and found that this notedly slow pacing, was not a radical departure from the source. The Novel’s wedding scene is even more extended than the film’s, and that is just the first of its many slow-dives.
The novel’s next meandering probe focuses on singing-star Johnny Fontane. Fontane’s is a name that many fans of the movie will remember. His attendance at Connie Corleone’s wedding induces screams of awe. He also proves relevant a few scenes later, when the film’s first murder is carried out as part of a scheme to land Fontane a movie part. Fontane’s role in The Film pales in comparison, however, to his role in the novel. In The Novel, he’s perhaps the third- leading character. Like The Film, The Novel documents the parallel softening of Don Corleone, and hardening of his straight-laced son Michael. What the film leaves out is the far more banal story of Fontane: a singer depressed by how he gave in to Hollywood’s-patriarchal-ego culture, all the while seeking solace in his godfather’s generous patronage.
And Fontane is not the only major character to be left out of the adaptation. In The Film, viewers are briefly shown a shot of (Vito’s eldest son) Sonny Corleone having sex with a woman at Connie’s wedding. In The Godfather Part III, we are told that Sonny has an illegitimate child named Vincent Mancini. The Novel (partially) ties these details together. The woman from the sex-scene is revealed to be maid of honor Lucy Mancini, and her sexual fascination with the bullish Sonny is described with odd specificity. Stranger still, these descriptions prove relevant again when Lucy is set up to the subject of yet another of the film’s subplots: one as banal as Fontane’s, albeit with a bizarre, and arguably objectifying, medical-sexual-twist.
The Novel, in short, is a mélange of gossip. Sure, it tells the story of a mafia family, but its interest in them is that of a celebrity journalist: the same journalist who would cover the post-marital unhappiness of a crooner and sexual surgery of a Las Vegas businesswoman. Again, the line between rancid pulp and profound post-modernism is a fine one, and perhaps in some alternative universe, there is an acclaimed version of The Film that brilliantly ties in the stories of Johnny Fontane and Lucy Mancini. That said, the world we live in, is one where Ford Coppola made his masterpiece, not through refining, but through cutting from Puzo’s initial work. He took The Novel’s stew of gossip, and distilled a single compelling plot: the story of a father, his son and their “family business.”
The Shared Plot Hole
My relationship to The Film is positive but not uncritical. I was seduced by its charismatically delivered lines and compelling themes, but also felt frustrated with its having too many semi-important characters, and under-explained plot points. When it comes to these issues The Novel is a refreshing antidote. You don’t just hear names like “Luca Brasi” “Paulie Gatto” or “Barzini” once, with the expectation that you will understand what’s going on when they re-emerge at the centre of a dramatic incident several scenes down the road. But while The Novel outdoes The Film at explaining these little details, it is hardly any better in its handling of the most central detail of all.
The Godfather’s plot can be reduced to the following: 1) Vito Corleone is a powerful criminal leader, albeit one with a strong code of honor 2) Michael, his youngest son, swears never to be like his father 3) When Vito is shot, Michael feels the need to step up on his father’s behalf, and becomes the crime family’s new leader.
In theory, therefore, The Godfather is the story of a “good” man going “bad.” But despite its long run time, the one thing The Film seems to rush in the handling of is this crucial transition. A single bad experience with a police officer is all it takes for Michael to make this dramatic, life-altering decision.
The Novel is similarly brisk in handling this transition, but there are two notable differences in how the two mediums handle it. One is, simply, that The Novel has a narrator, and thus spells out that Michael’s transformation is a sudden one. The other is that in The Novel Michael’s transformation happens on two occasions. First, the beating from the police officer turns Michael into a man capable of violent revenge. Second, the sight of a beautiful Italian peasant, Apollonia Vitelli, transforms Michael (via what the characters repeatedly call “the thunderbolt”) from a man who has a relatively egalitarian relationship (with the American Kay Adams), to a man who longs for a patriarchal marriage.
I do not have an answer to how either The Novel or The Film could have better paced Michael’s transformation. I do know, however, that The Film’s silence on the matter, and The Novel’s simple thematic deferral to the idea of “destiny” are unsatisfying.
The Novel highlights Michael’s transformation from civilian to mobster via the gaze of his girlfriend, and later wife, Kay. In the wedding scene, Michael fills Kay in on the nature of his family’s business before assuring her that he is not part of that world. When Michael changes, he justifies his choice to Kay by arguing that his father is a businessman, no less corrupt than “legitimate” businessmen and politicians. Had The Film/ Novel employed a different storytelling technique, this explanation from Michael would come off less as an excuse, and more as a plot-twist and revelation. In such version of the story, Michael would never have been “not like his family.” He simply would have been maintaining that facade, as he didn’t trust his respectable WASP girlfriend to understand the dark-side of the Italian-American experience.
Of course to pull off this plot-twist approach to Michael’s development, The Godfather would likely have to have been told from Kay’s perspective. Its hard to imagine a work as male-coded as The Godfather being told in such a way. It should be noted, however, that The Novel is it not as far removed from this approach as The Film is.
The Novel’s Message
The Novel’s last chapter is in fact told from Kay’s perspective, as she contemplates leaving Michael. Her future is shaped when Michael’s lawyer/adopted-brother Tom Hagen confronts her and makes a compelling argument that all of Michael’s seemingly sinister actions were the result of careful calculation and entirely made for the sake of protecting his family. Overwhelmed and rendered ambivalent by this message Kay follows the path of all Corleone wives: she becomes a Catholic. She concludes Michael’s is a soul that both deserves and needs to be prayed for.
I have heard proponents of Goodfellas criticize The Godfather on the grounds that it glorifies mob life. Indeed Goodfellas, a film which features a prosecutor playing himself, and depicts moments of truly senseless violence, is less sympathetic to its subjects than The Godfather is. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to say that The Godfather glorifies the mob. It would be better to describe The Novel and The Film, like Kay, as being emphatically ambivalent.
The Novel opens with the following quotation.
“Behind every great fortune, there is a crime”- Honoré de Balzac
There is rich meaning in this quotation. On the one hand, it speaks to the fact that those whose power is seen as legitimate by our society can often be said to have gained it via criminality (or at least brutality). The Novel and the film alike show this in their portrayal of figures like movie mogul Jack Woltz and police officer Mark Mcluskey.
On the other hand, this quotation does not necessarily have negative implications, as not all crimes are straightforwardly wrong. The young Vito Corleone is depicted in The Novel (and The Film’s sequel) as man who does favors for his neighbors, while standing up to the corrupt Don that came before him.
Overall what the quotation implies, is that the Corleones are no more, and no less guilty than our society’s other power brokers. The Novel, draws a distinction between good-mobsters (the Corleones) and bad-mobsters (the muderous Luca Brasi, and the pimping-Tattaglia family). The function of this distinction is not to whitewash the Corleone’s, but to shine a spotlight on their actual moral failings. The family are not heartless killers like Goodfellas’ Jimmy and Tommy. What they are is unapologetic monopoly capitalists, and unapologetic practitioners of the death penalty. On top of that, while they are far from the novel’s worst misogynists, both Michael and Vito take the patriarchal family structure for granted. In Vito’s case this is the mere unconsidered habit of a man born in the 19th century. But for the younger, college-educated Michael, it is a choice made to keep Kay from undermining his family’s traditions and business practices.
The Godfather (The Film) is a memorable piece of storytelling. Its uniquely dark cinematography, and ambitious plot have resonated with many. But while The Film, may rank higher as a movie than The Novel does as literature, there is good reason for the novel to be read, either in concert with The Film or in its own right. The Novel offers an analysis of the mafia and the Italian-American experience, that the film only nods toward. And while the accounts of Johnny Fontane and Lucy Mancini may bore and/or make you uncomfortable, they too are relevant to the novel’s theme, that capitalism and crime are inseparable. Crime can be the saving grace to movie careers washed away by capitalist-cultural excesses, or to women, denied access to reproductive justice. Though compelling, the film’s story is imperfect: we’re never really allowed to see how Michael Corleone becomes The Godfather. The Novel shows us that that question is of limited significance: that in a society where the line between crime and legitimacy can be indiscernible, one man’s turn to criminality is anything but remarkable.
© 2020. UniversalCinema Mag.