The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
It’s ironic that Francis Ford Coppola made his name as arguably the leading director of the 1970s on the back of The Godfather. Just when Hollywood was embracing a new wave of film school educated directors, and financing lots of offbeat, low-budget “youth” pictures trying to recapture the success of Easy Rider, Coppola broke through with a very classical studio picture. It really is, as Leonard Maltin’s guide puts it, “the 1970’s answer to Gone with the Wind:” in other words, an epic but conventional adaptation of a lengthy source novel. Later, with Apocalypse Now, Coppola would try for a more highbrow art project that better justified his “auteur” status, but here – superficially at least – Coppola’s triumph is simply one of expert stewardship. The Godfather is, first and foremost, a perfectly wrought interpretation of Mario Puzo’s novel. People sometimes cite The Godfather as an example of a film masterpiece springing from a trashy book, but I think this is unfair to Puzo. The qualities that make the film great are mostly present in the novel: if we ascribe greater value to the film version, it’s because we are more willing to surrender to the experience of pulp fiction in the cinema than in print.