Watching old films on a giant screen, the experience is still shocking
Ends at 12:40 late at night. It takes perseverance and courage to read it, because there is no subway.
Bullshit, "The Godfather" won the 45th Best Adapted Screenplay Award, and before that, Coppola won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "General Patton."
A director, before winning the Best Director Award, has won two heavyweight awards in the script. This is strength. Wrapped in great acting, great cinematography, is a great script.
If the story is told like this:
The New York gangster godfather was assassinated on the street, the behind-the-scenes gangster colluded with the police, there were also moles in the family, the retired military officer Mike avenged his father, fought the four major gangsters, and a new godfather was rising... .
Will it be a big hit?
The producers chose this theme because they felt that the plot of the gangster movie was exciting and the story was strong, especially the original novel had a strong element of revenge. It must be profitable to make a commercial film.
But when it was handed over to Coppola, his temperament changed. Is the shootout fun? It's not fun at all, is it? Are the enemies of the family fighting against each other's blood? Not hot-blooded at all.
So this is not a movie based on commercial elements, so at the script level, how did the director Coppola, who is also a master writer, complete this classic, and why did it become a classic?
Leaving aside the clichés about what kind of storytelling techniques the film uses, and how the characters are created. First ask a few questions:
1. In the film, what was the first sentence of the godfather Victor to his son Mike? at what time?
When the movie was 2 hours, 26 minutes and 41 seconds, it was less than half an hour before the end of the movie. The semi-retired godfather Widow was very worried about Mike and asked Mike, are your wife and son happy? Then Victor said that it took me a lifetime to learn to be "careful" and that women and children can be careless, but not men.
This is a life experience passed down from father to son. Before this, they rarely stayed in the same room at the same time, not even a single eye-to-eye conversation.
In other words, Marlon Brando and Al Pacino had their first rivalry at this time. But all the viewers who have watched this movie will never forget this dialogue full of father-son emotion and life meaning.
However, the tension and confrontation between the godfather Victor and his son Mike are all lurking in the subtleties ahead. If you look closely at the opening two details of the film, you can feel it. The wedding was going to take a family photo. Godfather Victor saw that Mike was not there, so he decided not to take it. Mike brought his new girlfriend to the wedding. The new girlfriend asked curiously why the big star came to the scene. After telling the story of how his father used violence to help the big star's career take off, Mike said, "Family is family, I am me."
When there is no dialogue in the first half of the film, we have already felt the ties between the two characters in their respective lives, especially when Mike decided to avenge his father, he did not show "arrogance" or "hesitating" , as if he was born to do so.
The way to deal with the motivation of the characters, whether it is "inner epiphany" or external pressure, the characters can be silent, and they can be upset in their hearts, and they can also make the audience see through. This is a brilliant script.
The love is meaningful, and the kindness is also raging. It is not an exaggeration to describe this father-son relationship, as well as the father-son relationship in the world.
2. Why spend ten minutes describing how Tom, the military advisor, went to Hollywood and killed his horse? Does killing the horse directly promote the plot, is it a key plot?
First of all, killing the horse is a very interesting plot, but it is not the key plot, that is to say, killing the horse is not the fuse that leads to the conflict in the whole story, but a relatively isolated plot.
Why is there such a bridge as killing a horse? In fact, in conventional genre films (such as gangster films), the plot of killing a horse is used in the opening paragraph of shaping the protagonist. The big boss of Hollywood is a bird….
The function of this bridge is to shape the Godfather's "responsible" energy. But this alone is not enough to make the godfather appear different from the general underworld boss.
What is he like? Back to the beginning of the movie. At the opening wedding, the godfather met with all the guests in his office. Was it just for coercion?
The godfather is very busy, and even his daughter's wedding is handled in the office, but he is not dealing with the business of killing people and stealing goods, nor is he meeting dignitaries. The people I met were all petty people, including a mortician whose daughter was raped and who came to seek extrajudicial justice, a pony who was fortunate enough to attend a grand wedding and came to thank him, and a male singer who wanted to seek greater development (this one is the one who caused the murder. the cause of the horse). These characters all echoed in this one, they came to the godfather for help, and finally when the family needed them, they did not hesitate to help the gangster family.
The reason why this "Godfather of the Gangster" movie is not handled in a way of playing cards is because of the story. This movie is not driven by dramatic conflict events such as revenge and land grabbing, but by the fate of the characters and the family. Promoted by the main line, it continues the realist tradition of the fate of the characters like "Citizen Kane", rather than the increasingly stylized genre film mode.
This film directly initiated the New Hollywood tradition that began in the 1970s, set off a film revolution, and became a classic in film history.
3. Why do weddings, funerals, baptisms, family ceremonies, and religious ceremonies make this movie better?
The opening wedding is the background for the appearance of the godfather Vito. Mike's wedding in the Italian countryside is a turning point in Mike's family and personal destiny. The baptism of the baby at the end actually means Mike's "coronation" as a new generation of godfather.
Every ceremony has a strong form of national culture on the outside, and a strong expression of personal destiny on the inside, not just a superficial "exotic" display. In addition to the opening character's dazzling explanation of the godfather's family and capable leaders, so that the audience is often confused (who is this? Who is this?), other ceremonies focus on the actions of the core protagonist.
However, after reading the whole story, and looking back at the opening wedding, you will find that many of the characters in it have performed extremely well, the levels are clear, and there is no waste of writing, which is quite enjoyable.
Watching the film in a cross-cultural context, through these rituals, can find the origins of Italian-Americans, and have a vertical historical understanding of the country, which is very prominent in "The Godfather 2", It tells the history of Victor, who came to the United States by boat as the first-generation immigrant of the family and began to work hard. In the very popular American family emotional drama "this is us" last year, when the heroine recalled her family history, she directly imitated the "Godfather 2" in which Vitol came to the United States by boat and lived in a dilapidated hotel. Scenes.
4. The godfather of gangsters is so rampant, don't American police fight against gangsters? Also, is the film censorship mechanism in the United States all about eating?
In addition to being moved, I also have to feel that the film has enough depth in the expression of immigrant families and national history in the United States. In "The Godfather 1", Mike's identity is a naval officer who returned after World War II and volunteered to represent the United States in the war. He is a "national hero" and eventually "reduced" to a generation of godfathers. In "The Godfather 2", Mike went to Cuba to do business and found that the government was surrounded by the revolutionary army, and the regime was in jeopardy. "The army works with wages, but the revolutionaries rely on faith." At this time, it was Castro and Che Guevara's During the Red Revolution.
China has a more magnificent modern history, as well as godfather figures like Victor and Mike. Last year, a "Romantic Dying History" tried to tear apart the mainstream discourse and found Du Yuesheng and Huang Jinrong in the cracks of history. The tragedy of the fate of the "Godfather" when the country was in danger, but what finally presented was the "survival situation" of this group of people, which was a long way from the shaping of the characters' fate, and a dozen Zhang Yimou from the real classic. (Remember that Zhang Yimou also filmed a Shanghai gangster? "Shake and Shake to Grandma's Bridge", adapted from Bi Feiyu's "Shanghai Past", was filmed in 1995. The pattern of the story is a disaster caused by a sleeping boss woman. Look Look at this pattern.)
"Romantic Dying History" has feelings and the historical depth of the story. The Japanese spy Watanabe has pretended to be "Shanghai Bai Xiangren" for many years, which is refreshing. There are individual scenes and scenes, which are quite like "The Godfather" tribute. For example, shortly after the opening, the boss played by Ge You negotiated with the so-called worker representatives and gave him two train tickets. He left; in "The Godfather 2", Mike also sent a plane ticket to his brother, and before sending him away, he also tested whether he was a whistleblower.
It's just that the completion of the film is a lot worse. The gangster film is too Wong Kar-wai, and the overall focus is too much on formal performance. Instead, the coherence of the character performance is lost. For example, the roles of Ge You and Zhang Ziyi are the most obvious.
Not to mention, due to censorship reasons, the movie deleted the tragic fate of the bigwigs after the founding of the country in the original script. Just imagine that without the criticism of the Cultural Revolution and the mutual exposure of brothers and sisters, no matter how well "Farewell My Concubine" was shot, could it still be called a classic?
From "Farewell My Concubine" in 1995 to "The Death of Romance" in 2016, in fact, over the past 20 years, my country's movies have still regressed.
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