29/03/2024
In these exclusive BBC Archive interviews, Francis Ford Coppola describes how with his masterpiece The Godfather he visualised the intricate web of influence, manipulation and violence that underpinned the world of organised crime – and showed how it reflected the US.
On 14 March 1972, the iconic crime epic The Godfather premiered in New York. With its haunting score, its subtle, evocative cinematography, its endlessly quotable dialogue and its powerhouse performances – which served to revive Marlon Brando's career and make a star of a young Al Pacino – it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.
Accused of glamorising crime and the Mafia before it was even released, it went on to be seen by many as the definitive gangster film. But not by its director. "I've always felt The Godfather was really less about gangsters, than about power and powerful families, and the succession of power, and the Machiavellian way that real power works in the world," Francis Ford Coppola told the BBC's Barry Norman in 1991.
Coppola was just 29 years old when he was first offered the chance to direct an adaptation of Mario Puzo's bestselling 1969 novel. The story centred on a fictional New York Mafia family in the post-World War Two years, led by patriarch Don Vito Corleone (the eponymous Godfather of the title), as they try to ensure their survival in the brutal and treacherous world of organised crime. When the Don is betrayed, his youngest son Michael, who had hoped for a life away from the Mob, gets pulled into the family business, as a war between the different crime families breaks out and they fight for control.
