Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather Notebook"
Once a month I dig into Noted’s archive to resurface a favorite post. Because I just wrote about Sofia Coppola, her father’s process has been on my mind. Francis Ford Coppola has also been in the news recently for his ambitious, if tepidly reviewed, film Megalopolis. So, I thought it was a perfect time to revisit his notes for one of my favorite movies of all time, The Godfather.
Francis Ford Coppola was terrified when he wrote the script for The Godfather. As a director, he knew he could correct for bad performances. But he couldn’t correct a bad script. He knew,
If I were wrong in the script, that that’d be as wrong as I could be.
To alleviate his anxiety, Coppola made a notebook that combines his notes on Mario Puzo’s novel with his thoughts on tone, character, and historical context. He admits to making the notebook
…out of profound fear…I thought that if I could first work out the story on a set of blueprints—a plan—I would then be able to sleep at night.
Notes can be a kind of safety blanket—an accounting for all we want to remember or accomplish. For this reason, notes often feel incredibly intimate.
In a move of true generosity, Coppola shared his private notes for the film in a printed edition of his “Godfather Notebook.” From it, we learn that The Godfather (the movie) was made from marginal notes written on the pages of The Godfather (the novel). His marginal notes are so fascinating, I could have included Coppola in my post on marginalia.
I love Coppola’s notebook because it offers a road-map for how a brilliant director thinks about creating a film. So, for all you aspiring directors and Godfather fans—I hope you enjoy learning more about Coppola’s beautiful, meticulous process.
Francis Ford Coppola writes in his books. More than that, he thinks this practice is essential:
I think it’s important to put your impressions down on the first reading because those are the initial instincts about what you thought was good or what you didn’t understand or what you thought was bad….
As he read through The Godfather, Coppola gathered his notes in a big binder called The Godfather Notebook. Here, he explains how he extended the margins of Puzo’s novel:
Coppola valued the notebook so highly, he couldn’t afford to loose it. On the title page, he wrote
IF FOUND—
Please return to Paramount…
REWARD FOR RETURN
And the notebook proved vitally important as Coppola “schlepped” it around the set.
When I went to shoot the movie, I had this notebook in my big brown bag; I would schlep it around from location to location, and it was always with me.
Rather than refer to the script, he tells us, he’d turn to this notebook because it contained everything he needed to know. It was “a multi-layered roadmap for me to direct the film,” he says.
Let’s consider some of Coppola’s marginalia, beginning with the introduction of Michael’s character on page 18 of Puzo’s novel. Here, we learn about Michael’s military career. We also learn that his date, Kay, stands out as different from the Italian-American women at the wedding. Coppola notes:
Ironic that they think Kay is free at the same time that Lucy Mancini is cavorting with Sonny. But Lucy is dressed the way she is supposed to be dressed (an Italian girl, bridesmaid) maybe Kay is dressed a little differently.
And then, he adds a personal note:
The whole thing is like when I took Emeline to Antony’s wedding. All the family was eyeing her, criticizing her, the way she dressed, etc.
Towards the end of the page, Coppola notes how Michael’s conversation with Kay could become a “main expository device”—a way to communicate backstory. Puzo’s paragraph will turn into the following scene, complete with Michael’s famous words:
That’s my family Kay, not me.
Of course, as the rest of the film reveals: Michael is his family.
We can tell when Coppola gets excited over a scene because his notes become more dramatic: arrows shoot from the text, exclamation marks line the margin, colors appear.
Consider Coppola’s marginal notes for the scene in which Michael shoots Sollozzo and McCluskey. Coppola’s notes reveal the import of this scene. “Time Stops Short.” It has a “Hitchcock” style. And, of course, the blood—so much blood! Coppola underlines Puzo’s description:
The air seemed to be full of pink mist.
In the margins, Coppola exclaims,
MIST OF BLOOD
Detail!!
Get this for the audience!
Here, Coppola isolates the images and tone that will animate his scene: the blood splattered on the waiter’s white jacket, the way time slows down, the fork “frozen mid-air.”
You can watch all of this come alive in the finished scene:
While reading Puzo’s novel, Coppola divided the book into 50 scenes that would correspond to 50 scenes in the movie —beginning with the initial wedding scene.
For each of these scenes, Coppola details the following information: Synopsis, The Times, Imagery and Tone, Textures, The Core, and Pitfalls. Let’s examine Coppola’s notes for the wedding scene:
Synopsis
Here, Coppola summarizes a particular section of the book. For the wedding scene, Coppola’s synopsis extends over three pages. He describes the “summer wedding,” Michael’s role in the scene, and the various interviews with the Godfather.
The Times
Then, Coppola notes how the story’s events line up with historical events. For example, the wedding takes place as World War II draws to a close—on the last Saturday in August, 1945. Coppola notes,
The Japanese have just surrendered… The guests are relieved and anxious to enjoy themselves on what is probably the first big affair since the end of the war. Their sons are safe.
Imagery and Tone
Coppola notes images that stood out to him from reading the novel. He’s interested in how Michael and Kay have created their own private gathering “at the edge of the party.”
He also notes how Kay stands in for the audience as Michael explains “everything we must know” about his family.
Power is a central theme for the book, and Coppola reminds himself:
POWER, POWER, POWER, POWER, POWER—never forget that it is from a fascination of the limits and manipulations of power that keep people interested in this book.
Textures
Within the section on “Imagery and Tone,” Coppola notes “textures.” Here, we find snapshots that help Coppola illustrate the story’s look and feel. For example,
Fat, older man dancing with a ten year old girl in a confirmation dress. Her little shoes on his big ones.
Now, watch the following 1-minute clip to see how beautifully Coppola executes these notes:
The Core
The core refers to the heart of a scene—what really matters and what Coppola, as director, will need to accomplish. Coppola credits Elia Kazan’s book on directing with this concept. Kazan writes:
THE CORE. For the other values tend to recede in production. They are nice and help, but what is crucial is the core…
According to Coppola, the core of the wedding scene is as follows:
…Introduce the Don, and gradually reveal the breadth of his power, make clear his relationship to Michael.
Establish the fusion of family and business.
Introduce all the main characters and sub-plots of the film.
Pitfalls
Here are all the possible problems Coppola needs to avoid. For the wedding scene, he worries about lingering on
Cliches, Italians who-a, talka lika-dis…
He also worries about not setting up the tension between Michael and the Godfather, or boring the audience with too much explanation.
Then, Coppola types out an overview of the wedding scene based on all of his notes. We find “The Core” in the section titled “REMINDER.” And, the “Rough Structure” contains some of the images and textures we’ve seen in Coppola’s typed commentary.
As the first section of the film, the wedding scene was incredibly important. Accordingly, Coppola wrote lots of notes for it. But scenes that occur later in the movie don’t require as many notes.
For example, the scene in which Michael kills Sollozzo (see the clip above) takes up only two pages of notes total. In part, this is because under pitfalls, Coppola wrote:
Rushing this would ruin it. Otherwise, this scene can’t be ruined.
Take notes as you read: Coppola tells us, this is the best way to capture your first impressions of a book.
Know your focus: Coppola read The Godfather knowing he would make a film from it. So, we find him paying attention to character development and key plot points.
Synthesize: After reading a section of Puzo’s novels, Coppola created a summary of the events. This would help him recall essential aspects of each section that he might want to reference while filming the movie.
Be Courageous: Coppola says that the ideas he was most criticized for, have since become the most memorable aspects of his career—as an example, he points to his casting decisions for The Godfather.
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Till Monday,
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