The Godfather
Films that shaped it
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One of the films that I think was one of the greatest films I've ever seen, which was a big influence on me, was a French film called Le Trou, which was a prison escape movie. I just loved the way Becker makes real time suspenseful. And I wanted to make movies that had the same look and feel as Le Trou. I remember telling Gordon Willis, I want The Godfather to look like that.
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Francis Ford Coppola has named Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers as the direct ancestor of The Godfather, an Italian film about a Southern immigrant family slowly destroyed by ambition, loyalty, and violence. The Godfather's structure of family as both the source of love and the mechanism of destruction is pure Visconti. The Leopard gave Coppola his visual grammar: the long table scenes, the sense of a dynasty in its last hours. The Godfather is Italian cinema with an American accent.
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Rome Open City Atlas note
Francis Ford Coppola has named Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers as the direct ancestor of The Godfather, an Italian film about a Southern immigrant family slowly destroyed by ambition, loyalty, and violence. The Godfather's structure of family as both the source of love and the mechanism of destruction is pure Visconti. The Leopard gave Coppola his visual grammar: the long table scenes, the sense of a dynasty in its last hours. The Godfather is Italian cinema with an American accent.
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The Leopard Atlas note
Francis Ford Coppola has named Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers as the direct ancestor of The Godfather, an Italian film about a Southern immigrant family slowly destroyed by ambition, loyalty, and violence. The Godfather's structure of family as both the source of love and the mechanism of destruction is pure Visconti. The Leopard gave Coppola his visual grammar: the long table scenes, the sense of a dynasty in its last hours. The Godfather is Italian cinema with an American accent.
Films it shaped
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Movies like The Godfather or Goodfellas are not judgmental... The Devil Worst Prada has a similarly curious approach
