The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son. (IMDb)
On the Page: The Godfather (Mario Puzo). Buy it here
After his first two novels were critically acclaimed but largely ignored by the public, Mario Puzo set out deliberately to pen a bestseller when he wrote The Godfather, and it shows. It's got all the classic ingredients for popular success: smooth prose, a suspenseful plot with some fine twists, a liberal sprinkling of gratuitous (but rarely graphic) sex. It's a formula that works for a reason, though it leads to a strange inconsistency here. There were moments when I was reading that I felt I was in the presence of something almost profound: the heavy-handed subtlety of Don Corleone's manipulations, Michael's unexpected and yet wholly inevitable transformation from clean-cut "civilian" into unflinching Mafioso. (I wasn't at all surprised to learn that Puzo named Dostoevsky as his greatest influence; although the former's lusty, businesslike Italian-Americans may seem unlikely kin to the latter's darkly tormented Russians, The Godfather is one of the most character-driven crime novels I've read since Crime and Punishment.) At other times, particularly when Puzo focuses his attentions on Johnny Fontane or Lucy Mancini, I felt as if I were reading a Judith Krantz novel, albeit one marinated in testosterone: splendid entertainment, but at best a guilty pleasure; at worst - well - perfectly trashy.
On the Screen: The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola). Watch it here
In the wrong hands, the adaptation of Puzo's novel might have made for a standard-issue blockbuster - or worse. I've seen too many good books diminished, if not actually brutalized, in the process of adaptation into film to take a particularly optimistic view of the process. I had unusually high hopes for The Godfather, however, not only because the American Film Institute has twice named it among the three greatest American movies of all time, but because of Mario Puzo's involvement as co-screenwriter. While authorial involvement is unfortunately no guarantee of a good movie, or even a faithful adaptation, the fact that Puzo also had an active hand in creating The Godfather Part II suggests that he can't have been displeased with Coppola's work the first time around. I'm pleased to say that this is one movie that deserves its accolades. Any loss of psychological depth in the story (probably inevitable when a 400-plus-page character-driven novel is made into a three-hour film) is made up for by color and immediacy. Coppola's technique is so effective that I found myself holding my breath during the most suspenseful moments, even though I had just finished reading the book a day or two earlier and knew exactly what was going to happen. As for the acting, the entire cast is first-rate, and all I can say about Marlon Brando's performance is that I don't remember seeing Marlon Brando in this movie at all, perhaps because I didn't dare take my eyes off that diabolically charming Don Vito Corleone.
Adaptation: High Fidelity
Since I had only just finished the book when I sat down to watch the movie, I was in a position to notice even trivial differences - and those I spotted were few, far between, and trivial indeed. The most significant difference is to be found at the very end of the film, when two events (the christening of a child and a major Mafia power play) that occurred on separate but consecutive days in the novel are made to occur simultaneously. Coppola cuts back and forth between solemnity and violence, the sacred and the profane, in a poignant, breathtaking way that would be extremely difficult to accomplish in print, and perhaps impossible to accomplish so well. It's a relatively minor change, and it works to tremendous effect in a way that enhances rather than detracts from Puzo's original vision. Of course, a story of this length is going to have to be trimmed down quite a bit in the process of adaptation into a film, and here again, the screenwriters have done a masterful job. Perhaps the most significant omission is the lengthy flashback in the book detailing the Don's rise to power in the 1920s, which was eventually brought to film two years later in The Godfather Part II. Unnecessary subplots have been pared down significantly or eliminated altogether, yet lack of filler in this case never equates to lack of flavor.
Cinematic Bookworm Says: Read the book before you watch the movie
The book represents popular fiction at its best, and the movie approaches cinematic perfection. Both are well worth your time. Although viewers who haven't read the book won't get the sense that anything's missing, your experience watching the movie will be much richer if you've read the novel first. You'll feel privy to inside information as you recall what a character is thinking, but doesn't say, during a pivotal scene, or the elaborate story attached to a minor character such as Lucy Mancini or Albert Neri, both of whom appear briefly onscreen but are never so much as mentioned by name in the film.
