The Set-Up: This is the scene that kept Al Pacino from being fired from The Godfather. Paramount Studios had all sorts of casting suggestions for who should play Michael Corleone, the Corleone black sheep who would become the wolf in the fold—folks like Robert Redford (!), Ryan O'Neal (!!) and Warren Beatty. At one point, Coppola had James Caan (who would play Corleone oldest son, Santino) do a screen-test for the role because the Paramount honchos did not like Pacino—too short, too ethnic, too...not a star...too "not bankable"*—for them to give such a plum role. But, Coppola always had a vision of Al Pacino walking the hills of Sicily in exile, and he persisted in that vision against all objections. Coppola persisted. The Godfather did a lot of screen tests—Coppola liked screen-tests to get a sense of on-screen chemistry—and whenever they brought in Robert De Niro and Martin Sheen to do a test, Coppola would bring in Pacino, too. It was only a screening of a scene from Jerry Schatzberg's The Panic in Needle Park that convinced the studio to cast Pacino. Filming began—warily—Coppola shot the highly intricate wedding party scene and Pacino is tentative in those sections, focused on the pay-off at the end when Michael becomes the internalized, conspiratorial Don. Paramount still wanted to fire him. So, Coppola did some strategising of his own. He shuffled the shooting schedule so that Pacino's early strong scenes (the decisive ones)—the shooting of Sollozzo and Captain McClusky at Jack Dempsey's restaurant, and this scene, the "strictly business" scene where Michael's cold machinations and his dead basilisk eyes hold your attention—would be filmed earlier in the schedule. And once Coppola could show those to the studio-heads and that Pacino could hold his own on-screen—as well as the audience—Paramount might back off (as they had when they saw Coppola's video of Brando at his home "transforming" himself into The Godfather—in lieu of their demand for an screen-test). It paid off. They kept Pacino, as well as the high box-office receipts, AND the Academy Award for Best Picture that year. Sometimes, you have to drag people kicking and screaming to the best outcome. It's nothing personal. It's strictly business. The Story: Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), the head of the Corleone crime family, has survived two attempts on his life by rival forces. The last attempt, as he lay incapacitated in his hospital bed, has been foiled by the interference of his youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino)—a war-hero, who has previously resisted being involved in the family business. The action resulted in an assault and a broken jaw, and, for his protection, is brought to the Corleone compound by consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and capo regime Clemenza (Richard Castellano), where he can't avoid the family business in a discussion with oldest brother Sonny (James Caan) and lieutenant Tessio (Abe Vigoda). Action!
DISSOLVE TO: Corleone mall, during the day.
Tom, Clemenza and Michael get out of the car and walk through the gate, noticing armed men all over the mall.
Tessio greets them.
-day
CLEMENZA
What's with all the new faces?
TESSIO
We'll need'em now. After the hospital thing, Sonny got mad.
TESSIO We hit Bruno Tattaglia 4
o'clock this morning.
CLEMENZA
Jesus Christ...
(then, motions to Michael to come on)
CLEMENZA It looks like a fortress around here...
CUT TO: Inside the Corleone office -day
SONNY (to Tom)
Tom-anuch!
SONNY Hey, a hundred button men...
SONNY ...on the street twenty-four hours a day;
SONNY ...that Turk
shows one hair on his ass, he's dead -- TOM (going to sit down)
Yeah?
SONNY
-- believe me...
(then, to Michael, whose face is bruised from McCluskey's punch)
SONNY Hey, Michael, come're, let me look at you.
SONNY You look beautiful! Beautiful!
SONNY Just gorgeous!
SONNY(then, to Tom)
Hey, listen to this -- the Turk wants to talk.
SONNY Eh gosh -- imagine the nerve of the sonofabitch,
eh?
SONNY Craps out last night, and wants a meetin' today...
SONNY - He wants us to send
Michael here to proposition.
SONNY And the promise is...
SONNY ...that the deal is so good, that we can't
refuse. Eh...
TOM (as Tessio enters the room)
What about Bruno Tattaglia?
SONNY
That's part of the deal -- Bruno cancels out what they did to my father...
TOM
Sonny, we ought to hear what they have to say...
SONNY (standing in front of Tom, who's seated)
No; no; no! No more! Not this time, consiglieri. No more meetin's, no more discussions, no
more Sollozzo tricks.
SONNY You give'em one message: I want Sollozzo -- if not, it's all-out war --
we go to the mattresses...
TOM (stands)
Some of the other families won't sit still for all-out war! SONNY
Then they hand me Sollozzo!
TOM
Your father wouldn't want to hear this! This is business, not personal, Sonny!
SONNY
They shot my father -- that's business? Your ass... TOM
Even the shooting of your father was business, not personal, Sonny!
SONNY (now seated behind the desk)
Well, then, business will have to suffer, alright?
SONNY And listen -- do me a favor, Tom --
SONNY No
more advice on how to patch things up. Just help me win, please, alright?
TOM (after they settle down)
I found out about this Captain McCluskey who broke Mike's jaw... SONNY
What about 'im?
TOM
Now he's definitely on Sollozzo's payroll, and for big money. McCluskey has agreed to be
the Turk's bodyguard.
TOM What you have to understand, Sonny, is that while Sollozzo is being
guarded like this, he is invulnerable.
TOM Now nobody has ever gunned down a New York police
captain -- never. It would be disastrous.
TOM All the Five Families would come after you, Sonny.
TOM The Corleone Family would be outcasts!
TOM Even the old man's political protection would run
for cover!
TOM So do me a favor -- take this into consideration.
SONNY
Alright. We'll wait.
MICHAEL
We can't wait. SONNY
Huh?
MICHAEL (who's seated with his arms on the chair's arms)
We can't wait.
MICHAEL I don't care what Sollozzo says about a deal, he's gonna kill Pop, that's it.
That's the key for him.
MICHAEL Gotta get Sollozzo.
CLEMENZA
Mike is right...
SONNY
Lemme ask you something, Professor, I mean -- what about McCluskey?
SONNY Huh? What do we do with this -- cop here?
MICHAEL
They wanna have a meeting with me, right? It will be me -- McCluskey -- and Sollozzo.
MICHAEL Let's set the meeting. Get our informers to find out where it's gonna be held.
MICHAEL Now, we insist
it's a public place -- a bar, a restaurant -- some place where there's people so I feel safe.
MICHAEL They're gonna search me when I first meet them, right, so I can't have a weapon on me then.
But if Clemenza can figure a way -- to have a weapon planted there for me -
MICHAEL - then I'll kill 'em both.
[Clemenza, Tessio and Sonny laugh. Tom shrugs]
SONNY
Hey, whataya gonna do, nice college boy, eh?
SONNY Didn't want to get mixed up in the Family
business, huh?
SONNY Now you wanna gun down a police captain, why, because he slapped ya in
the face a little bit? Hah? What do you think this is
SONNY ...the Army, where you shoot'em a mile
away?
SONNY You've gotta get up close like this and
SONNY bada-bing! you blow their brains all over your
nice Ivy League suit.
SONNY Come're... MICHAEL (as Sonny kisses his head)
Sonny...
SONNY
You're taking this very personal.
SONNY Tom, this is business...
SONNY ...and this man is taking it very very
personal.**
MICHAEL
Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?
HAGEN
Come on, Mikey...
MICHAEL
Tom, wait a minute. I'm talking about a cop -- that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about ah
- ah - a dishonest cop -- a crooked cop who got...
MICHAEL ...mixed up in the rackets and got what was
coming to him.
MICHAEL That's a terrific story. And we have newspaper people on the payroll, don't
we, Tom?
The Godfather is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Paramount Home Video.
* Coppola has a theory that studio head Robert Evans wanted the stars he wanted because he wanted somebody who looked like him!
**
Now CLEMENZA and TESSIO are also smiling; only HAGEN keeps his face serious. MICHAEL (angrily, but cold) Sonny, it's all personal, and I learned it from him, the old man, the Godfather. He took my joining the Marines personal. I take Sollozzo trying to kill my father personal, and you know I'll kill them Sonny. MICHAEL radiates danger...SONNY stops laughing.
No comments:
Post a Comment