Reel Adventures 11 - Recommendations

For each Reel Adventures at R.W. Norton Art Gallery in addition to the highlighted movie I provide a few other recommendations. Here are the recommendations from our 11th Reel Adventures.

Reel Adventures 11 - Trivia Questions

Here are the trivia questions from Reel Adventures 11 at R.W. Norton Art Gallery:

ROUND ONE
• What does the country doctor make the Kid say?
• What clothing item does the Tramp use to light his match?
• What is the monetary award for bringing the Kid to the police?
• What is the name of the hospital that the Woman exits with the Kid?
• What are the car robbers doing when we first hear the Kid?

ROUND TWO
• How many years pass between the first time we see the Kid and when the film fast forwards?
• Who reunites the Tramp and the Kid at the end of the film?
• What is the Kid doing when we first see him as an older boy?
• What does the Tramp do to keep the Kid away after the Policeman busts them for breaking windows?
• Why does the Kid get into a fight with the other boy?

ROUND THREE
• What is the Kid reading when they come to take him away from his home?
• What does the Kid hold onto between rounds of his fight with the other little boy?
• When the Tramp first discovers the Kid, he tries to leave him in three places before finally accepting to keep him. What are the three places?
• How does the Woman realize the Kid is hers?
• Where does the dream sequence begin?

BONUS
• The Kid was Chaplin’s first ______-length film.
• What famous director owned the actual car where the Woman first leaves the Kid?
• As we discussed, silent cinema is an endangered species. The first Academy Awards were given for years 1927-1928. Only one Best Picture nominee is considered forever lost. What is the title of the film?

Reel Adventures 11 - Talk (Part 2 of 2)

Here's Part 2 of the talk I gave for Reel Adventures 11, The Kid:

Why then are so many people dismissive when it comes to silent films?

Is it because they’re different?

I think that’s probably the reputation of them and most people’s immediate response when they first watch one. I mean the actors mouths are moving but we can’t hear what they’re saying.

It’s long been my feeling that certain art is delicate. It requires the proper introduction, the proper entry point for someone to open up to forming a new relationship with a previous foreign object. In other words, if I’m trying to get someone interested in watching a silent film, I’m probably not going to choose a five-hour period film as the first thing to show them. I’m going to try to find something that I think is a good place to start and then incrementally begin introducing more challenging works.

I chose The Kid because I thought it was one of the great starting points for people who may never have seen a silent film before. And I believe, and I’m sure most of you will attest to this after watching The Kid - within minutes you forget the differences and relate to it like any other film and are moved by the characters and their experiences.

So the lesson to be learned from that?

That silent films aren’t so foreign or unfamiliar. You just have to start with the right one.

So now that I have you watching and actually enjoying a silent film, where do we go from here?

Well let me say a few things about why I feel silent film is important:

1. It shows us what film was when it started, what the medium originally looked and felt like. You watch The Kid and your view of what film can be and has been is enlarged.

2. Silent film is an endangered species. Many estimate that more than 75% of silent films are lost forever, the largest cause being intentional destruction. You watch The Kid and hopefully it makes you curious to see other silent films. It’s people watching and talking about silent films that helps protect this part of film’s endangered history.

3. It’s a window into our history and culture. Silent films show us what people looked and acted like at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Like #1, as we begin to form a relationship with silent film, our perspective becomes widened and enlarged.

4. Silent film is its own language. It’s a film language, among other things, with uniquely emotive faces, intertitles, rhythms, iris shots and tints that communicate to us in a way that is different than talking pictures. You watch The Kid and then other silent films and you begin learning this new language. You broaden your knowledge of film and your ability to understand it, in more of its different forms and styles.

Let’s look at a few examples of some of silent cinema’s unique language.

• Intertitles

I showed this clip:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x_b4I-YJi5jYzUr000684IqLgQDSenAi/view

• Iris shots

I showed this clip:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h3Rq8yPKf982hMYnoiy9NUfBJiovp7UB/view

And mentioned that directors use iris shots for several different reasons - to transition into a scene, to transition out of scene, or to focus the audience's attention during certain scenes.

• Emotive close-up

I showed this clip:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MXcDmVltAXiTpE-NNA_PasaQMGrjmDYC/view

So my hope is that you’ll leave here tonight and periodically seek out other Chaplin films and more silent films in general. That 70 years from now, as the cinema turns 200, people will still be watching and enjoying silent cinema - keeping it alive as the birthplace of film.

Thank you.

Reel Adventures 11 - Talk (Part 1 of 2)

Wow, what another special night at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 11, The Kid!

Here's part one (of two) of the talk I gave.

Before I began, I started by showing this three-minute clip:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ERG05nOLKGB0btU5sThc5QzfrfF0y41k/view

And then:

At our previous Reel Adventures my focus has been on why directors made certain choices and what we might learn by looking deeper at those choices. Today we also ask why. But we turn the focus on you. Why, just maybe, you, or any of us, should watch and care about silent films in 2025?

It’s 2025. Nearly 100 years after the release of The Jazz Singer, the film that’s often considered the first “talkie”. So shouldn’t we just move on? Why look back? Why watch and care about silent films? For that matter, why watch and care about anything that isn’t 21st century?

Hopefully most, if not all of you enjoyed The Kid and maybe you already do care about silent films so I’m preaching to the choir. But as you leave here tonight and talk to others about silent film, hopefully some of what I’m about to say you can store in your back pocket and pull it out when it might be useful.

As I’ve said to you numerous times now, film - like literature, painting, opera, and sculpture - is an artform. It is a medium that began in 1895 that is now in its 130th year.

What I’m suggesting tonight then should not be new to most of you. I mean we don’t say we shouldn’t care about our ancestry or history that predates us. In fact, we say the opposite. We have museums like this very one where we’re sitting, that preserve the past and teach us about it so we can take lessons from it for the present.

So then, shouldn’t we have some of the same type of curiosity about silent film? I mean, they are the original films. The way all films were for the first 32 years of cinema’s 130 years.

Why then are so many people dismissive when it comes to silent films?

END OF PART 1

Reel Adventures 10 - Recommendations

For each Reel Adventures at R.W. Norton Art Gallery in addition to the highlighted movie I provide a few other recommendations. Here are the recommendations from our 10th Reel Adventures.

Reel Adventures 10 - Trivia Questions

Here are the trivia questions from Reel Adventures 10 at R.W. Norton Art Gallery:

ROUND ONE
• How long of a built-in lifespan did Nexus 6 Replicants have?
• In what year does Leon die?
• What physical symptom lets Roy know his time is coming to an end?
• Killing a replicant was not called extinction, it was called _________________________ ?
• What defunct airline shows up in the neon cityscape?

ROUND TWO
• What does Sebastian tell Pris he does for a living?
• What beer is advertised in neon as Zhora flees Taffey Lewis' nightclub?
• What is crawling towards Leon in the desert?
• What does Tyrell say is their motto?
• What cassette brand is in the background during Roy's final monologue?

ROUND THREE
• What historic location is used for Bryant's office?
• What are Gaff's final words to Deckard?
• Why does Deckard tell Rachel that he wouldn't come after her if she goes north?
• In what three locations does Gaff leave origami?
• Film is generally shot at 24 frames per second. What technique does Ridley Scott use as Zhora crashes through the glass after she has been shot?

BONUS
• What three Kubrick films was Turkel in?
• What prog rock band offered Vangelis a job as its keyboardist?
• What replicant appeared in a film shot in the Shreveport area in the early eighties? What was the film and who directed it?

Reel Adventures 10

It was another very special night at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 10, Blade Runner! 

Here's the talk I gave:

Set in 2019 but made in 1982, Blade Runner was 37 years ahead of its time.

As much as any film I’m aware of, the reception Blade Runner received upon initial release versus the reputation it now enjoys could not be further apart.

Is this because it was 37 years ahead of its time? Or might there be a simpler, more plausible explanation?

I tend to believe it is the latter. Let me explain.
_________________________________________
As we all know, movies are expensive. And in cases where a director has a vision and views the movie as an opportunity to express that vision, what often happens is a tension arises between the people who fund the movie and the team working to execute it.

The people who fund the movie are risking money and most concerned that the final product generates a profit. Meanwhile, the director and his or her team are most concerned that the final product clearly articulates the vision.

A common practice for movies is to hold test screenings before a movie is released to the general public. These test screenings include survey cards that tell the moviemaking team how audiences are responding to the movie and give moviemakers the opportunity to make adjustments before the film is considered final and ready for release.

In the case of Blade Runner, its first two test screenings convinced the money people that audiences were confused and that some significant changes needed to take place before the movie was shared with a larger audience.

The two major decisions the money people made to Blade Runner following the test screenings were to add voiceover and to add a happy ending to the film.

So what I’d like to do tonight is compare and contrast a few scenes of Blade Runner with and without the voiceover and the film with and without the happy ending.

My hope in doing this is:

a) to help you better understand why it took so long for Blade Runner to enjoy the reputation it now has

b) to demonstrate a few of the things that film does particularly well as a medium

AND c) to think about how commercial concerns and artistic concerns might not necessarily align in a film

What you are about to see are clips from the version of Blade Runner that was originally released in 1982, the version the money people wanted, contrasted with clips from the “FINAL CUT” version that the director wanted that was finally released in 2007 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film:

https://youtu.be/JpNqO5HrETU

BREAK

I don’t want to spend tonight debating which version is better (although I definitely have an opinion). Instead I want to use this opportunity to discuss what I think these two versions tell us.

1. Neither art nor commerce

The first thing I think is clear in watching the two versions side by side is that the original version (the one with voiceover and a happier ending) is an effort to give the audience what the money people think it wants.

This version does not give the audience much credit. It thinks they need to be guided and have their hand held through the moviegoing experience, as well as be reassured at the end, as Hollywood almost always does, that everything will work out.

I would argue that this version failed at the box office because it tried to make a more artistically minded film more commercial, ending up with something that is neither successful as art nor as commerce.

Ridley Scott, the director, and the writers behind Blade Runner, never set out to make a straight commercial film. They wanted to make a movie that had ideas and that gave the audience the opportunity to reach their own conclusions. Plus, the film was too dark in mood and look to ever end up a mainstream, Hollywood blockbuster success.

In 1982, the money people made the adjustments (the tacked-on voiceover and happy ending) that they thought the audience would want and ended up with a film that, for the most part, satisfied no one.

2. Certain art is not really commercial

Blade Runner was a failed venture from the get-go.

I would argue that even if they had released the Final Cut in 1982, the film would still not have been a commercial success. It simply cost too much money and was too artistic in its vision to ever make its money back.

The only way Blade Runner could ever have been a successful venture is if all the people, money people included, agreed that they were making an artistic statement and that making a profit was not important. In other words, the only way Blade Runner could ever have been “successful” is if all involved agreed that success is defined by the vision of the final product being stated as clearly as possible.

3. Movies do immersive art well if you let them

There are certain things that movies as a medium do particularly well if you just let them.

Because they are a combination of so many of the other artforms, films can be immersive in ways that books, albums, plays, and paintings cannot quite match. Movies can envelop us and allow us to lose ourselves in their sights and sounds. When you get someone as visually strong as Ridley Scott and pair them with someone as sonically creative as the composer Vangelis, whole worlds are created that we can enter into.

Decisions like adding a voiceover take us out of these worlds and ground us when the movie wants us to float and let ourselves go into the magic of this alternate world.

Watching the final cut next to the original version is instructive for so many reasons, one of which is how it reminds us of what film does well - immersion.

Here is Frank Darabont, Director of The Shawshank Redemption, saying a few words about this:

https://youtu.be/5-_Mp2zud88

4. What is and what isn’t art

And then finally, just because I’ve talked so much about art and artistic films, I feel like I at least need to spend a few minutes talking about what is and what isn’t art.

My whole point here is that Ridley Scott was looking to make an art film. So what does that mean?

Art is a unique language that says things that we cannot communicate otherwise. And art allows people to experience emotions, ideas, and perspectives that might not be accessible through ordinary life.

When we did Reel Adventures 7 focused on David Lynch’s The Straight Story, I talked about why Lynch several times in the film refrained from showing us certain things, only allowing us to hear them. My point was that, in doing so, he wanted the moviemaking experience to be interactive, to obligate the viewer to engage and do some of the work of processing the story themselves.

I think Ridley Scott and his team are up to the exact same thing here. They purposefully set out to make a movie that did not give all the answers, that put the audience in a world where they had to put many of the pieces together themselves, knowing that this would involve the audience more.

When the money people in 1982 at the time of Blade Runner’s original release forced the addition of voiceover, essentially what they did is remove a portion of the film’s art. The added voiceover spoon fed us unneeded explanations leaving less to our imaginations. And it ground us when many of us would have preferred to lose ourselves in the magic of the worlds created.

And the same can be said for the added happy ending. It tried to narrow the way that people could process the film, pushing the audience to reach similar conclusions and tying up any possible elements of ambiguity. In doing so, it stripped art of one of its greatest strengths - that it doesn’t seek to give all the answers.

To conclude, what I’m saying is that the money people tried to make Blade Runner into something it wasn’t. It would be like city leaders and developers looking at Shreveport in 2025 and trying to make it into Paris, which for so many reasons of course it is not. But it is wonderful that 37 years later we have Blade Runner: The Final Cut because it gives us the opportunity to see the film for what its director wanted it to be and enjoy it in its full artistic expression.

Thank you.

Currently

Currently reading - Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
Currently listening - Guy Chadwick’s Lazy, Soft and Slow
Currently watching - The Newsroom
Last film seen - Personal Shopper (2016)

Reel Adventures 9 - Recommendations

For each Reel Adventures at R.W. Norton Art Gallery in addition to the highlighted movie I provide a few other recommendations. Here are the recommendations from our 9th Reel Adventures.

Reel Adventures 9 - Trivia Questions

Here are the trivia questions from Reel Adventures 9 at R.W. Norton Art Gallery:

ROUND ONE
• What is the first name of the Soviet Premier?
• What type of cigar does the Ambassador turn down?
• Peace is our ________________ .
• What Star Wars character is voiced by Lieutenant Zogg?
• Where does Ripper keep his machine gun stored?

ROUND TWO
• What does Major Kong do as he says the line, “Well, boys, I reckon this is it.”?
• What is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?
• Who are the three characters that Sellers plays?
• What drink does General Ripper ask Group Captain Mandrake to make him?
• What is the “name” of the two bombs?

ROUND THREE
• What is the best kind of start according to General Ripper?
• What are the three places Major Kong says he has been before he says, “that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones?”
• Ripper and Guano both emphasize the “pre” rather than the “per” when pronouncing a word. What are the two words (must be one from Ripper and one from Guano)?
• While Ripper stands in the bathroom, what are the two things Mandrake tells Ripper that we need?
• What does Major Kong say they would need if they was flying any lower?

BONUS
• What is the infamous typo in the opening credits?
• Who is the famous stepfather of Miss Scott?
• What’s the infamous use of ADR on Major Kong’s line? And why was the decision made to use ADR?

Reel Adventures 9 - Part 2

I gave a very short talk at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 9, after showing the first of two videos. Here's what I said:

"I just want to say a few words before the next round of trivia.

After that, we have a video I want to show with General Elder, our very special guest, who is here and will come take questions alongside me later on tonight.

98,99% percent of films you can discuss and do justice without ever talking about the director. But I don’t think you can do that with Dr. Strangelove.

In every field there is that name that rises to mythic proportions. The Beatles. Babe Ruth. Amelia Earhart. Miles Davis. Towering figures, the gold standard. The person that inspires and discourages because their work is so other level but also so seemingly impossible to match or equal.

It can be argued for film, that that person is Stanley Kubrick.

Although he only made 13 feature films in 48 years, you could say that Kubrick is responsible for making the greatest ever heist film, the greatest ever horror film, the greatest ever science fiction film, the greatest ever period film, the greatest ever war film and the greatest ever satirical film.

Kubrick is one of the most mysterious of filmmakers we’ve ever had so I’m certainly not going to set out to solve that in ten minutes. But I will leave you with this.

When we did Reel Adventures 6, I talked about the 17 different elements of film and gave you all a list of them as you were leaving. They were:

Camerawork, Editing, Lighting, Sound, Music, Acting, Storytelling, Color, Production Design, Wardrobe, Make-Up, Hair, Props, Special Effects, Locations, Direction and Shot Selection

If you are curious to see execution of the highest order of any of these 17 elements, all you have to do is look at Stanley Kubrick’s work.

I don’t use this word irresponsibly. Kubrick was a filmmaking virtuoso, simply one of the greatest talents ever to work in the medium.

Thank you."

Reel Adventures 9 - Part 1

It was a particularly special night last night at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 9, Dr. Strangelove! General Bob Elder joined us as well as a number of families who were gathering in town for the reunion of Operation Secret Squirrel.

I showed two videos, the one below, as well as an interview I conducted with General Elder, and then I gave a very short talk in between. Here is the first video I shared:

https://youtu.be/shci4NwtrMQ

My Top Films Seen in 2024

Here are the films, new and old, that I saw and most admired in 2024.

Michael Mann's Ferrari

I went into Mann's latest film, skeptical to say the least.  Although I taught a college course on him, I really had not been fully moved by one of his films since The Insider (24 years ago!) and he hadn't made a film since Blackhat (8 years ago!)  

All that to say, I was completely unprepared for the experience of Ferrari.  First off, nothing in Mann's body of work resembles it in look.  Gone is the cool, heavily stylized photography of the Thief-Ali period.  Gone is the self-conscious, digital experimentation of the Collateral-Blackhat period.  Ferrari finds Mann working in a much more naturalistic register, not only in the way the film is shot and production designed but also in the framing (again, gone are the myriad of jump cuts and extreme close-ups).

Mann has always been incredibly precise in his location scouting, his character research, his attention to detail.  But what has always seemed like an almost unparalleled approach in truth seeking in terms of directorial preparation has always been expressed in a much more heightened and mannered execution.  For the first time the feel of how Mann approaches his work is echoed by what comes out the other end.  

There has been a knock on Mann his entire career about his female characters.  Their lack of dimension.  Penelope Cruz's Laura is his strongest female character to date and one any woman's director would be proud to claim as their own.

Certain works by certain artists force an entire reconsideration of an artist's career.  With Ferrari, Mann reminds us that at his heights he is every bit as effective as Scorsese, Coppola or any other filmmaker that has emerged since the end of classic Hollywood.  But, unlike his aforementioned peers, with Ferrari, Mann still seems to be growing at the tail end of his career, reaching heights that he's been chasing since the very beginning.

Michael Roemer's Nothing But a Man

My first experience with Roemer's work has me wanting to see everything he directed (which isn't very many films unfortunately).  I can't recall any earlier American film dealing more honestly and more humanely with the race movement in our country.

Terrence Davies' A Quiet Passion

Who was Terrence Davies?  A career of but eight narrative features, only two of which I have seen so far.  If this work is representative, he is a filmmaker interested in utilizing subtle, graceful means to explore, unflinchingly, the rich complexity of our lives.

Hong Sang-soo's In Front of Your Face

First off, the effect of Hong's color films in general have a greater impact on me than his black-and-white work.  There's just a warmth that the color gives his worlds that I miss when he gets away from it.  Also, there is a weight to this film and a number of the scenes in it - whether it is when Sang ok visits her childhood home, the long scene at the Novel restaurant and of course the final few minutes - that give his film a substance and heft that not all of Hong's work is interested in entertaining.

Shinji Somai's Typhoon Club

A Japanese film unlike any I have ever seen.  Part coming of age, part disaster film, part horror film (to name but a few of its many wonderful facets) all filmed with great rigor and artistry, but also infused with a tremendous sense of joy and freedom.  Reminds me a little of the first time I saw Pierrot Le Fou, when I was presented with something that defied all that I thought cinema was or could be.

Aki Kaurismaki's The Other Side of Hope

Is Kaurismaki part of that rare breed of filmmaker, the one that actually gets better in the latter part of their career?  I can't claim to have seen all his work but I've seen one or two from the 80s and 90s and now in the last month or so both this and Fallen Leaves.

One of the few who has taken up the mantle of humanist filmmaking and one of the few who can claim to have a tone and style all his own.  

Robert Bresson's Four Nights of a Dreamer

The only Bresson feature I had never seen is yet another astounding work by the French master.  It manages to maintain Bresson's rigorous style while bringing some warmth into his formal system of restraint and austerity.

Clint Eastwood's Juror #2

If this were to be the final film of Eastwood's career, not only would it be a great addition to his body of work.  But it would also belong to that small and fascinating group of great final films.

Reminded me, more than anything, of late Fritz Lang films like Beyond a Reasonable Doubt and While the City Sleeps.  One of those fever dreams of a film, in terms of how the viewer experiences it, that seems malformed and amateurish on the surface while retrospective and rich underneath. 

Jean Eustache's Une Sale Histoire

Jean Eustache is a legendary figure of the post Nouvelle Vague and the director of what may be the most important French film of the seventies, The Mother and the Whore.  

While most of the Nouvelle Vague was passionately making films to illustrate the uniqueness of film as an artform, Eustache was forging a counter direction.  At least here and in The Mother and the Whore, Eustache weaponizes words in the tradition of theater, proving through his ability as a writer and director of actors that film in the right hands can be just as cinematic when treated as a "verbal" medium.

Marva Nabili's The Sealed Soil

The type of film that every cinephile aspires to find, the work that is far less known that it should be by a filmmaker who is far from a household name.  

Profound in so many ways but chiefly in its framing, its location work, its acting, its work with sound, and the rhythms the editing of its images creates.

Nabili discusses Bresson's influence, which is clear.  This is "transcendental filmmaking" that is warmer but also slower (due to numerous very long takes) than the French master's work.

Hong Sang-soo's In Our Day

The 21st of Hong's features I have seen and among the strongest.

What's most striking is how much he has moved to the long take.  I would bet there are less than 20 cuts in the entire film.  His growing affinity for this choice of filming tracks well for Hong, as he is our greatest current practitioner of "distilled cinema".

When I call Hong's cinema distilled, it is chiefly two areas I am talking about - the process of making the film for Hong and then the resulting film experience for the viewer.

Hong removes any excess item to ensure the filmmaking act is as simple as possible - as few locations, as few cuts, as few actors, as few movements of the camera, as few props.  In doing so, he ensures that he can make his films quickly, inexpensively, and remain, as far as I can tell, the most prolific filmmaker we've had since Fassbinder.

And then there is the result of his methods, the film.  Like the poet in the movie says, "Maintaining a clear vision is the hardest thing in the world."

Hong, like Rohmer before him, pursues clarity by making a similar type film again and again.  He makes slight variations each time to the approach, tweaking small pieces of the method that could be cloudying up the vision.

I can imagine Hong saying, "Let me see what a film in almost only long takes does.  Will it make the emotions of my actors more fully felt, make my worlds more fully immersive, add clarity to my vision?  Or is there a different piece of my method I'll need to refine and adjust the next time out?"

It's this endless reducing in Hong's work as he pursues the essence of the medium that makes his work, to me, as important as any in current cinema.

David Simon and Eric Overmyer's Treme

For the way it tells the story of a community and city, I now rate it even higher than what I previously considered the best TV series I had ever watched, The Wire.

Reel Adventures 8 - Recommendations

For each Reel Adventures at R.W. Norton Art Gallery in addition to the highlighted movie I provide a few other recommendations. Here are the recommendations from our 8th Reel Adventures.

Reel Adventures 8 - Part 2

It was another very special night at R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 8, The Godfather!

I gave a talk that was in two separate parts. Here is part two:

In previous talks, I’ve focused on the why. Why might the director have made the choices that he made. Today, my talk is perhaps slightly more surface. I am going to focus on the what. What did Coppola do with what was on the page of Puzo’s novel as he made it into a film.

Every artistic medium is different - sculpture from painting, opera from theater, film from literature. When it comes to the five senses, you can’t taste, smell or touch in a film but you can hear and see, which you can’t do in a novel.

So let’s look at how Coppola crafts what we see and hear in The Godfather.

Here’s what was on the page:
https://drive.google.com/.../1UlEm03o2g5yyUeZF.../view... (I read aloud from "At a quarter..." to "flights of steps.")

Now let’s look at the scene and what Coppola kept in as far as what we see and hear.

SHOW SCENE 1

https://drive.google.com/.../1tHZAKpg7RcUIBh4pBlb.../view...

Inspired by Coppola’s headings in his Notebook, I approached it with three headings of my own. What did Coppola take from the book, what did he eliminate and what did he add? Let’s take a look.

By no means is this list exhaustive but my hope is that it gives you a sense of Coppola’s talents and a feel for what happens from page to screen.

https://docs.google.com/.../1Rq9wqVptS70W6MkP9MJZ.../edit... (the PowerPoint we used to accompany this section)

Coppola takes these two lines of dialogue verbatim from the book. He eliminates most of the rest of the dialogue. He also gets rid of the bit about the Don calling for Hagen.

In the book, this is all one scene in one chapter. When Coppola turns it into a film, he breaks the scene into two parts, inserting the killing of Luca Brasi and the kidnapping of Hagen, between the two sections.

Coppola then adds all these lines of dialogue, which I think are important for two reasons:

1. As Coppola mentioned in the video, “People must feel like they are seeing a real thing.” These added lines of Italian dialogue add texture to the film and help us buy into and believe that we are in a specific world of Italian-Americans.

2. And by adding these references to “Pop” and “Pa”, I would make the case that Coppola is building up something that he will pay off later in the scene. More on that in a minute.

And then lastly, Coppola makes the decision to film this entire part of the scene in one 21 second long take. For those of you who haven’t been here before, a long take is simply a shot without any cuts. The camera turns on, films the scene, and then the camera turns off.

Now let’s look at the rest of the scene. Here’s what’s on the page, and please bear with me it’s a little long.

 
https://drive.google.com/.../1UlEm03o2g5yyUeZF.../view...
https://drive.google.com/.../1yZnJxtgN6VgTWKnzw5z.../view...
https://drive.google.com/.../18ZLHcnZzeumk7rGVf91.../view... (I read aloud from "Out in the street..." to "...everybody and everything.")

And here’s what’s onscreen.

SHOW SCENE TWO

https://drive.google.com/.../1Nz0Bpx4ayKEelSc6chN.../view...

And then we used the same PowerPoint as before to accompany the rest of the talk:

https://docs.google.com/.../1Rq9wqVptS70W6MkP9MJZ.../edit...

Using the exact same process as before, Coppola kept in Puzo’s description of the Don pointing but not handling the fruit. He also, as Puzo describes, has crowds gathering around after the Don has been shot.

Coppola eliminates all the Daily News stuff that Puzo mentions; he also never shows any police or detectives arriving.

In his notebook, in the columns next to this scene, Coppola wrote how would Hitchcock design this? DESIGN CAREFULLY!

Alfred Hitchcock was known as one of the most meticulous directors ever when it came to preparing to film. Hitchcock would draw out or storyboard every shot in his films, ensuring that they communicated his vision before he even went to film them. So Coppola was looking at Hitchcock as a role model for how he should approach this scene.

Coppola adds all kinds of little touches. He adds the following bits of dialogue – “Fredo, I’m going to buy some fruit”; “Okay Pop”; “Merry Christmas. I want some fruit.” and “Papa!”

I think the emotional high point of the scene is the final beat when Fredo screams out, “Papa!” But this only works the way that it does because of John Cazale’s ability as an actor, but even more important, because Coppola has designed it that way.

In other words, Coppola earns this emotional moment because he builds up to it by scattering the different mentions of “Pop” and “Pa” throughout the scene before finally paying it off with Fredo’s “Papa” at the very end. This sense of design and use of repetition is just one of the many examples in The Godfather of Coppola’s great skill as a writer and director.

You also see his skill in some of the visual choices he makes like this shot that is not from Fredo’s POV.

https://drive.google.com/.../1Wk3.../view...

This is a convention from the horror film genre, where we see a shot from an unidentified POV, alerting us to the fact that something ominous is about to happen. Which of course it does.

Or we see Coppola’s skill in how he translates Puzo’s line in the book – “Don Corleone knew immediately what was to happen” to directing this simple look of recognition on Brando’s face.

https://drive.google.com/.../1pVN7GkQXSmr2zRdkwPO.../view...

And we see his classy sense of direction in his elegant cut from the henchmen’s running feet to the shot of them running with their guns.

 
https://drive.google.com/.../1HGIukQqqCnx6aE9Bq2.../view...

And we see it in his choice of the high angle shot in the scene.

https://drive.google.com/.../125xWQFW_Cq.../view...

Like the asterisk in the prompt book that Coppola says means something of particular importance, the high angle shot serves that purpose for Coppola here. He hardly ever uses high angle shots in
the film so when he does we notice and realize, consciously or not, that this is an important moment.

And then again there are the details that Coppola adds. The Jake LaMotta poster at the fruit stand which is another Italian-American accent that Coppola adds to the design or the addition of Fredo fumbling with the gun which is just the perfect, succinct moment of visual characterization.

Coppola’s strong sense of design isn’t limited to what we see. It’s just as evident in what we hear.

At the beginning of the scene, we hear a trumpet playing scales in the background. As the action picks up, the trumpet slowly fades away, not replaced by music but rather natural sounds – running feet, gunshots, baskets of fruit being knocked over, the Don grunting. Most directors would lean on music to heighten the action and to guide our emotions. But Coppola believes in his actors, his camerawork, his editing and his design to do the job.

Coppola lets the scene play out with nearly 30 seconds of natural sounds (no music at all) before finally bringing back Nino Rota’s haunting Godfather theme as the Don falls to the ground.

To wrap it all up, I’ll leave you with this. Many people consider The Godfather as one of the great American films and Francis Ford Coppola one of the great American filmmakers. I think nowhere is Coppola’s talent more evident than when you see what he started with, in terms of The Godfather novel, and what he chose to have us see and hear as director of the film. Thank you.