Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Trilogy

The essays in this volume reexamine Coppola's The Godfather trilogy from a variety of perspectives.

Nick Browne (Edited by)

9780521559508, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 November 1999

208 pages, 9 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.29 kg

"Part of the impressive Cambridge Film Handbooks series..." The Intelligencer Record & The Burlington County Times

The Godfather trilogy is among the most significant works of Hollywood cinema of the last quarter century. They provide a richly complex look at a whole segment of American life and culture spanning almost the whole century. In six essays, written especially for this volume, The Godfather trilogy is re-examined from a variety of perspectives. Providing analyses on the form and significance of Coppola's achievement, they demonstrate how the filmmaker revised the conventions of the American crime film in the Viet Nam era, his treatment of the capitalism of the criminal underworld and its inherent violence, the power struggles within Hollywood over the film, and the contribution of opera to the epic force and cinematic style of Coppola's vision of an American criminal dynasty. The Godfather articulates the themes, styles, mythologies, performances, and underlying cultural values that have made the film a modern classic.

Acknowledgements
List of contributors
Fearful a-symmetries: violence as history in the Godfather films Nick Browne
1. If history has taught us anything … Francis Coppola, Paramount Studios, and The Godfather Parts I, II and III Jon Lewis
2. The Godfather and the mythology of Mafia Alessandro Camon
3. The representation of ethnicity in The Godfather Vera Dika
4. Ideology and genre in the Godfather films Glenn Man
5. Family ceremonies: or, opera in The Godfather trilogy Naomi Greene
Filmography
Reviews of the 'Godgather' trilogy
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Films, cinema [APF]