BY MICHAEL J. LEWIS
It sounds like a pretty ridiculous statement on its face.
Francis Ford Coppola is a proud graduate of Great Neck North High School, class of 1955, who went on to Hofstra University and then an almost-unparalleled career as a film director that has spanned more than five decades.
His masterpiece, of course, came in 1972, with “The Godfather,” the story of Don Corleone, his son Michael and the dynamics of a Mafia family managing friends, family and business.
The film won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and is on just about every film critic’s list of Top 10, or at worst, Top 20, films of all time. It is currently being celebrated on its 50th birthday, with new screenings (it was the top box office film by location for the weekend of Feb. 25-27) and a wave of publicity.
But according to a recent interview with the Nassau County native, Coppola said he had no idea what he was doing while making this classic.
“You have to understand, as a filmmaker, I didn’t really know how to make ‘The Godfather,’” Coppola told The New York Times. “I learned how to make ‘The Godfather’” by making it.”
What? There’s no way an epic like that could’ve just happened, right?
Well Rodney Hill, an associate professor of film studies at Hofstra, said Coppola has made similar comments in the past. Hill has met and interviewed the legendary director twice, including a 2018 Zoom session with his students at Hofstra. (Coppola could not be reached for comment for this story.)
“There’s a famous story which he confirmed that George Lucas had to convince Coppola to make ‘The Godfather,’” Hill said in an interview last week. “’The Godfather’ is not the kind of film he wanted to be making, but Lucas told him it was a great opportunity.”
Coppola has acknowledged how much his Hofstra experience shaped him, giving him the confidence and freedom to become a director. Hill said Coppola told him he was first inspired to make movies by watching the 1927 film by Sergei Eisenstein “October (Ten Days that Shook The World)” while on campus.
“He came here to study drama, and on a playwriting scholarship,” Hill recalled. “He was going to try to be a playwright like Arthur Miller. But then he got into directing some plays at Hofstra, and saw the Eisenstein movie, and it lit a spark.”
That spark turned into a career that led to “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now,” and the trilogy of “Godfather” movies.
Asked why he thinks “The Godfather” endures, Hill pointed to the story and the acting.
“He took a movie about family dynamics, and made it into a story about America, and power, and corruption, and all those things are evergreen,” Hill said. “It’s not just a specific crime story, it takes on another level.
“And when you look at the cast,” Hill continued, “Coppola’s ability to spot young talent is great. So many of the actors who were great in ‘The Godfather’ went on to great careers, because they did such great work in that movie.”
One criticism of “The Godfather” is its slow pace, and its three-hour running time. Hill works with young college students who are often accused of having tiny attention spans, with multiple screens occupying their attention at once.
So can today’s college students sit through the epic film and appreciate it?
“I think they do!” Hill said. “Some of my recent students went and saw it, and last year a student told me he saw it for the first time and that the three hours flew by.”
For Coppola, even though it has become his most famous and beloved work, making “The Godfather” was no fun task.
“I was just glad I had survived the experience of ‘The Godfather’ and I wanted nothing more to do with it,” he said.
Fifty years later, he’s still talking about it, as is the rest of the film-loving world.
