MovieChat Forums > Il gattopardo (1963) Discussion > FF Coppola must have liked Il Gattopardo...

FF Coppola must have liked Il Gattopardo lots

posted 15 years ago by freetobreathe
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given that he "borrowed" several scenes from Godfather II. In one scene the Prince is escorting the govt agent who is trying to maneuver the Prince to join the newly formed central govt. and the creation of a new senate and they pass in front of the church in the town square - well that scene is copied 100 percent. In Godfather II it is where little Vito is being smuggled out of Sicily in a basket on a donkey. They pass in front of the church in the square..exactly the same church, the square, the side street too.

[–] gnolti 15 years ago

I've already posted a thread on this topic, mainly suggesting Gatto as a model for G-I ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057091/board/thread/47408097 ). But I had not noticed the town square scene, or that it is the same square used in G-II. I will have to look for that next time.

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[–] artihcus022 15 years ago

Coppola said that to him, The Godfather - I & II were concieved in the grand operatic tradition of 19th Century and the tradition he imbibed through his father, Carmine Coppola. Coppola unlike Martin Scorsese, came from a middle-class artistic family and so the mob world was totally alien to him. So obviously Visconti would be a reference in this kind of national-epic story about Italian-American immigration which is what the film is about. It's the story of the rise of an American immigrant family. The Godfather movies also draws from the other two Sicilian based films of Visconti - La Terra Trema and Rocco and His Brothers which precede Il Gattopardo.

The Godfather Part II is influenced by numerous Italian films, Salvatore Giuliano by Francesco Rosi, Bertolucci's Il Conformista, the casting of Gaston Moschin in his film. Of course it's also as American as Elia Kazan. Then of course the fact both movies share the same composer, Nino Rota.

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[–] onepotato2 15 years ago

In '58 Bonjour Trissesse) had a sequence involving a very long chain of dancers prancing in unison.
Ditto for The Leopard ('63)
Ditto for The Conformist ('70)

[–] oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx 14 years ago

the long chain of dancers is a traditional thing. you could find it in a 100 movies.

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[–] Strausszek 14 years ago

Not just Coppola but several other Italian and Italo-American directors: Cimino, Scorsese, Bertolucci. They all used The Leopard as a model for structuring long scenes of gatherings and parties where a host of small encounters float into each other against the backdrop of the festive occasion, each little sub-scene suggesting choices, negotiations, affections, misunderstandings - without spelling it out in big type.

The wedding reception in The Deer Hunter is plainly modelled on the ball here, and so is the early part of Bergman's Fanny and Alexander I think - it has the same manner of showing a lot of small, intimate scenes and an evocation of an entire era against a bustling, luxurious, crowded party night. Probably Dark Eyes too, one more Italian film, though it's a long time since I saw it.

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