Yes, I agree with you. I was wondering about the same some time ago after seeing "The Godfather", "The Leopard" being one of my favorites. There are similarities in the cinematography and in some of the situations but the whole point according to me is that the staple theme in Visconti's movies is family and the destruction of family (and, also, characters who end up being alone). Just every film by Visconti shows an aspect of it. That's what makes a seemingly odd movie for Visconti like "The Damned" not odd at all among his other titles (by the way... aren't some similarities, even shallow ones, between "The Damned" and "The Godfather" too?) Well, "The Godfather" and "The Godfather. Part II" are movies about family, its destruction, and being alone.
And, I think that working on a Sicilian theme couldn't make Coppola not to think to "The Leopard", in one way or another. While viewing "The Godfather" and thinking about the historical settings of the two movies, based on the same Sicilian background, I was intrigued by recalling Prince Salina when, speaking to Tancredi about the rebels, says "They're mafiosi!". How much time will pass before that the real men of power would be the mafiosi instead of the aristocrats? It could seem like that once that Prince Salina's era of the aristocracy has come to an end, the only way to be some sort of a prince again is to be a mafioso boss. Quite interesting and worrying, and probably in this sense the two movies are very close to each other, as if Prince Salina's wasn't wrong at all in predicting history.
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artihcus022
17 years ago
It's fairly obvious that Il Gattopardo influenced The Godfather films. If not necessarily in story then definitely in technique with the fixation of fading opulence and being unable to see exactly how one is being used in the new game.
You could say that the Godfather films are about the Tancredis of the New World. The realists who strove to make a life for themselves in the New World.
But then the two films are entirely different in the fact that the Salina family are aristrocracts who are about to be replaced by ''jackals'' while the Corleone family are working class immigrants trying to survive and help their fledgling Italian-American community in New York City. The pseudo-aristocractic trappings which Coppola placed on the first two films are more emblematic. Nothing of that sort happened in real life.
People dissapear ever day...sometimes when you leave the room - The Passenger
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conductor71-2
16 years ago
> Yes, I agree with you. I was wondering about the same some time ago after seeing "The Godfather", "The Leopard" being one of my favorites.
Maybe you guys would be interested to know that the two films were originally proposed to the same actor, and that actor somehow declined both (I think it was a health problem or something)--Laurence Olivier.
Which turned out to be great for both Mr. Lancaster and Mr. Brando for sure. Especially for Lancaster as this is definitely the best role he had ever played.
> How much time will pass before that the real men of power would be the mafiosi instead of the aristocrats?
Just a few decades, or less. The reunification was a huge failure for Sicily, and ended up demoralizing the whole society, as it ended up making the huge economic gap between the north and the south, the north exploiting the south--as Visconti was very very aware of and conscious in making this film, or La Terra trema and Rocco and his Brothers.
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