FilmSeries· 1972· Crime

The Godfather

by Francis Ford Coppola

The Godfather: 2 recorded works trace back to it, and it draws on 1 recorded source.

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What The Godfather influenced

Works that record this one as a source, with the evidence a contributor gave.

Goodfellas

Film · 1990

Reaction againstHIGH

Scorsese made the un-operatic version on purpose, and has said so for thirty years: he wanted the day job rather than the dynasty. Point for point against Coppola:

  • No family as a tragic institution. Henry Hill's crew is a workplace, and the film is about what it pays and what it costs
  • No shadowed formal compositions; a restless camera, freeze frames, pop records over the violence
  • Murder is neither ceremonial nor a decision. It is sudden, stupid and badly cleaned up
  • The last act is not a coronation but witness protection and a suburban house

Filed as a reaction against rather than an influence because the debt is real and negative: Goodfellas is legible as an argument only because The Godfather is what everyone had in mind.

Green Bone Saga

Book · 2019

InfluenceHIGH

Author Fonda Lee has stated in interviews that she explicitly set out to write an epic fantasy mashup of kung fu movies and The Godfather. Instead of traditional medieval European castles and kings, she wanted to explore an urban, modernizing secondary world where the primary power structures were crime syndicates operating like mafia families

What influenced The Godfather

The works this one is recorded as drawing on.

The Godfather

Book · 1969

AdaptationMEDIUM

The 1972 movie The Godfather is a direct adaptation of Mario Puzo's 1969 bestselling novel, but it only covers part of the book and leaves out several subplots. Puzo co-wrote the screenplay with director Francis Ford Coppola, keeping the core narrative, dialogue, and characters very close to the printed page.

About the work

The Godfather

This is a series.

Don Corleone, the ageing patriarch of an organised crime dynasty, transfers control of his formidable empire to his reluctant son.

Everything in The Godfather