The Godfather: (Nino Rota) It has been successfully
argued many times that no film has had as much impact on cinema as
Francis Ford Coppola's original
The Godfather. The 1972
powerhouse not only defined the entire subsequent genre of mob-related
films, but it remains a brutally memorable exhibit of dramatic
storytelling at its most compelling. The adaptation of Mario Puzo's
best-selling and controversial novel, accomplished by Coppola and the
author himself, was so encapsulating that it warranted every minute of
its nearly three-hour running time, leaving enough room for the longer
plot of the second film in this franchise to expand even further upon
the same characters. Whereas most films utilize, intentionally or not,
stereotypes in the definition of their characters, Puzo and Coppola
invented an entire realm of new stereotypes in
The Godfather. The
story of the now famous trilogy of films follows the progression of the
original New York mafia families in their efforts to survive and adapt
in the times from the 1900's to the 1990's, the first two films tackling
the initial threat posed by the introduction of the drug trade into the
traditional operations of these bases of power. The trilogy ultimately
defines itself as the story of Michael Corleone, desperate to retain the
Sicilian traditions of his father while moving the family forward into
these new, more global avenues of wealth. His ultimate failure,
foreshadowed in his ascension during
The Godfather and
progressively more shocking in the endings of the two sequels, guides
the music of these films to a similarly depressing end. Like the films,
the work of Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola for the soundtracks of these
productions is engrained in the memory of the mainstream, defining the
sound of mafia music much like the characters influenced later
incarnations of essentially the same idea. Coppola first fought hard to
secure the services of Rota, who admittedly had little interest in
scoring the project, and then spent much of the movie's post-production
period trying to save the score from being rejected by the lead
producer.
It's challenging to imagine how hard the studio fought
Coppola on the music for this film up front, insisting upon hiring Henry
Mancini instead of Rota. But the director demanded authenticity, and his
persistence paid off. If you boil down the plot elements of
The
Godfather to their most basic ingredients, they would be tradition,
love, and fear. Rota's score for the film perfectly embodies these three
aspects of the story, with ten or so existing pieces licensed for source
usage as well. Carmine Coppola, the director's father, wrote fourteen
minutes of original source material for
The Godfather, increasing
his efforts in this regard as the trilogy progressed. Rota's themes for
the first film, however, are the lasting sounds of the franchise, played
longingly on street corners around Europe for decades to follow. The
composer had been best known as a child prodigy who balanced his efforts
between the opera house, concert halls, and recording studios for film,
maintaining one of the most fruitful director/composer collaborations
(with Federico Fellini) all the way to his death in 1979. He had already
tasted success in Hollywood in the years prior to
The Godfather,
with
Romeo and Juliet and
War and Peace serving as popular
contrasts in conveying his talents to American audiences. The role of
original score in
The Godfather was held to a minimum by the
director and producer, with a surprising amount of material dropped from
the final mix. This factor limited the amount of development that Rota
could explore with his themes. The constructs of these ideas,
ironically, weren't original in the first place. The composer leaned
heavily on his themes from the films
Fortunella,
The
Clowns, and
Daniele Cortis, along with his oratorio
"Mysterium," to produce the familiar identities of
The Godfather,
and it was because of this extensive adaptation of existing material
that Rota lost an Academy Award nomination that year after AMPAS had
already mistakenly awarded him with one. (He won the award with Carmine
Coppola for
The Godfather Part II, and the latter composer would
be nominated for his song in
The Godfather Part III).
The style of Rota's work was important in merging the
sonic sensibilities of Sicily and America, incorporating the flair of
solo instrumentation native to the former region with the larger,
symphonic tone of the latter. The scenes directly connecting the plot to
Sicily are served with a mandolin, accordion, and acoustic bass,
sometimes aided by sentimental strings. Solo trumpet performances are
the bridge between the folk elements of the past and the orchestral
(and, on the album recording, choral) development that dominates the
score by its conclusion. There are fewer fully symphonic expressions of
grandeur in
The Godfather than
The Godfather Part II, the
latter addressing the romanticism of Vito Corleone's immigration and
ascension with a more verbose orchestral heart. Rota uses the entirety
of
The Godfather to slowly add layers to his themes until the
final cue. Reflecting the fearful discovery by Michael Corleone's wife,
Kay, of her husband's own ascension, Rota reprises all three of the
score's major themes with fully realized, almost religious gravity.
Those three major themes, as previously mentioned, directly address the
plot's three main emotional appeals. The first is tradition, and it is
this representation of Vito Corleone that hovers over the entire
franchise as its most enduring memory for viewers. Introduced by a
solitary trumpet, the waltz represents the bulk of the work for the
accordion and mandolin. The Sicilian sensibilities in both the primary
waltz phrase and the secondary trumpet phrase (translated to
melodramatic violins in the final scenes) are undeniable, saturating the
soundscape of the film with convincing authenticity in each of their
performances. Both parts of this theme receive extended treatment in the
various "The Godfather Waltz" tracks on album, as well as "The Godfather
Finale." The secondary trumpet phrase also echoes in "The Halls of
Fear." There is a sense of closed formality expressed by the very light
but unyielding waltz rhythms conveyed in this theme, though Rota does
accelerate it to menacing tones of dissonance in "The Horse's Head," a
cue ultimately overlaid somewhat awkwardly with the primary trumpet
phrasing late in production. The waltz has since, somewhat humorously,
been adopted by real Italian mafias for their public celebrations.
Equally beloved and arguably more appealing is the theme
of romance for
The Godfather that dies rather quickly for obvious
reasons in the franchise, only heard in short snippets in the sequels
but a chart-topper upon its debut in the original film. Equally
representing Michael Corleone's romances and his family as a whole in a
tragic sense, this theme is heard on the traditional instrumentation in
"Sicilian Pastorale," including acoustic guitar, and "Apollonia" before
a dramatic ensemble expression in "The Godfather Finale." The mostly
symphonic concert arrangement of this theme, heard in "Love Theme from
The Godfather," solicits a bittersweet, melancholy reaction that has
been longingly played by and for swooning, real-life lovers in countless
venues since. Even in this theme, Rota doesn't entirely abandon the
Sicilian style, reinforcing the primary theme of tradition with its
necessary romantic half. Casual listeners might forget that the love
theme was very sparingly utilized in the film and was added as something
of an afterthought by Rota and Coppola late in the process. Arguably the
most intriguing of the three themes in
The Godfather is the one
that has the greatest impact on the entire trilogy. Developing out of
the secondary trumpet phrase of the primary waltz and representing the
concept of trepidation, this idea is hinted in "Bad News" and "Bad Luck"
before being affirmed as a theme for Michael Corleone in ""The Halls of
Fear," "Marry Me, Kay," and, with more resolve, in "The New Godfather"
and "The Godfather Finale." Ultimately, "Michael's Theme," as it has
been later termed, becomes the underlying identity of the franchise, a
fitting development given the despair written directly into its weighty
progressions. Rota brilliantly summarizes all three ideas in "The
Godfather Finale" (otherwise titled "End Credits"), handing them off to
sections of the ensemble not native to their previous renditions and
applying the chorus for obvious impact value on the album version. The
most important thing to remember about Rota's work for
The
Godfather is that the short running time of the score causes it to
be highly redundant and lacking in development outside of the three
themes. Interesting offshoots, such as Rota's theme for Hollywood that
was meant to carry over to "The Pickup" and "Las Vegas," were largely
dropped from the film, including his organ music for "The Baptism;" all
of these were replaced by silence or source material on screen.
A very unsatisfactory album history for all of the
scores in this franchise historically caused these problems of
developmental stagnation to be compounded outside of context. The
original LP arrangement of cues from the score for
The Godfather
translated directly onto a 1991 MCA Records CD, and no expansion or
remastering of the music was afforded to collectors until 2022. This
situation caused Rota's work on album up to that point to be, with the
exception of only two cues, completely devoted to variations on the
three themes, omitting several important suspense cues. The two unique
entries are the aforementioned rejected cues: "The Pickup," the score's
most awkward merging of tense orchestral progressions and light
era-specific jazz on saxophone and other band elements (foreshadowing
the fear motif in Kay's later material) and "The Baptism," the solemn
organ piece employed as source music. The Carmine Coppola music for
"Connie's Wedding" and the song "I Have But One Heart" round out the
product, but even that representation is minimal compared to the half a
dozen songs coined by Coppola to be controversially performed live
during the filming. While casual concept enthusiasts will recall that
countless artists recorded vocalized versions of the popular "Love Theme
from The Godfather," none of those (aside from the official,
choral-aided suite arrangement) were actually related to the original
soundtrack and have never therefore appeared on its albums. In fact,
listeners seeking this compelling melody would be best served obtaining
compilations of such adaptations, because the original recording only
fleetingly supplies the idea. The sound quality on this product is
somewhat muted, though it wasn't readily possible to clean up the
archival sound of this recording with any significance. The tone of that
recording is always intimate and depressingly lonely, yielding a proper
emotional response to the engaging plotline, though a slightly enhanced
touch of reverb to the occasional trumpet solos is a nice addition for
the slight fantasy element of the whole concept. Devotees of the
franchise long expressed their displeasure with the treatment of Rota's
work for
The Godfather on album, demanding the full slate of
rejected and suspenseful Rota music alongside Coppola's original source
material and a handful of the licensed traditional pieces. In lieu of
that, the extensive quantity of compilations of related performance
dating back to the 1970's on LP records remained adequate addendums to
the score.
Finally, for the film's 50th anniversary in 2022, the
La-La Land Records label provided a 2-CD presentation remixed and
mastered with a much fuller selection of cues as Rota had written them
for
The Godfather. The resulting film presentation still only
runs 53 minutes, even with the rejected material included. The label
opted to separate Rota's score from the Coppola and other source pieces,
providing a first disc with only the film versions and thirteen minutes
of alternates. Of interest are the various assemblies that went into
"The Horse's Head," as producer demands actually led to two cues being
laid on top of each other for the scene; all three variations, including
the combined layering, are provided, though Rota's original version is
supplied in the primary position chronologically. The bulk of the
score's stewing suspense material, as heard in "Sollozzo the Turk/Luca
Brasi," "Bad Luck/Sicilian Message/Meditation," "Michael's Decision/The
Waiting Game," and "Set the Meeting/Michael Takes Over," reinforce
Michael's theme against rhythmically descending phrasing that Rota uses
throughout the score to denote fear. The whimsical romanticism of this
theme in "Marry Me, Kay" is a heartbreaking preview of Rota's handling
of the character in the sequel. Listeners should expect the cues to
remain relatively short, reflecting the scattered nature of music's
spotting in the film. Also of note is that the score proper contains no
choral layer. In the alternate takes, the "End Credits" version that
closes the first disc emphasizes the love theme to a greater degree. The
second disc in the 2022 set offers the original album arrangement and a
variety of Coppola's source pieces. The set is an impressive survey of
the film's music, a long overdue presentation of the score as both it
was meant to be used and supplying the pieces necessary for enthusiasts
to assemble a strict, chronological soundtrack of both score and source
music. Ultimately, the success of Rota's music for
The Godfather
exists in his three extremely compelling, smartly employed themes, as
well as the ability of the music to age well and avoid drowning the
traditional elements with either the sounds of the 1940's or 1970's. On
the other hand, the lack of strong secondary material is a detriment
that causes this score to be extremely two-dimensional. Thus, if you
have never had an affinity for Rota's much performed themes, then be
aware that there isn't much else to appreciate from this overall
package. The 1974 sequel score largely solves this problem, adding
themes for Vito and Kay that, when considered on top of the existing
material, produce a far more memorable listening experience. Expect to
enjoy the familiar themes, but always remember this score's
limitations.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The insert of the 1991 MCA album includes no extra information
about the score or film. It doesn't even include the same amount of
credits information as the much older LP record album. That of the 2022
La-La Land album contains extensive notation about both the film and
score.
