Godfather

Literature/Movie Comparison: The Godfather The Book and the movie of The Godfather have their similarities and differences that I will be focusing on. The Godfather is the best selling phenomenon - a classic of our time. The Godfather story was written before the movie came out approximately 30 years ago. At first glance, the book and the movie appear the same. Upon further investigation, however, the two forms of media do possess certain differences. Although they are different in the areas of characters, setting, and dialog, they are similar in the areas of violence, Don Vito Corleone, and Michael Corleone. These differences in the movie and the book are very minute. The plot for both were intense to read and watch. Gangster action is my forte. There seems to be nothing better than acknowledging a character that plays a role that is highly respected and feared. The plot was very interesting and easy to follow. The literature to this book as opposed to The Rainmaker is that Mario Puzo is better at describing a setting vividly to get a good mental picture as to what is going on. The characters in both the movie and book are easy to relate to because of the Italian side of my family. Whenever we have family get togethers and our Mafia picnic, I see the same socializing/ conduct that happens in the story/film. There is one single person that is in my family that is assumed to be the Godfather. I guess I can say that is because my parents strongly urged that I foreclose myself from talking about it to the other people in the family. Acting in the movie including Marlon Brando (Don Vito Corleone), Al Pacino (Michael Corleone), Robert Duvall (Tom Hagen) and Diane Keaton (Kay Adams) all had contributed to a great life-like effort. With those mentioned and along with a handful of others was their acting debut. The only thing I feel was not well thought out about the movie is the characters picked out to play the parts. Some of them were not considered to look like they were Italian. Along with that the sons of the Godfather did not resemble each other, the father, nor the mother. The setting in both the movie and the book were accurate. A lot of the Italian families that just got off the boat resided in New York. The reason for that is because it was the direct route from here to Europe. The dialog throughout the film/book was not that of the native Italian language. The story was in a sense, wasAmericanized. The Italian names were there and the Italian culture was there, but the dialog was in English for the most part. The dialog in the story was done in a hierarchical structure; the most important of people were spoken to accordingly. The main focus in this paper is to discuss the differences between the novel and the film. I would like to reiterate that the characters, setting, and dialog are all topics of interests that are different. Opposite to that the violence, Don Vito Corleone, and Michael Corleone are similar in both mediums. With those six main differences/similarities I will provide four supporting occurrences for each topic. The characters in the book were more put into detail. The ones to be mentioned that were not in the movie may not reflect that they might have had a one second part that could easily be passed up. The characters that were not included on the movie but not in the book are Nazorine, Margot Ashton, Enzo, Katherine, Filomena, Anthony Cappola, and Billy Goff. Of course there are more to be added to the list, but I am simply making a statement. The idea of listing and describing all of them would be tedious. Nazorine is a baker that is described as a pudgy and crusty as his great Italian loaves, still dusty with flour that scowled at his wife. Katherine is Nazorine's daughter. Enzo was Nazorine's baker helper. Filomena is the one that Nazorine scowled at his wife. Margot Ashton, along with being Johnny Fontaine's wife, was described as a beautiful woman with an angelic face, soulful violet eyes, and delicately fragile but perfectly formed body. Anthony Coppola was a son of a man Don Corleone had worked with on the railroad yards in his youth. Billy Goff was the most powerful man in the movie labor unions. All in all the book is more likely to describe in detail about the characters. The scene where Genco Abbandando has cancer and is visited by Don, Johnny, Sunny, Tom, Michael, and as well as others in the hospital is also excluded in the movie. Three days later Genco Abbandando dies. The book started out with Amerigo Bonasera in New York Criminal Court Number 3 for a case involving his daughter. The case was based on vengeance on the men who had cruelly hurt his daughter. After thinking about why the book started out with the case and its significance, I didn't find any evidence in its connection with the book. The case was not included in the movie, which comes to my second difference between the literature and the film. Other setting that differs from the film is that the book lacked mentioning of Don Vito Corleone's wife. In general, I feel that women were not important to the characters and the outcome of the story. Still the theory of women not having rights holds to be true with Mario Puzo's work. Mary Kay was really the only female character in the novel that has much bearing as to what goes on. If I were the one to write the novel I would have stressed more women roles. Could there be any conflictions with the wives of the male characters as to how and why they killed other people? Those type of issues were not addressed in the book that could be very likely to happen in those type of situations. Paulie Gatto was on the Godfather's hit list now. Paulie Gatto was one of the Godfather's caporegimes (bodyguard) and was being replaced by Rocco Lampone. Rocco Lampone worked for the Godfather as an internship for a little while. The scene consisted of Clemenza, Rocco Lampone, and Paulie Gatto. The Godfather found out that Paulie Gatto was getting paid by Sollazo and didn't want an unfaithful man as his bodyguard. The difference lies in that Clemenza made a stop to eat at an Italian restaurant before killing Paulie. The book has its differences with the dialog from the movie. The first reference to that is when the book basically states that the laws don't work for justification purposes, but the Mafia does. The Mario Puzo uses a couple of words that are not used in the movie, for one being caporegime. As mentioned before, a caporegime is any of the bodyguards of Don Vito Corleone. My assumptions are that it is an Italian word. Another word used in the book, but not in the film is pezzonovante. Pezzonovante is a word that means gun. Just like caporegime,

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