The Godfather Notebook

very expensive, but worth for a filmmaker.

I'm assuming that those reading this review have seen the movie and read the novel. For those who haven't, some spoilers follow. From reading the reviews, it appears to me that some people have the wrong idea about what this book is. This is not the Godfather novel, although it contains many pages from that book. Nor is it the movie's script -- if you want that, I recommend Jenny Jones's "The Annotated Godfather," which is the script plus an enormous wealth of behind-the-scenes material. Rather, this is Francis Ford Coppola's extensive notes he made when preparing to film the movie. Prior to the start of filming he prepared this massive notebook, his "bible," in which he analyzed every scene along several key points -- the core of what the scene should communicate, pitfalls to avoid, how to use the 1940s period setting, etc. Along the way, he also took each page of the novel (apart from the sections he had decided to not use in the movie, e.g., the subplot with Lucy Mancini and Jules Segal) and pasted it in the center of a larger piece of paper. This allowed him to make his own notes and observations in the margins for each page. According to Jenny Jones in The Annotated Godfather, Coppola kept this with him while directing the movie and relied upon it more than the actual script. This is that notebook, faithfully reproduced. All 700 plus pages of it. There's some fascinating information in it. To pick a few random examples, in the scene at Carlo's bookmaking operation where he's beaten up by the furious Sonny, Coppola originally intended to show the business in action, demonstrating in some detail how a "book" is actually run -- an idea he apparently abandoned. For the scene when Kay and Michael first find out that Vito has been shot, Coppola was worried about how Kay could see the newspaper in a way that wouldn't seem contrived. When Michael arrived at the hospital, found his father unguarded, and was initially refused when he asked the nurse to move him to another room, Coppola was worried the nurse's refusal to do something necessary to safeguard Vito's life because it violated hospital rules might come off as similar to the Coke machine scene in Dr. Strangelove. In the novel, when Michael decides he must be the one to kill Sollozzo and McCluskey, he gives a long explanation that "it's not personal, it's business" is flat wrong, that the Don takes everything that happens to him or his friends personally -- a small speech that Puzo loved and campaigned to get into the script but which Coppola felt was far too wordy. Now, don't think you're going to get an in-depth look at every aspect of Francis Ford Coppola's thinking. These are notes he prepared for his own benefit, not for ours, and so to us they can sometimes be cryptic. For example, at one place he wrote "HITCHCOCK" in reference to a paragraph from Puzo's book but didn't elaborate. Well, he didn't need to, he knew what he meant by that. But things like that leave us scratching our heads. (So does Coppola's penmanship at times, but I've found very few things that I couldn't decipher with a little effort.) I only have one complaint about The Godfather Notebook, and this is my sole reason for giving it four stars instead of five. Many of the typewritten pages are faded to the point where they're quite difficult to read. According to this Amazon page, this book was originally published in 2016, and I suppose a fair amount of ink had worn off those forty-five year old pages in the original notebook and the images of those pages reflect that. But in this modern era, with 21st century image processing, I would think that steps could have been taken to compensate for that fading. (I have the Kindle edition, and I cannot say whether this same problem is present in the printed editions.) P.S. I initially wrote this review before I had finished the book. I have finished it now, and am adding this because the problem with faded pages was worse than I thought. Some of the typewritten pages are so faded as to be completely illegible. What makes this particularly irritating is how easily this could be fixed. I used the Kindle for PC program to read this, and when I came to one of these pages, in frustration I took a screencap, imported the image of the Kindle page into Photoshop, then tried "auto smart fix." I didn't expect that to do much, I thought I would have to go further and manually manipulate the image myself, but that did the trick. The result wasn't great but it was readable, enough so that I didn't need to go further. There were several more illegible pages, and each time I tried this and got the same result. I considered lowering my rating to three stars, but because of the value of the content in The Godfather Notebook I am -- somewhat reluctantly -- leaving the rating at four stars. But since the faded typewritten pages are that easily improved, and because some pages in the Kindle edition's present form are actually illegible rather than merely difficult to read, it's quite inexcusable that Amazon has not done something to address this problem.

You'll rarely get this detailed a look into anyone's creative process. The fact it's for a great movie by a great director makes you feel privileged for being able to see it. Every page of the notebook contains detailed notes on the book showing how Coppola planned to adapt them to the film, giving insight into the mechanics of how the film worked as well as being able to see the details of how Coppola approached it. Splurge for the hardcover version - the presentation is stunning.

I was a little unsure what I was getting when I pre-ordered this -- was it the complete novel with handwritten notes along the way in a 784 page softcover? Softcover?? Well, Coppola's "Bible" (as it was referred to in 2009's Annotated Godfather) was FFC's dissection of the novel, breaking down the scenes and noting filming ideas. That alone, with also the many, many full page photos (B&W and color) and an intro by Coppola, make this a must-have for all Godfather scholars and film buffs. My only disappointment is that it's bound in a flimsy pseudo hardcover that's easily bendable. For the price, this really should've been a true hardcover. My first copy had bent corners and a torn spine, but its replacement was acceptable. Five stars for the content, -1 for the binding.

a must for fans of the book and the film. great service, speedy delivery from the good folks @ Goodwill-thanx!

The book itself is incredible and an absolute work of art. I bought it as a Christmas gift for my boyfriend - a huge Coppola fan - and can't wait to give it to him. My 4-star review (instead of the 5 I want to give it) is due to the seller. While the book came fast, the front cover is scuffed with marks I can't get off including on the gold lettering. Since it's a gift it's a bit of a disappointment.