We Can't Refuse

Rating: 9/10 (22 April 2006)

When tackling something of the sheer breadth of Puzo's novel, the screenplay problem becomes not what should be included, but what should be left out.
Coppola and Puzo mostly get this right - staying away from minor story threads, and sticking with the broad cinematic sweeps of post-war New York and Sicily.
It's when the camera moves indoors that we get enveloped in Coppola's world -- this is where cinematographer Willis cut his teeth, and left a stamp on how movies use lighting ever after -- we can luxuriate in the shadows, congruent with the shady back-room world of mob dealings. The true importance of the movie lies in this, not within the vicissitudes of tit-for-tat murders.
Coppola could have played with the Fontaine thread, which is all about the control of Hollywood (and by extension, control of us) through movie vision, but this is almost completely ignored here.
One nice touch, straying from the novel; Moe Greene gets it in the eye -- layered symbolism -- of how one 'vision' of the Corleone future is snuffed out, in favor of the violent "New Cinema" paradigm.
Because Coppola's vision of the narrative was constrained by Puzo's platform, he couldn't quite reach the summit -- that would be achieved in "Part II".