The Godfather Effect: Changing Hollywood, America, and Me

Through the lens of the influential Godfather trilogy, Santopietro (Sinatra in Hollywood) examines the impact of the films on American culture and on his own life in this hit-and-miss exploration of what it means to be Italian. While personal reflections often make film studies more nuanced, Santopietro shifts awkwardly between the history of the first Godfather film—from Coppola’s battles with Paramount to his wooing of the notoriously difficult Marlon Brando—and his own family’s immigrant saga, beginning with his grandparents. The connection Santopietro feels to the films is poignantly depicted, as are the correlations he draws visually between Corleone family events and those from his childhood, particularly Sunday dinners with the extended family, and young Don Vito’s visions of Little Italy in the early 20th century and the grocery store owned by Santopietro’s grandparents. The larger cultural ideas he tries to weave together—the nature of “Italian-ness” and the impact of the trilogy on the gangster film (and later television) genre—aren’t always cohesive, owing in large part to a lack of an overarching organizational structure. The history of the films’ production can’t help being fascinating, as contentious stories from Hollywood always are, from casting battles (Brando was at the bottom of the studio’s list) to the reasons for Godfather III’s critical panning. But readers looking for an integration of the personal and the cinematic as seamless as Coppola’s undeniable masterpiece may be disappointed. (Mar.)