American Cinematographer - October 2014 - 45

standing the way you have to separate
things with light and dark and contrast
and silhouette. Certainly The Godfather
is a dark movie, but it makes you feel
like you're in the period, in the environment of these characters, in a way that
any other visual style would not do.

The Godfather photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Albert S. Ruddy (producer on
The Godfather): After the first three or
four days [of production on The
Godfather], almost everyone got fired.
[Former Paramount head of production] Bob Evans called and said, 'Is this
movie going to have f---in' subtitles?!
No one can see what the hell the people
look like and we can't hear a goddamn
thing!' They couldn't understand
[Marlon] Brando with the cotton in his
mouth. The cat was purring too loud.
The film was so dark that no one could
see. Evans said, 'Turn up the goddamn
lights! Nobody can see! Don't you guys
have money for the light?'
Gray Frederickson (associate
producer on The Godfather and coproducer on Part II and Part III): The
studio didn't like how it looked. This
gritty, golden, dark look that Gordon
came up with just threw them into a
tizzy. It wasn't just about [not seeing]
faces. We had put almost half a million
dollars into building the Godfather's
study, and [production designer] Dean
Tavoularis had spent $10,000 on the
desk alone. The first day of dailies they
called up screaming that they couldn't
see the set and they couldn't see that
$10,000 desk! Every day they were
complaining about how dark everything
was. But [director Francis Ford
Coppola] never complained about that.
He liked the way Gordon was lighting
it. He always thought it looked great.
The studio just thought it was too dark.
'We can't see! We can't see!'
James Caan (actor on The
Godfather, The Godfather Part II,
Comes a Horseman): I used to pass out
this 'Gordy Willis Lighting Kit.' It was
a cigar box, a piece of tin foil and a 25watt yellow bulb. He got a kick out of it.

Sonny Corleone (James Caan) fields a phone call while his wife, Sandra (Julie Gregg), listens
from the kitchen in The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

I was the clown of the set so I busted
everybody's chops. He'd laugh. I have
no bad memories. We heard a big battle
with him and Francis about I don't
know what. But it was a big one.
Eventually, everything was fine. I know
Francis really respected him.
Peter Bart (vice president of
Paramount Pictures during production of The Godfather): Gordon was a
brilliant talent, but he wasn't somebody
who would come over and share what
he was working toward. That just wasn't
his nature. I think a lot of the early
problems on The Godfather stemmed
from the fact that neither Francis nor
Gordon prepared the studio for what
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was really a very interesting, if not extraordinary, looking movie. Neither took
the time to explain to either me or Bob
Evans what they felt the look of the
picture would be. Therefore, nobody at
the studio was prepared for what they
saw, and that's why the whole issue arose
about it being so dark.
I never got to know Gordy
personally, but he was definitely an
innovator, a pioneer of a whole new
approach. He was lucky to come into
his own at a time when the whole idea
of what a studio movie was had
changed. Because of The Godfather, I
think he became an emblem for the
Seventies kind of filmmaking.

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October 2014

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American Cinematographer - October 2014

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