The Godfather Effect

January 9, 2012
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.

January 1, 2012
Amusing fusion of memoir and cultural critique, focusing on the family saga none of us could refuse. Broadway theater manager Santopietro (Sinatra in Hollywood, 2008, etc.) asserts that with the 1972 release of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, "notions of ethnicity in America had been upended in rather spectacular fashion" especially for young Italian-Americans who felt conflicted about many aspects of their heritage, including a stifling emphasis on family ties, love for America paired with distrust of authority and, of course, a convenient stereotype of pervasive criminal involvement. The author claims that it was his early viewings of the film and its sequels that revealed to him "just what had transpired in my grandfather's leap to L'America," allowing him to transition into a family history in which his grandparents settled in Waterbury, Conn., around 1917, where the effects of anti-immigrant prejudice were evident despite the Italian community's established local roots. Since his most of his mother's family were locally prominent WASPs, this resulted in an embarrassed confusion regarding his upbringing and inner identity. His narrative shifts between this personal history and an examination of the production and impact of the three Godfather films. He discusses many intriguing aspects of the original production, including studio resistance to Coppola and the actors Al Pacino and Marlon Brando (their indelible performances notwithstanding), and the long-rumored presence of actual mobsters on the set. He also explores other relevant cultural tangents, such as the many shoddy pastiches of mob culture (and some good ones, like The Sopranos) and the transformative impact of unapologetic paisano Frank Sinatra. The writing is slick, and most engaging when Santopietro looks back nostalgically at his personal history, but many of the observations drawn about the Godfather trilogy's effect on American society since then seem familiar. An entertaining but slight merger of social and personal history, via the lens of popular culture.

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January 1, 2012

Santopietro (Sinatra in Hollywood; The Importance of Being Barbra) presents a melange of personal family memoir, Mafia/Sicilian history, study of the assimilation of Italians in America, and analysis of The Godfather, both the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo and the iconic film trilogy. Raised in a religiously mixed upper-middle-class family in Connecticut, the author was largely uninterested in his family's Italian heritage until the success of Francis Coppola's cinema epic and its two sequels. Although Santopietro possibly elevates The Godfather phenomenon to too exalted a place in the fabric of American culture, he makes thought-provoking observations. Among them is the comparison of the Corleone clan's criminal activities to the excesses of capitalism and Nixon-era governance. Frank Sinatra, whom Santopietro admires as an example of a premier Italian American success story, rates a chapter of his own. VERDICT Although this book is hard to place within any one particular genre, Santopietro's lively writing and occasional insights make it a worthwhile read for general audiences and film buffs.--Roy Liebman, Los Angeles P.L.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.