What is it about the Coppola family that makes the substance of Francis Ford Coppola’s films so often driven by what happens behind a family’s closed doors?

It’s never exactly a positive situation, either: his Godfather trilogy is about the implosion of a family, the fall of a son and an effort to sustain a lineage. The final famous frame of The Godfather is of a door closing Michael Corleone from view of his loving wife, sealing his own doom.

Then there’s the behind the scenes element of his films — the casting of family members such as Talia Shire and Sofia Coppola in her much derided performance in The Godfather Part III (which, if I may go on record, isn’t half as bad as it’s usually said to be). Then there’s Carmine Coppola, Francis’ father, who composed much of the scores for the Godfather films as well as for Apocalypse Now.

And of course, Sofia went on to make Lost in Translation.

And then there’s the whole wine label thing.

So what’s there to complain about? The New York-raised director belongs to an Italian-American family of great recipes, great talent, and great entrepreneurship. For all the affection Francis Ford Coppola has for his family, has he ever made a film that paints family in a favorable light?

Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, maybe. But those aren’t really families in the sense of the word that I mean.

Tetro, Coppola’s latest film starring Vincent Gallo and the incredibly talented newcomer Alden Ehrenreich, is the most domestic film the director has ever made. Ehrenreich, as Bennie, seeks to uncover the mystery behind his older brother Tetro (Gallo) and his mysterious writings. There’s complicated themes of incestual undertones, and as I mentioned in my review of the film, an amazingly simple Oedipal story that brings the focus full swing to the performances, which are great across the board.

The film was written by Coppola himself, and it shows: a lead character whose a writer struggling under the shadow of his composer father? It’s broad symbolism, if you have a fairly strong knowledge of Coppola, but it serves Tetro well. The film is more relaxed and comfortable than the director has shown himself capable of in years.

Of course drama is rooted in conflict — it’s not a mystery why there’s a wall of misunderstanding and mystery between the two brothers in this film. No wall existed between the Corleone family — that’s why so many of them ended up dead.

It’s simply curious to me that a man’s affections for his family — when in the hands of a writer and director — has seemingly no outlet but to paint it in a favorable and nearly always sappy light (Elizabethtown comes to mind), or to damage it by embedding it within destruction. Coppola takes the latter route — he shows his adoration and admiration by showing off family recipes and pitting siblings against one another.

Perhaps to F.F.C., ruination of the family structure is the sincerest form of flattery.

Atomic Popcorn sure has a dandy for all of you local folks with us in the Maryland/DC area. The famed Senator theater on York Rd is showing two of the greatest films of all time: “The Godfather” and “The Godfather, Part II”.

Below is the press release:

New 35mm restorations of THE GODFATHER and THE GODFATHER, PART II, Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpieces, will run at the Senator Theatre, in an exclusive Baltimore one-week engagement, from Friday, October 10^th through Thursday, October 16^th

More than three decades after they both won the Academy®Award for Best Picture, Coppola’s iconic classics have been meticulously restored by Paramount Pictures, overseen by Coppola himself. Both movies underwent extensive frame-by-frame examination and restoration using state-of-the-art digital technology. Robert A. Harris of the Film Preserve supervised the restorations under the direction of Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis.

Ranked at the very top of both critics’ and audiences’ “Best Of” lists, and the recipients of a total of nine Academy Awards, The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II will be shown exclusively in Baltimore at the Senator Theatre for a single week, with back-to-back screenings. Paramount Pictures will be presenting both films theatrically in a limited number of cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, in conjunction with the release of the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Godfather, The Coppola Restoration collection on September 23.

“Possibly the greatest movie ever made.”

– Stanley Kubrick on THE GODFATHER

“The daring of Part II is that it enlarges the scope and deepens the meaning of the first film. Visually, Part II is far more complexly beautiful than the first, just as it’s thematically richer, more shadowed, fuller… An epic vision of the corruption of America.”

– Pauline Kael on THE GODFATHER, PART II

HOW TO ENTER:

All you have to do to enter is sign up for the Free Atomic Popcorn Newsletter. If you’re a current subscriber and are receiving daily news updates you’re already entered!  If not yet a member of our mailing list, just enter your email address below, its that simple!

We will have two sets of tickets to give away for you and a loved one. This should be a real dandy.

The contest ends on October 10th. Everyone who is a newsletter subscriber at that time will have a chance to win via random drawing.

Good luck and enjoy the show!