BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty

Subject: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Feb 17 - 03:06 PM

well, this thread won't go far....

here's one thing that the two successful films have in common.

Both of them, in order to get the support and approval they needed from investors and so on, were put through a rigorous re-editing process by their PRODUCERS.

It is no secret about The Godfather; director Coppola was self-indulgent, but producer Robert Evans had a different idea. Evans personally went into the editing studio and was ruthless with Coppola's film. There were a number of consequences. Coppola was incensed with Evans for doing so and never forgot or forgave. Evans, neglecting wife Ali MacGraw for the film editing, lost MacGraw to Steve McQueen with whom she was filming at the time. And The Godfather was hugely successful.

Uberto Pasolini was the producer who came to the rescue of The Full Monty: this according to Robert Carlyle on the Graham Norton Show very recently. Elsewhere, being interviewed for a BAFTA Life In Pictures feature, Carlyle has lamented that it was "torturous" to make The Full Monty. For Carlyle, the attraction was Simon Beaufoy's script; but director Peter Cattaneo's leadership left much to be desired. According to Carlyle, when the first cut of the film was evaluated by Fox Searchlight, the verdict was: Straight to video!
Pasolini went to the mat for The Full Monty, pleading with the investors and company to let him re-edit the film, without Cattaneo.

Pasolini, with the editorial staff and without Cattaneo, made The Full Monty into the film that everybody knows today.
Consequences: Cattaneo got a lot of recognition, and went on to do...well...
Beaufoy went on to write the screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire.
Pasolini went on to film Still Life.
And The Full Monty was hugely successful.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Feb 17 - 07:20 PM

The following comes from an online transcript of scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy's BAFTA lecture in 2010. He is actually in interview-mode-conversation with Matthew Sweet.

[Quote] In "The Full Monty" we wrote what became a scene that everyone remembers and takes away from the film, and says, "Oh, I love that bit, where they do this."
I wrote it and crossed it out, wrote it and crossed it out. We tried not to film it. In the edit, everyone stood around and went, "I don't know, it's too much, it's a slight change in tone." But it became the scene that everyone remembers, and goes to show that filmmakers really don't know anything. Audiences will decide....

[Clip from "The Full Monty" in which the characters start dancing to "Hot Stuff" whilst in the job centre queue]

[Quote] "The Full Monty" was an example, and a really telling example for me very early in my career, that a film will tell you what it wants to be, whether you like it or not. I was setting out to write a political film with some jokes in. We were all trying to do that. Uberto [Pasolini] the producer, and Peter [Cattaneo] the director: that was our intention.

During the editing process it became a comedy with some politics. It jumped genres, which was a really extraordinary thing for me, watching that happen.
So rather than cut it as a film where you stay back in that slightly naturalistic way, and watch the scene develop, and if there's a joke happening over this side and you catch it, great, but if you don't it doesn't matter, because there'll be another one along shortly -- we cut in on the joke, we cut to a close up and then left a little gap for laughter.
And then in the next scene, which was pretty downbeat, we put some jaunty music under it to keep things rolling along. And suddenly it became a comedy, an out-and-out comedy, and none of us were really happy with that, in this very British, grumpy way. We were all going, "It's not as good as it was," because we wanted the film that nobody wanted to see that was all very serious and political, and the film just said, "That's not me, that doesn't work that way. What you've got is this, this is what works."

And this has happened on every film that I've worked on. You have to let the film tell you what it's going to be. You can fight it all the way....going, "you have to have this at the end." And it never works. [Endquote]

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Feb 17 - 07:01 PM

If it works, as I always mutter when coding these links,
this will go to a clip from the Graham Norton Show.

First Ewen Bremner on the original Trainspotting film,
then Robert Carlyle on The Full Monty with everybody laughing at him.

Graham Norton episode

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 May 18 - 12:40 PM

The film The Full Monty has been fruitful and multiplied, as it were.
Now there is a stage musical version,
and there are charity fundraisers with celebrities mimicking the concluding male-striptease dance.

And a Catholic pastor has now condemned the whole business.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Vashta Nerada
Date: 21 May 18 - 01:25 PM

I would have to explore the topic more via biographies, but I was impressed in the film Hitchcock how much his wife Alma Reville had to do with the critical editing of his films.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 May 18 - 01:32 PM

I wish people wouldn't dwell on the nudity of The Full Monty. It only happens at the end. It's actually a film about the despair and the resourcefulness of the redundant steel workers of Sheffield. It also portrays a lovely vignette of life in the area, with all its cultural nuances.
I must have watched it about ten times (we have the DVD) and all the actors cast in it fit their roles perfectly in my opinion. Robert Carlyle is an ace actor.

I found The Godfather very difficult to stomach (especially the horse's head scene) and understanding the Mafia culture (something I was ignorant about) took a lot of effort.

I suppose directors and producers of films are working in the dark to some extent. They may think they know their target audience, but one can never be sure until the film is released how it will be received.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 May 18 - 01:36 PM

Right Senoufou, and it is rear view only and just for an instant.
The film does have a serious message.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Donuel
Date: 21 May 18 - 01:57 PM

Senofou there is a charm in your old school naivete interwoven with a 1950's salt of the earth straight forwardness.

Easier to bear might be a film about anthropormorphic horses set against the back drop of the Godfather. A horse wakes up with the head of a Jockey...











;^/

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 May 18 - 02:03 PM

It's a wonderful mix of hilariously funny (the dancing in the Jobcentre queue, as keberoxu says) and the men trying on the red posing pouches etc.
But also some scenes I found tragic and which brought tears to my eyes. The chap not telling his wife he no longer had a job for six months, until the Bailiffs arrived; the lack of respect for Carlyle's character from his ex-wife, and the way his son is confused by the situation, but loyally encourages his dad. And the couple where the husband is impotent due to his shame at being out of work. I also found it terribly sad watching the 'audition' of the tough ex-steel worker trying to do striptease and failing miserably.
It was heartening to see all the Police officers at the back of the venue watching the performance at the end.
I like complex films like this - one's emotions are on a roller-coaster.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 May 18 - 02:06 PM

Hahahaha Donuel, you're a true Lateral Thinker!! 'A horse wakes up with the head of a jockey'... tee hee. :)

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 May 18 - 04:07 PM

I always loved the Godfather, I can't surrender myself to its charm quite so easily now I've listened to the commentary and know where all the edits are.

People like me should be protected from clever sods who want to explain all the artifice. I am far too stupid, and I want to believe in the magic in a young girl's heart that makes me feel groovy like an old time movie.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 May 18 - 05:49 PM

Another thing they've got in common is, I haven't seen either, and I doubt if I'll get round to it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Donuel
Date: 21 May 18 - 08:57 PM

Big Al I often wondered about an entire conversation in the form of popular lyrics. Well done.

Senofou Since I was seven I have called lateral thinking "The Donuel Method". You see I am a profound dyslexic in every classic sense of the term. I am prone to confound or annoy a few here with my amusement, abuse and misuse of language.
Subconscious language, hypnosis and cartooning are my second nature.

Lateral thinking, its what or all I have to work with.
Spell check does the rest.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 18 - 02:53 AM

I would say your brain and its output are most unusual and interesting Donuel. Most dyslexics are very intelligent. (retired teacher speaking!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Donuel
Date: 22 May 18 - 10:25 AM

Masters of lateral thinking are the writers of The Simpsons
Mel Brooks
and a few cosmologists. ;^]


Who are the English lateral master counterparts?

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Charmion
Date: 22 May 18 - 11:04 AM

Donuel, start with Monty Python, then move backward (in time) to Beyond the Fringe and The Goon Show. Lateral thinking combined with sparkling wit of the literary variety (think PG Wodehouse) and post-theatre of the absurd.

Senoufou, I agree with you completely on The Full Monty. Knowing what I do of north-English working-class culture, I found it very hard to laugh at scenes that were obviously played for laughs, and the character of Gerald, the ballroom-dancing ex-foreman, strikes me as the real hero of the story.

I read the Mario Puzo novel "The Godfather" long before I ever saw the film, so I never liked the film much; it left out everything in the novel that helped me understand what was going on -- to the extent that I did at that young age. Most of all, the ferocious sexism, sadism and sexual sadism that were overt and central elements of the novel were subordinated in the film to the power struggles between the criminal enterprises. The novel was (and is) a pulp pot-boiler of a type not much seen these days, probably because porn is so easy to find on the internet, but it conveyed an unambiguous message: people who grow up in a "might makes right" culture are easily corrupted because force -- physical, emotional, financial, doesn't matter what kind -- is their go-to way achieve any objective.

The whole point of the Mafia context of the story, I believe, is to show how effectively notions of "honour" can be used to camouflage "might makes right". That, and the opportunity provided by a cast of criminal characters to throw in every salacious fantasy Puzo could devise. Fortunately, the film industry of the 1970s did not tolerate much deviant sex in a mainstream theatrical movie; I hate to think what a screenwriter working today would make of the same material.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 18 - 11:50 AM

Wow Charmion, thank you for that - I've never read Puzo's novel and had no idea there was all that in it which the film didn't cover.
I'm rather ignorant of the history of the Mafia, either in Italy or USA. My husband is most knowledgeable politically, and he would know far more than I do. But I did imagine it sprang up out of deprivation and exploitation of the poor (rather like the rise of the Kray twins in East London. They certainly 'looked after their own' but one wouldn't dare cross them!)
But 'Might Makes Right' exactly sums up their ethos. It was just a reign of terrorism and corruption.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Charmion
Date: 22 May 18 - 02:53 PM

Senoufou, Puzo's original novel has so much plot that, to cover it all, Coppola and Co had to make two films: The Godfather and The Godfather II. (Don't bother with Godfather III; a sad echo of its predecessors, it's boring beyond belief and obviously made to capitalize on the several Oscars won by Godfather II.)

In retrospect, it's interesting that the films could leave out most of the novel's sex scenes without losing any useful plot elements. I guess Puzo could have been using bad sex -- then a very daring subject of popular fiction -- to show the squalor of his characters' lives and the venality that it implanted in them. The film-makers could show all that with scenery, set-dressing and nuances of interpersonal behaviour without bothering with detailed depictions of bedroom antics.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 May 18 - 03:15 PM

Donuel, I would nominate the Monty Python team as excellent Lateral Thinkers. Every scene in their productions is unexpected and bizarre, but with a strange logic (albeit skewed!)

I did see Godfathers I and II, but not III. I've a mind to get the book now and get the back story! But I don't much like sex scenes and so on. Bit squirmy...

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 May 18 - 03:17 PM

Charmion hit the nail on the head regarding the book.

That horse's head had an entirely different symbolism in the book.
The owner of the horse -- the poor fellow in the bed --
indulged a sexual preference that could have got him thrown in prison,
and while a thing or two was left to the imagination,
what was described in the book was bad enough.
Following which, a report was made to Don Vito himself
who shuddered and muttered "infamita" or some such,
and Puzo cheerfully commented:
"The Don was notoriously straitlaced about sexual matters."
Consequence: the beheading of a prize STALLION.
"Pulp" is a good word for it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Donuel
Date: 22 May 18 - 05:57 PM

Charmion I cut my teeth on Monty Python, The Goon Show and PG Wodehouse


As for the Godfather, I only play the 3 themes on the cello uke.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Donuel
Date: 23 May 18 - 08:27 PM

Oh my god this is funny

There are Trump comparisons to the Godfather with the Donald as a thug
now this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdAo-lnOLng

Remember when Kay admits to an abortion? Well Melania may have just had her own at Walter Reed

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 May 18 - 03:58 AM

Ah Donuel, my husband often says how similar Trump is to the Godfather!
(Or an African dictator) He does a very good impression of the Donald pursing his lips and saying "I DON'T CARE!!!", it makes me laugh.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 May 18 - 07:15 AM

I read the book first and thought it was a bit tripey.

The film though was really good. It was like a hymn to the Italian American experience. Beautifully composed dark pictures - almost like Pasolini's biblical stuff. Beautifully composed juxtapositions like children running in a carefee sinless manner,   while the evil Luca Brasi comes to pay his homage.

There was a lyricism - even to the violence.

I was dreading to see the film - people having their legs hacked off while they were still alive. A baby thrown alive into a furnace. Mercifully such heavy duty sadism was left out of the film.

I'm sure the mafia was quite as ghastly as Puzo's novel - probably much worse. But the film, to me, was creation of great beauty.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 May 18 - 07:20 AM

It sounds as though I'd find the book a bit distressing Big Al.
I agree the film was visually very beautiful. And I adore all Pasolini's films.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Donuel
Date: 25 May 18 - 02:37 PM

Al leave the gun, take the cannolies.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Jul 18 - 03:26 PM

And here is yet another charity fund-raiser based on The Full Monty;
this tribute business is taking on a life of its own.

Australia and The Real Full Monty

oops.
the link doesn't work

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: JennieG
Date: 28 Jul 18 - 08:47 PM

It's being advertised to be shown on TV tonight. As there is very little choice of Good Stuff to watch tonight (Sunday nights are a bit of a desert for TV in this house, having several channels doesn't necessarily guarantee good watching) we might make it our choice for the evening.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 01 Sep 18 - 02:06 PM

The Full Monty made its debut, decades ago, at about this time in the year.

Yankee that I am, what totally passed me by at the time
was the coincidence of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, with the arrival of The Full Monty at the cinemas.

Now I am reading comments that some UK'ers believe that the occurrence of one
drove people into the cinemas to forget their troubles. Or something.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Sep 18 - 10:17 PM

yes it passed me by too.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 01 Apr 19 - 07:58 PM

And now a word from both
the director
and
the "lunchbox."

"a row of bums"

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Apr 19 - 08:23 PM

There was a nice row of bums in the Commons public gallery today.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 07:41 PM

Lateral Thinking:
I highly endorse The Goons (Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and Peter Sellars)as giants on whom many (better known because more recent) groups were raised: The Fringe, Beyond The Fringe, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again. To which I'll add Flanders and Swann for high quality lateral songs and singing.
The Canadians had a great group in the 70s The Frantics.
The American lateralists par excellence: Firesign Theatre we could use 'em today for sure.

Fresh Air re-ran interviews with Francis Ford Coppela on the movie series "The Godfather". He had not been impressed by the more sexually vivid subplots of the book so he left 'em out. He'd grown up in an Italian neighborhood so he could give authenticity to the Italian vibe but I got the impression he was well aware that aside from his movie's theatrics, real-life mobsters are a bunch of low-life thugs who were more likely to imbibe the images of the movies for themselves than to contribute any 'class' of their own. Scorsese's "Good Fellas" (book by Pileggi) got a little closer to the real thing.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: olddude
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 08:32 PM

Godfather part 3 sucked. 1-2 were great

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 08:26 PM

"Godfather!"
"What is it my son?"
"I'm Guido, from Alphabet City, I come to ask of you a favor."
"But you already owe me a favor."
"How's that, Godfather, the godfather of the Johnson Family, he do thirty one favors!"
"Guido, those are flavors not favors."
"Ohhhhhh..... Then I owe him a fudge ripple!"

(heard on the wireless in an earlier millenium).

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 29 Jan 22 - 09:43 PM

Now, here's one I never thought I would hear about:
The FX cable network wants to put together
a "sequel" series that is like
The Full Monty Where Are They Now.
Not everybody in the ensemble of actors or filmmakers is returning to this project,
but there are already some press releases about the series being in the "talking" stage.

No more Peter Cattaneo, who directed the feature film;
Uberto Pasolini, the film producer, and Simon Beaufoy, the script author, however,
have been joined by actor Robert Carlyle;
and these latter three men want executive producer credits --
and Carlyle would have a starring role as well, in this version.

Also named in "talks" are
Mark Addy and Tom Wilkinson.

Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 Jan 22 - 09:23 PM

Here is a link to the report on which all these stories are based,
wish the reporter would define what he means by "sources" ...

New Series in Development