TONni after the death of his son Sonny, Vito Corleone would have said that the bully and impulsive boy had neither the intelligence nor the patience to become a Don. He could never lead the family. Then a task, in his own way, very well carried out by his younger brother, Michael. A part of the melancholy for not being raised in the graces of his father has passed into the voice and wrinkles of James Caan, what about it The Godfather it was Santino, called “Sonny”.
Francis Ford Coppola and James Caan on the occasion of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Godfather. (Photo by Frazer Harrison / Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
“I am a terribly resentful man” he confesses today, at the age of 81, no reference to Oedipus, but recalling that Oscar missed, in 1972, for the “palace games and ridiculous rules of the Academy”. For The Godfathera great film that has just turned half a century and that, rejuvenated by the restoration carried out by Paramount and by the production company of Francis Ford Coppola, American Zoetrope, is back in cinemas all over the world, the producers bet everything on Marlon Brando, who in the film was Vito, the patriarch, and was to be the only protagonist. With the result that “I found myself running in the supporting category alongside Bobby Duvall and Al Pacino“. It was inevitable that the votes would disperse. “To the non-protagonist?” Nonsense“.
The absence of Pacino
In fact, Pacino did not show up at the ceremonyin controversy with the decision: his presence on the screen was far superior to that of Brando. But Brando was Brando, and that Oscar, as it was written, won it: “There has never been one like him again, more actor than any other actor that has ever existed, I loved him very much,” recalls Caan. Eventually the Best Supporting Award went to Joel Gray for Cabaret. «They rewarded her because she was tap dancing! The Academy? A sleeve of str… ».
James Caan with Marlon Brando in the Godfather.
“Great” is an adjective that often occurs during the interview with James Caan. Great was that film, based on an extraordinarily successful novel and co-written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola. The book, and then the film, for the first time showed, in addition to violence, the more sordid aspects and immorality of the mafia, also the values that paradoxically those hardened criminals shared: family, friendship, loyalty and, of course, the famous honor code. But great was also the success that everyone who was part of that adventure shared. Leaving a mark.
Understanding “families”
Producer Albert S. Ruddy received death threats on the eve of the first take. AND diplomatic work with Little Italy’s “families” was no small feat. The result was a sort of “collaboration”, a consultancy we would say today: «The point is that Francis was not a Mediterranean Italian, he was an Italian from Brooklyn» explains Caan. «He knew nothing of that criminal world, his family knew everything about music, his family were close to Toscanini. He wasn’t an expert on murder, land division, settling of scores. To understand families, he had to know them ». And they showed up. Just the year before filming began Joe Colombo, head of one of the five clans that controlled organized crime in New York, had created the Anti-Defamation League of Italian Americans. And the interpretation that James Caan had given of that angry and violent firstborn, but at the same time caring and generous, unrepentant womanizer but ready to risk his life to defend his sister, not only met the criteria established by the League (“I was the Captain of the League twice and I wasn’t even Italian. Do you believe it? Twice! “), but it was convincing enough to end up the actor who grew up in Sunnyside, Queens even under the lens of the FBI. An error of judgment and an excess of talent.
James Caan is Sonny in the Godfather.
Caan is quite credible in the improvisation in which he tears apart the camera of a reporter who would like to document the arrival of the guests at his sister’s wedding. To then throw him two bills as compensation. Nicholas Pileggi, years later author of the novels from which Martin Scorsese drew Casino And Those good guys, in 1971 on the set of The Godfather spent a long time on behalf of the New York Times. Pileggi wrote about the Caan’s fascination with Italian Americans: «How they move! I watched them with their girls, their wives. When they toast, they say “centanni”, “salute to ours”, wonderful stuff from the Old World, of boys who were born here and don’t even speak Italian ».
An idea of masculinity
Caan, like all that generation of actors, was a sponge. The ideal of masculinity that he fashioned with such care to give life to his Sonny (“They have their own street language. He’s not Italian, of course, and he’s not English,” he told Pileggi) then it stuck to him. “They always cast me for the role of the tough man or the hero,” he says. “Even if before de The Godfather I had done everything: the musical, the romantic comedy ». The debut had been, for a handful of frames and unnamed in the credits in Irma the sweet by Billy Wilder, what a baptism!
But a great film is also, inevitably, a watershed. In the after-Godfather James Caan above all he has gritted his teeth and flayed his knuckles by dint of punching: “I’ve made great films,” he claims. “$ 40,000 not to die by Karel Reisz, Funny Lady with Barbra Streisand and my favorite, Violent roads by Michael Mann “. But in a filmography that touches 140 titles, between cinema and TV, it is worth mentioning others: Here comes a wild and free rider, That last bridge, Rollerball and the “comeback” film, directed by his friend Rob Reiner, Misery doesn’t have to dieor even comedy Mickey blue eyes where he is again a mobster, and unexpectedly Dogvilledirected by Lars von Trier.
James Caan and Jane Fonda in Here comes a wild and free knight1978. (c) United Artists / courtesy Everett Collection
There was a hiatus in his career, “but it wasn’t because of de The Godfather” explains. “I took a four to five year hiatus after my sister Barbara died, who left too young for leukemia. I loved her very much and at that moment I got a little lost. ” The drugs, the four marriages, the past year in the Playboy Mansion after a divorce, what he himself described as “Hollywood burnout,” only added bricks to the building of his personal mythology. “That was when I chose my favorite phrase, the one I can use today on every occasion: “I don’t care”, I don’t care“.
His only direction
Instead he cared, and a lot, to try his hand at directing, and made a single attempt, which left him perhaps a little bitter in his mouth. I will find them at any cost, in 1977, based on the true story of a father separated from his children when his ex-wife enters a witness protection program. Why didn’t he try again, Mister Caan? “Because I’m a true believer, one who truly believes in what he does. If you have an idea you have to follow that. I don’t like directors who have too many. The idea of that movie, that father, was in my head from the start. It was a true and sad story and I tried to give it the truth. To do this, you don’t need to do anything exceptional. Just frame the eyes of the person in front of you with the camera. Being a director this means: putting people in a space in front of themselves»Concludes, gratifying the reporter with a« my darling ». In the future of this mythmaker there is a mythical film that perhaps will never be made: Megalopolisyet another impossible project by Francis Ford Coppola. For years it has emerged and plunged into the digital archives of the network. Indeed, every now and then it is updated with new rumors about the cast, about the sales of the Californian vineyards of Coppola to finance it. James Caan is enlisted. Impossible projects, in the cinema, are almost always the best. If this ever sees the light, he will surely answer the call.
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