One of the memorable visual aspects of “The Godfather” is the shadowy way in which it was shot. Gordon Willis did this in order to produce an aura of darkness around the violent and dangerous Corleone family and the death that both follows and comes from them.
When Coppola and Willis showed Paramount Pictures the finished film, the executives thought it was too dark, not thematically but visually – this led to a long discussion between Coppola, Willis, and the execs about the artistic merit of the choice. Paramount relented, but it earned Willis a nickname: “The Prince of Darkness.”
Animal Rights Hypocrisy
First, there were the Italian-American groups, but then came the animal rights activists. They had a big problem with the horse head scene, which anybody should have been able to guess.
Coppola thought it was somewhat hypocritical since lots and lots and lots of people were killed during the movie. Coppola even said outright: “When the head arrived, it upset many animal-loving crew members, who liked little doggies. What they don't know is that we got the head from a pet food manufacturer who slaughters two hundred horses a day just to feed those little doggies.”
Say My Name
As time goes on in the film, Michael Corleone gets married and has a son. The son's name is Anthony, and so is the young actor who played Anthony. This is because the young man didn't have the wherewithal to respond to a fake name, and the other actors with him, including Al Pacino, could only get his attention by calling him by his real name.
It's really no surprise – when any of us were three years old it would probably be impossible to do anything like acting and even respond to a name we didn't recognize.
Violence Sells
Paramount gave Coppola, Willis, and the rest of the team plenty of leeway and let them do what they wanted, with one exception. They weren't sure if the movie would be a hit or not – no one ever is – so they asked Coppola to add more explicit violence because they knew that was what people wanted to see.
This addition worked for a couple of reasons, not only to highlight how deadly the Corleone family was but to further the allegorical tie-in to the dangers of capitalism.
Nobody Ever Said Brando Was Easy to Work With
Marlon Brando had tons of eccentricities while filming, including an incredible love of food. And this happened to affect the filming of "The Godfather" in a big way.
While filming the scenes set in Little Italy, Brando became obsessed with something really specific: spicy squid with hot sauce. And when we say obsessed, we mean obsessed. He had to have some of it in his view at all times while filming the scenes, even during the shot when Vito leans over the body of his dead son Sonny. Off-camera, Brando is holding a container of the spicy squid.