Script To Screen: “The Godfather”
Compare screenplay to movie: The famous horse head scene in The Godfather, written by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, based on Puzo’s…
Compare screenplay to movie: The famous horse head scene in The Godfather, written by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, based on Puzo’s novel.
Setup: After Hollywood producer Jack Woltz refutes Mafia consigliere Tom Hagen’s offer to select Johnny Fontane for an upcoming movie, the action shifts to Don Corleone meeting with Sollozzo who pitches they go into business together in the drug trade.
Here is the scene from the movie:
Did the movie capture the horror detailed in the script? I think so!
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
For more Script To Screen posts, go here.