{"id":113318,"date":"2022-07-08T04:39:46","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T23:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/why-the-godfather-is-unthinkable-without-james-caan\/"},"modified":"2022-07-08T04:40:05","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T23:10:05","slug":"james-caan-the-godfather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/james-caan-the-godfather\/","title":{"rendered":"James Caan, the Godfather?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Al Pacino, a relative unknown, was cast as Michael Corleone. He is the shy young man who will eventually lead his troubled mob family. The Godfather<\/em>Other names were also considered for the crucial role. Warren Beatty. Dustin Hoffman. Jack Nicholson. Robert Redford. Martin Sheen. And one other person: James Caan, although he hadn\u2019t put himself forward for the gig. \u201cOne night,\u201d Caan Later, recalled<\/a>, \u201cI got a call from Francis\u2026and I could tell in his voice that this was not<\/em> his idea: \u2018Jimmy, want you to come in and test\u2026they want you to play Michael.’\u201d<\/p>\n

You can see Caan\u2019s audition footage online, his Michael alongside Diane Keaton\u2019s Kay. They\u2019re two fine actors who are all wrong together in a movie considered among the greatest of the last 50 years. Caan and Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s instinct was right: Caan shouldn\u2019t play Michael. He Had<\/em>Santino \u201cSonny\u201d Corleone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

James Caan, who was 82 years old, passed away Wednesday. He leaves behind a legacy full of screen hard guys. Sometimes that reputation was irritating to him. \u201cI just lost a couple of movies,\u201dHe Interview, 2011.<\/a>. \u201cThey said we don\u2019t want a tough guy. I said excuse me, I am an actor.<\/em> That is what I do for a living. You know it\u2019s frustrating. I said to my agent, if I am the last guy on the list they could possibly think for a particular role, those are the ones I want to go after. That\u2019s the fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was his most memorable role. Caan was able to expand the possibilities of what a tough guy can be on screen as Sonny. The movie doesn\u2019t work without a perfect Sonny, the older, more emotional brother who acts before he thinks, nearly destroying the family in the process. It\u2019s Sonny\u2019s failings that will bring out Michael\u2019s strengths. It\u2019s Sonny\u2019s death that serves as the film\u2019s emotional low point. It\u2019s a performance that needed James Caan.<\/p>\n

Caan had the advantage of working with Coppola before, on 1969\u2019s The Rain People<\/em>. Immediately, he tapped into Sonny\u2019s pride and rage, giving audiences the prototypical eldest child who thinks he knows better than his siblings. Sonny is belittling Michael his child brother, who is too eager to make the decisions after Vito has been killed by his enemies. He displays a fake sense of confidence which reads like bluster. Because he was so confident in himself, his badabing gusto is what weak people mistake for strength made him scarier. The fact that Caan based Sonny off Don Rickles, a beloved insult comic, makes this performance even more impressive. (\u201cIt wasn\u2019t imitating Don Rickles,\u201dHe Insisted last year<\/a>. \u201cIt was having that drive, that thing, you know? I was just locked into that.\u201d)<\/p>\n

But if Sonny\u2019s brashness is what hits you first \u2014 his aggressive manner as striking as the sleeveless T-shirts he favors \u2014 Caan figured out how to hint at the man\u2019s vulnerability as well. Deep down, Sonny suspects he\u2019s not as smart or levelheaded as Michael or Corleone consigliere<\/em>Tom (Robert Duvall) uses violence to hide his flaws. Sonny is more heartfelt than his siblings and lets his family’s love drive him. Caan illustrated that tough guys often blow up because they don\u2019t know what else to do with their emotions \u2014 those big, scary things that tough guys aren\u2019t supposed to have. Sonny wants to strike back because of what his dad\u2019s enemies did to him. And when the piece-of-shit husband Carlo (Gianni Russo) of Sonny\u2019s sister, Connie (Talia Shire), is physically abusive to her, Sonny reacts impulsively, beating the hell out of the guy: a wild animal unleashed. Such brazen behavior is what someone like Sonny does to protect his family \u2014 he\u2019s not sophisticated enough to know any other way.<\/p>\n

For years, there were rumors that that fight scene was personal, inspired by Caan\u2019s animosity toward Russo. Paramount+’s most recent series actually confirms this. The Offer<\/em> suggested that Russo had been a little too rough on Shire during the married couple\u2019s onscreen altercation, prompting Caan to get back at Russo. Much like much else about the making The Godfather<\/em>, such stories are now so legendary that it\u2019s hard to separate fact from fiction. (For what it\u2019s worth, Caan He claimed he had never had an issue dealing with Russo<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

But those rumors do speak to what was so beautiful, and ultimately tragic, about Caan\u2019s portrayal of Santino. He\u2019s a loyal, funny guy. He\u2019s also a philanderer and an arrogant prick, someone so desperate to prove to his dad that he has what it takes to be a leader, unaware that everyone around him can tell that he lacks the constitution for the job. There\u2019s a poignancy to Sonny\u2019s pathetic delusions of grandeur that\u2019s unique in The Godfather<\/em>A fragmented fairytale about America’s dream. This country teaches us that everyone can reach their potential if they just apply themselves \u2014 even a bunch of mobsters. But that dream\u2019s a lie, and Sonny is living proof. He can\u2019t overcome his shortcomings. He can\u2019t outrun himself.<\/p>\n

The Godfather<\/em>It is so well-known that almost every scene has been made into a classic, endlessly quotable, and memed to death. And yet, Sonny\u2019s violent execution, no matter how many times it\u2019s referenced and parodied in the culture, never loses its shock. It is possible to close your eyes and still see it clearly. He\u2019s going out to avenge his sister yet again \u2014 that\u2019s when the ambush happens. Sonny\u2019s body riddled with bullets at a tollbooth. The Corleones’ most powerful and seemingly indestructible Corleone is killed. Caan’s ability to give you a moment of terror is amazing. Caan\u2019s greatness came from playing a seemingly one-dimensional blowhard whose hidden depths we only saw in glimpses, because Sonny never risks letting them out. Even Sonny can be scared.<\/p>\n

For the film\u2019s 50th anniversary, Caan was asked which Godfather<\/em>Character with which he is most closely identified. \u201cI feel myself more like Kay,\u201dHe Please reply<\/a>Kay is innocent and sweetheart. She\u2019s someone who doesn\u2019t fully appreciate the insidiousness of the family she\u2019s entered into. It’s unlikely that anyone would immediately notice such innocence in James Caan’s characters, even if he was in his best performance. His answer could change the way you see Sonny next time you’re watching him. The Godfather<\/em>. Kay isn\u2019t suited to lead the Corleones, and neither is Sonny \u2014 it takes something special, something extraordinarily dark in one\u2019s character, to take on such a position. Perhaps Caan knew he didn\u2019t possess that quality. And that\u2019s why he\u2019s is so brilliant in The Godfather<\/em>: It is possible that one of our best tough-guy actors said to us that some guys are just fooling themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al Pacino, a relative unknown, was cast as Michael Corleone. He is the shy young man who will eventually lead his troubled mob family. The GodfatherOther names were also considered for the crucial role. Warren Beatty. Dustin Hoffman. Jack Nicholson. Robert Redford. Martin Sheen. And one other person: James Caan, although he hadn\u2019t put himself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":113319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,3,105,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Why-The-Godfather-Is-Unthinkable-Without-James-Caan.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113318"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113320,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113318\/revisions\/113320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}