Italian American

The grandchildren of Italian immigrants grew up between two languages, and when they got hold of cameras they put the whole kitchen on screen.

Coppola shot The Godfather like a family album with blood in it; Scorsese shot his own neighborhood from the inside, where the saints’ processions and the wiseguys share a street. The food is never a prop: sauce is stirred, garlic is sliced with a razor blade, and a man’s cooking tells you his rank. What they rewrote was the American crime picture: it became a family story, and the family became the tragedy. Coppola won the casting fight for The Godfather with a screen test Brando shot at home, cotton in his cheeks and shoe polish in his hair.