Godfather I [Films in Progress]

An experimental film shot on the set of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather in 1974, Godfather I is the first of a series of poetic documentary artifacts from the New York neighborhood where Lassnig was then living. Capitalizing on the fact that her Avenue B studio happened to share a site ith the monumental film shoot, Lassnig joines the cast and crew on the streets with her 8mm camera for several days, capturing her own view of Coppola's landmark film and offering a female gaze onto one of Hollywood's most iconic depictions of patriarchy. The films she shot on Coppola's set demonstrate Lassnig's experimentation with technique, deploying double exposures edited directly in the camera as a way to complicate time and space. Combined with The Godfather's own scenographic dressing, which transformed the streets of the 1970s Lower East Side to look like the 1949s, Lassnig's editing renders visible the multidimensionality of time and space. (Jocelyn Miller)

Rough cut by Maria Lassnig. Color correction and final cut completed posthumously in accordance with Lassnig’s original editing concept by Mara Mattuschka and Hans Werner Poschauko.

Digitization by the Austrian Film Museum. This film was preserved and restored by the Maria Lassnig Foundation in collaboration with the Austrian Film Museum.