EPISODE 3. Before becoming a great movie, the story of the Corleone clan was first a novel with certain passages taken from a French classic!
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By Baudouin Escapasse
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” Ihe secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a forgotten crime…” When he published his third novel, entitled Le Godfather, Mario Puzo (1920-1999) places this quote from Honoré de Balzac as an epigraph to his book. It betrays a great secret of its author: Puzo was greatly inspired by the creator of The Human Comedy. The most famous replica of this work is thus Balzacian. It appears at the beginning of the story and will become the leitmotif of the trilogy. Don Corleone’s unforgettable punchline “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” is almost word for word a line of dialogue from Vautrin to the young Rastignac in the heart of the Father Goriot.
A Balzacian influence
Former convict, criminal “by vocation”, Jacques Collin (nicknamed Vautrin) is he the model of Vito…
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