#50: Improvise to Improve

In Don Vito Corleone’s final moments in the classic, ‘The Godfather’, he’s filmed playing with his young grandson in the family tomato garden. 

As the Don chases the boy, suddenly, he clutches his chest, careers through several vines and thumps to the floor after a heart attack. It’s a seminal scene in one of the greatest movies of all time; it’s also improvised by Marlon Brando himself. Watch

Brando had already helped craft one of the greatest characters in cinematic history. It was Marlon’s idea to stick cotton wool into the Don’s cheeks to create the famous underbite jowl. He also prompted a million impersonations by concocting Vito Corleone’s signature gravelly voice, a legacy of an old gunshot wound.

In this scene, however, with daylight and time running out, director Francis Ford Coppola, was struggling to make the Don’s final act believable. Marlon told Francis ‘Here’s how I sometimes play with kids’, and took an orange peel, cut it into pieces that looked like fangs and stuck them in his mouth.

Francis was initially sceptical, “I thought, ‘What a ridiculous idea. Then suddenly I saw it: Of course! The godfather dies as a monster!” Source

Coppola also produced spontaneous moments. In the opening scene when the Don is taking visitor requests on his daughter’s wedding day, he is sat Bond villain-like stroking a cat.

This little black cat had just been casually meandering past the film set, when Francis picked him up and without saying a word popped him on Marlon’s lap mid-scene. Brando just rolled with it, instantly turning the feline into a box-office movie star.

Both scenes were improvised and interestingly both are two of the most captivating and memorable in the film.

Incidentally, they also provide powerful symbolism. Oranges on camera in ‘The Godfather’, portend to danger or death; the makeshift fangs or when the Don picks an orange from the market just before an assassination attempt. 

Black cats also have a storied history signifying both good and bad luck across history. Clearly both these off-the-cuff scenes add to the film significantly.

I’ve previously spoken how jazz players, rap battlers and comedians improve their creative ability by the many 100s of hours of improvisation they undertake. In research, the latter two groups were able to beat product designers in ideas developed. Source

Further research into their brains, show that during improvisation creativity centres were activated, and brain areas involved with critical comment were quietened putting performers into a state of flow. Source

Being open to improvisation can therefore, help our brain health, our creativity and even our performances!

WISDOM 💎

"Life is a lot like jazz, it’s best when you improvise."

George Gershwin

Tip 1 - A SMART PLAY ✅

Use ideas and experiences from other areas of your life. Marlon took a game he would do to entertain kids and made it into a classic film scene. David Epstein in his book Range talked about the power of repurposing ideas and methods from different realms.

Tip 2 - AVOID 🚩

Sticking rigidly to the plan. If you have a strong sense of what needs doing, sometimes you just have to trust what feels right in the moment and not question it too much.

Tip 3 - ACTION 💪

Have a think back to a time in your life when you improvised. How did that turn out? I’m willing to bet it often turns out great. Certainly, when I’ve just gone with something in a workshop, it’s sometimes turned out better than a carefully crafted exercise.