Initially, Francis Ford Coppola planned to open the film with a bright overhead shot of the Corleone family wedding. But when a friend saw a draft of the script, he wondered aloud if Coppola couldn’t start the film with something more different and unexpected. In the screenplay for Patton, Coppola had the soldier speak a long monologue to an offscreen crowd — in the film, it is memorably dramatized by George C. Scott, who delivers his speech standing in front of a massive American flag. Coppola took his friend’s remarks to heart and wrote a long speech that begins with the simple, memorable, ironic statement, “I believe in America.”