November 22, 2008: The Godfather: Part II
Ah, where to even begin? I could probably spend all day writing about the Godfather films, and volumes have already been written. Doesn’t anyone who actually cares about this story already know everything they want to know, while anyone else really isn’t into it at all? What would be the purpose of this review?
The Godfather films, from 1972, 1974 and 1990, are perhaps the most critically-lauded film series of all time. The first two both won Best Picture Oscars, a feat which was unprecedented, is unlikely to ever be repeated, and even more amazingly was well-deserved. Iconic images and lines and scenes and gestures from the films have become part of a popular culture spanning generations, and the films have great mass appeal, while at the same time being complex and challenging and rewarding to analysts and critics. Based initially on a best-selling 1969 novel from Mario Puzo, who also worked with director Francis Ford Coppola on adapting the novel for the screen, the later films have fleshed out the original story to mythic proportions.
The core of the story centres around the Corleone Family, and initially the patriarch “Don” Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), a Sicilian who came to America as a child, tried to make an honest living, and realized that the corruption among officialdom made honest living a losing proposition for the ordinary man. He turned slowly to a life involving crime and corruption, rationalized by the fact that the corruption would exist regardless of what he did and that it and would either work against him or could be made to work for him. His dream was for his children to be able to grow up as power players in the legitimate business and political world of America, to be the ones wielding the power. Alas, mafia wars claimed either the bodies or the souls of his adult children as he watched his dream slipping away, ever hoping that the next generation of the family might be the one to really make it in legitimate America.
By the time of the second film, Vito has passed away and the family business is being run by Michael (Al Pacino), the one child out of four who was the family’s greatest prospect for legitimate success. But Michael has transformed from a fresh-faced young student to a cold and remorseless mafia “businessman”, always claiming to try and make the business legitimate and claiming that his family is the most important thing to him, but struggling against his instinctive sense that anyone who crosses him must be eliminated in order to secure his position. In this second film, Michael’s ruthlessness cuts a little too close to the family itself, and he watches his world fall apart around him because of what he’s done, even as he wonders what more he could possibly have done to protect it. Michael understands the paradox facing him, but can’t accept that there’s no solution which fits into the rules by which he lives. Intercut within the present-day (late1 1950s) story is the tale of young Vito Corleone and the reason for his move to America, and his subsequent rise to power in his New York neighbourhood. The parallels between Vito (portrayed as a young man by Robert De Niro in an Oscar-winning supporting performance) and Michael, reluctant cornerstones of their families, forced to bear the stresses of protecting a delicate balance at all times without ever showing weakness, are clearly drawn. This film runs 3 hours and 20 minutes, and every minute of it needs to be there.
My exposure to the Godfather films has gone in waves over the years. I first saw the original films when I was in high school, followed shortly by the third film which was in theatres around that time. Those single viewings were hardly enough to come to appreciate the depth of these works. I revisited them occasionally until the DVDs were released and I immediately bought them, and in the years since I have occasionally gone on Godfather binges, usually watching pieces of the films adding up to complete viewings over the space of days or weeks. Most recently, I watched The Godfather: Part II in several pieces, jumping around and rewatching scenes, skipping over others but ultimately returning to them, and eventually reaching a point where I could claim that I had watched the whole movie again. It’s not uncommon for me to watch one of the storylines (present-day or the chronicles of the young Vito) and not the other. The subtitles available on the DVDs are very useful for catching bits of dialogue and throwaway lines, and keeping track of the multitude of characters who pop in and out of the stories and in several cases appear in all three films.
A simple review of these movies can’t do them justice. They are essential viewing for any film enthusiast, and there’s far more depth than would be found in just a simple gangster movie, if that’s what might be keeping the reluctant viewer away. But it’s a serious commitment to the story with three films of around three hours each. The Godfather: Part III receives mixed reviews and that is a story for another time, but it is a rewarding and consistent continuation of the story for those who are connected to the characters and want to see where they went.
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