[discussion post] The Godfather (1972)

[my_daroga]

Welcome back! This post's film is Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 classic, The Godfather. Feel free to comment with your observations, no matter how "shallow" or random or esoteric! Answer these questions, twist them to your purposes, or come up with your own! Or spam us with gifs and parodies, whatever your fancy.

The Godfather was Coppla's first big movie. The late 60s and early 70s were a time of experimentation, when major studios seemed to be taking a chance on younger filmmakers like Lucas, Spielberg, De Palma, and Scorcese, and Coppola was part of that group. Now, of course, their films represent the establishment that Hollywood is either building off of or rebelling against, but back then, none of them had yet to make a name for themselves. Coppola was not the first choice of Paramount execs to direct the movie, which likely would have turned out very differently had someone else been at the helm.

Here are a few thoughts to get you going...


Acting: How you feel about the performances? Do any stand out to you? Do you think Coppola was justified in standing by his choice of Marlon Brando? As a relative newcomer, how do you think Al Pacino fares? As an ensemble, how do you think the cast works together?

Do you think the movie glorifies the mafia and violence, or is a commentary on it? Does it stand as a metaphor for wider American or societal themes? What do you think the film's attitude towards the brutality it depicts is?

Did you notice anything about the filmmaking techniques themselves? What's the tone, or feel, of the movie? Do you think Gordon Willis' cinematography captures something essential about the time or mood or did you notice it?

Is the movie's epic status justified? Why do you think it captured moviegoers and filmmakers so completely, and still does? Where do you see its influence?

When contemplating The Godfather, must you also include The Godfather, Part II in any discussion? Is it a sequel, or the second part of a more cohesive unit?

What does the film say to you about family? Are there positive aspects to the way Don Corleone conducts his affairs?

What do you think about Michael's trajectory from someone who doesn't want any part of the family business to taking charge? What does it say about him as a character? Is it well-handled in the film?

Have you seen any of Coppola's other films? How does this one measure up to you, or vice versa? Do you think this was his peak?

Comments

[my_daroga]

I confess, I've never liked this movie as much as I want to, or feel I "should." I can see all the reasons people love it, I can recognize its qualities, and for some reason it's never really worked for me. I can't put my finger on it. I've seen it twice, I think, in an actual theater in an effort to right this wrong.

I think the acting is fantastic. I love the golden glow of the cinematography. I like the story of a young man's gradual corruption. I can see where the making of it is explicitly *not* meant to glorify mob violence. And yet... somehow, my feelings while watching it don't do that. I can't get into Michael's headspace, though I think he's so close to a character I could really, really get into--his decline just doesn't ring for me. And when I watch it, the violence still feels like glorification. Intellectually, I know it isn't. But I don't feel it.

So I feel very disconnected from this film, all the more so because it is such a favorite (it's #2 on this list now, whereas the first time it was made it was behind Casablanca). It's one of the great American epics and I just can't feel it, no matter how many times I watch it.

I look forward to other thoughts, so I can learn about how other people see it, and I think it, and peoples' reactions, are really interesting. I just wish I felt more about it.

[lettered]

Oh, was this the other film, when we were talking about characters we identify with, that the other doesn't? What were we having that conversation in response to? Can't remember. I did recall you mentioned the main character from Sweet Smell of Success. It was something we saw recently. Argh! But anyway, I was thinking of Michael, and the way I feel like I know exactly what he's thinking, and why he does what he does, and the way you feel disconnected, and I understand why, and yet don't want the film to give us any more than it does already.

Anyway, I'm sad there's not more discussion here, since we've already talked about this, but:

Acting - Marlon Brando is great. At first I thought he was doing a weird thing with his voice, and then I had this old Italian professor and he spoke in a somewhat similar way. Still, I think someone else could have played this part. To me, Pacino is the stand out, because he shows nothing, and yet I feel like I can read a thousand things in him. But maybe this is just because of how I feel about Michael. For the rest, I don't feel that the cast is particularly cohesive--I don't think anyone is bad, but other actors could have played them. In fact, I'm not fun of Sonny's actor, and Diane Keaton does nothing for me as Kay. But I did love the actor who played Clamenza, and I think we needed someone similar to what we got for Appolonia. Since we don't see her speak much, we need someone who just looks innocent and has great big eyes.

Violence - I think the movie is a commentary on the violence. I think the violence is meant to be abhorrent, but it does walk the line a bit. We discussed this, but I read an article about genre films and commentaries on genre films, and how this film was meant to be a commentary on the genre, but at the same time it is within the genre, so the problem is that confusion is likely to occur. However, something completely outside the genre--a cop movie that's about the seedy ugliness of the gangster world, rather than a gangster movie about the seedy ugliness of the gangster world, loses some of the message. The message of course being that there is beauty and coherence in this world, as well as the ugliness. And yes, I think it's supposed to function as a commentary on American society, and the American dream.

Film-making - I think maybe the thing that strikes me is the editing. Lots of movies in the 70s have long, drawn out moments--and this is probably a cinematography thing too, because the shots are probably very long, although I don't usually notice, and quite sweeping. The Conversation is something I think of as a quintessential 70s style, done very well. It is very slow-moving, and lingering on various people and things. While I do appreciate it and love certain aspects of it, I'm still rather bored by it. The Godfather is one of the few I'm not bored by at all. The first 30 minutes is a wedding scene in which the only thing that happens is that Luca Brazi wishes Connie's first child to be a masculine child. Everything else is set up and introduction. Well, actually, Brazi is set-up and introduction too. I just can't believe there's a scene that long in a movie that is all just people I don't know dancing and cutting cake and beating up reporters in their driveway, and that I love it that much.

Epic status - I think this might be one of my favorite movies, and I do think it very well done, but I fear that it is so famous because people think gangsters are cool.

Godfather II - I think they're entirely separate movies. Godfather II doesn't really interest me at all.

Family - Of course there are positive aspects to the way Don Corleone conducts his affairs. That's part of what's so interesting about the movie.

Michael's trajectory - Gah. I love it so much, and I do think it's well handled. I feel like Michael was probably raised with more distance, freedom, and special care than the others. Sonny was meant to be the next Don; he got to be a party to all the family business. Fredo was stupid, and Connie was the girl, so no one paid much attention to them. But Michael was the smart one, the clever one, the good-looking one, the one who was introspective and thoughtful and probably the most kind, the one who could, well, pass.

It's not that Sonny was so distinctly Italian whereas Michael wasn't, but with Michael's brain and his abilities with people, he was going to be the connection to the non-mafia world. He was going to be the senator. His son was going to be the president. Don Corleone says that that's what he dreamed Michael would be, and I imagine it had an effect on Michael's up-bringing. He wasn't to be sullied with the family business, and all the things that made him seem more "American", his family was proud of and encouraged. Including going to war.

But those things--going to college and going to war, etc, were Michael's method of defiance. He was smart enough to know what his family really did, and far enough away from it, and caught up enough in the world outside of it, to despise it. But the thing was, he was never going to take his family down. They were big and important and safe, like a kingdom, and he was just going to leave the kingdom and have nothing to do with it. It was probably even, to some extent, sort of what Don Corleone wanted, because the idea of family was so ingrained for him, he couldn't actually conceive of Michael leaving him forever. But Michael might have, if Don Corleone hadn't been shot the way he had.

I just think for Michael, that flips this huge switch he didn't even know was there. Suddenly it occurs to him that the kingdom isn't safe, and--I don't know, for him, being in the war must have had an impact. He comes home and it's his father being shot, and here he was thinking there were bigger, more important things. And despite all the other factors he was raised with, he still has this idea that his whole family seems to live and breathe--that family is the most important thing.

And I think he thinks too that even though his father's business was wrong, at least it was run in a certain way, and Sonny's not going to run it that way, because Sonny isn't smart enough, and has too big a temper. Michael thinks he's the only one who can protect his father. He's the only one who knows how. When he finds his father alone in the hospital, he realizes he's really the only one who understands everything his father did, and for him it has nothing to do with the business and everything to do with the family.

But when he shoots the cop in the restaurant, it's more about proving himself. He's still the little kid, and he wants to do the big grown up thing. He doesn't see it that way; he thinks he's the only one cool-headed enough to do it, and the only one who will be trusted enough not to do it by the other guys, but still. He wants to prove it to himself.

I think it's Italy that changes him, really. He's trying to find himself. He's trying to get back to his roots and figure out why his family is this way and learn about this part of himself, which he's always rejected. And I do think he sees being Italian and being mafia as the same thing. Before, it wasn't like he rejected being Italian, but he saw himself as American. Now he sees Italian-American as this whole other animal, and he's never going to be what he thought, and he wants to learn about the "old country" and incorporate that into the new.

I think when Appolonia dies, that's really when he loses all sense of self. He's just . . . doing this, they're still going to be after him. They're going to be after him no matter what he does. The thing is, with Sonny dead, there's basically no Don, and Michael could just step away. But he doesn't even see that as an option at that point, because he so deeply feels that this is a part of who he is.

So, I mean, I think it's partly because Michael had these dreams that were so very earnest and well-meaning and "American" in a way that he becomes so very cold. He feels these dreams have been stripped from him because of who he is. Really, he's stripped them from himself, because of the choices he made, but he didn't see protecting his father in the hospital as a choice, and it was then, and when his father was shot, that he felt all his dreams were lies he had been telling himself. He was never going to be that other person; he was always going to be this.

So the sad part is that Don Corleone was able to hold this balance between his family and his business, his dreams and practical necessity, the old world and the new. Michael can't, and strips himself of all humanity because he thinks that's what's required. In the end, during the baptism, he's just going through the motions--pretending to be just like his father, when really, he's lost all context of what his father was.

OMG none of this is saying anything new and none of it explains why the movie works for me it just does. It's just such an identity and heritage clusterfuck.

Coppola - well, I already mentioned The Conversation!

[lettered]

Oh, it was that Glenn Close movie. Alfred Nobbs. Yeah, although both Michael and Nobbs are obviously very different characters, they are perfect examples of characters who don't show you very much, but I identified with strongly and felt like there were a million things going on beneath the surface. Or, you know, not a million things, and there didn't have to be.