by Allan Fish
(USA 1974 200m) DVD1/2
Another offer we can’t refuse
p/d Francis Ford Coppola w Francis Ford Coppola, Mario Puzo novel Mario Puzo ph Gordon Willis ed Peter Zinner, Barry Malkin, Richard Marks m Carmine Coppola, Nino Rota art Dean Tavoularis, Angelo Graham cos Theodora Van Runkle
Al Pacino (Michael Corleone), Diane Keaton (Kay Corleone), Robert Duvall (Tom Hagan), John Cazale (Fredo Corleone), Talia Shire (Connie Corleone), Robert DeNiro (Vito Andolini-Corleone), Lee Strasberg (Hyman Roth), Michael V.Gazzo (Frank Pentangeli), G.D.Spradlin (Senator Pat Geary), Richard Bright (Al Neri), Morgana King (Mama Corleone), Danny Aiello (Toni Rosato), Abe Vigoda (Tessio), Leopoldo Trieste (Signor Roberto), John Aprea (young Tessio), Marianna Hill (Deanna Corleone), Joe Spinnell (Willi Cicci), Troy Donahue (Merle Johnson), Harry Dean Stanton (FBI man), Bruno Kirby (Clemenza), Gaston Moschin (Fanucci), James Caan (Sonny Corleone),
There are not many cases of a sequel that match or surpass its classic original (The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, The Two Towers, all contenders), but Coppola’s 1974 masterpiece is undoubtedly one of them. Put quite simply, The Godfather Part Two is a richer, more complex and morally corrupt film than its predecessor and one of the greatest films of the seventies.
Rather than just tell Michael’s story, the sequel parallels the story of his father, who loses his father, mother and brother before leaving Sicily for America (reminiscent of Kazan’s America, America) via Ellis Island in 1901. We see how Vito takes over the New York gangland of the feared Don Fanucci, builds up an olive oil business and becomes Godfather. In the present, Michael’s ideas of expansion and going legit are forever halted by the machinations of Jewish bigwig Hyman Roth, and it leads to Michael’s having to testify against accusations from the Supreme Court.
This really is a Shakespearean tragedy for the era, a King Lear in modern dress. In the first film Vito has three sons who he loves, but prefers the youngest and wisest. Yet it is he who is destined to become his successor, not just to the Godfathership, but to Lear’s fate. (By the end of the third film, it’s finally brought full circle with his daughter dying on the steps of the Sicilian opera house.) Indeed, in every way this is a darker film, and not just in the photography of that master of darkness Gordon Willis. Michael truly is a monster by now, not so much two-faced as three-faced, all of them smugly dripping disquieting evil. He loses the love of his wife, arranges for his brother to be killed, and rules his family with a rod of iron. Like Henry VIII becoming a monster because he had to live up to his father’s wishes of an heir and being made ruler of a kingdom because of an eldest brother’s premature death, Michael takes his father’s credo “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” to the nth degree. The Michael we see in the closing flashback – even younger than we saw him in the first film – says that he doesn’t believe Sonny when he says “your country isn’t your blood.” But he certainly does by the end of Part Two, frankly not giving a damn about his country, indeed playing it for what he can get, and get away with. Like Henry, he thinks he’s an absolute monarch and above the law.
It also mirrors the original, not just in its plot, but in its sublime casting. Though the finale allows Caan and Vigoda to repeat their deceased roles from the original, it’s DeNiro (uncanny and brilliant as the young Brando) and Duvall (how they missed him in Part Three) who impress among the supports. Despite this, it’s Pacino’s film all the way. No wonder this guy made such a great Richard III (see Looking for Richard). When Michael tells the senator “we share the same hypocrisies”, we know he has what Richard had and Kevin Spacey said was vital in The Usual Suspects, “the will to do what the other man wouldn’t.” By the end, as we see Michael sitting alone in the leaf-strewn gardens of his Lake Tahoe estate (a homage to Kirk Douglas’ very similar one on the same lake in Out of the Past?), one can hear the immortal words of Macbeth, “I am in blood steeped so far.” We know it’s all for nothing. As Frankie observes “the Corleone family were like the Roman Empire”, Tom Hagen can only puff on his cigarette and say “it was once.”
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I couldn’t agree more on several points here. 1. This film (both I and II) make a perfect American Shakespearean tragedy. 2. This is THE greatest sequel ever made and IS a recher, deeper and far more malevolant film than its predecessor. 3. Al Pacino gives his finest performance here, its almost a great dramatic silent performance as most of it is expressed through his eyes and movements. 4. The final shot of Micheal sitting in the dead autumn leaves in an environment of his own making is one of the great finales in American motion picture history. That which he convinced himself he was fighting for is exactly what he loses. Brilliant film! Thanx, Dennis
Interestingly, while the three other films you mention are definitely widely-discussed as superior sequels, I prefer the originals more (and think they’re better movies, to the extent that can be assessed) in all three cases. But Godfather II, the sequel to one of my favorite films ever, is, I think, superior to the original. You lay out the reasons why very well in this piece.
Excellent review of an excellent film. I agree with the statement that this is _the_ greatest sequel ever made. However… I disagree that this is superior to the first film. I’ll admit, though, it’s kind of like splitting hairs in trying to decide which is the better film. On personal taste, I’ll take the original. The second one at times feels like a welding together of various mythical incidents from the life of Meyer Lansky, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it lacks a little of the originality for me that I got from the first. This probably isn’t much of an issue for others who are not obsessed with organized crime history (I have a sickness, folks!).
I also have to mention how great Lee Strasberg is as Hyman Roth. Brilliant stuff.
To me and my love for these films, the big difference is Brando. It is the presence of “Don Vito” that causes me to give the first film a very slight edge.
“The Godfather Part Two is a richer, more complex and morally corrupt film than its predecessor and one of the greatest films of the seventies.”
Allan, this is one of your best reviews! “complex and morally corrupt”, oh how true on both counts. Pacino’s transformation from the young innocent youngest son to the morally bankrupt Godfather whose sinks into his own void distancing himself from everyone, not trusting anyone. It is a brilliant portrayal by Pacino. For me personally, the Ellis Island scenes were of much interest, being the grandchild of Italian immigrants who came through Ellis Island. As a side note, I had the opportunity to go to Ellis Island about a year or so before this film was released, before the restoration, and photograph it. It was a haunting experience being amongst the ruins, and it was in ruins at the time, and knowing that thousands of mostly poor immigrants, including my own grand parents and great grand parents, searching for a better life came through these same passages.
There is so much to admire about this film, the dark haunting cinematography, the excellent parallel stories, Robert DeNiro amazing performance as the young Don, and John Cazel as Fredo. Cazel was a terrific actor who gave some memorable performances in his short career.
“This really is a Shakespearean tragedy for the era, a King Lear in modern dress. In the first film Vito has three sons who he loves, but prefers the youngest and wisest. Yet it is he who is destined to become his successor, not just to the Godfathership, but to Lear’s fate. (By the end of the third film, it’s finally brought full circle with his daughter dying on the steps of the Sicilian opera house.) Indeed, in every way this is a darker film, and not just in the photography of that master of darkness Gordon Willis. Michael truly is a monster by now, not so much two-faced as three-faced, all of them smugly dripping disquieting evil.”
That is the passage that really conveys this film’s essence, and it’s beautifully written.
I completely agree that this film is superior to the first GODFATHER for a host of reasons.
I pretty much agree on all points made here in Allan’s essay and the commentary that has followed. But while we’re all stating obvious points about this tremendous work, let us not lose sight of the fact that these are all just building blocks to what has become one of the great Shakespearean parallels in American movie history. Like The Bard’s RICHARD III, this is a delicately detailed study of a cunning man’s spiral into the greed of power and the loss of everything dear to him because of it. By brilliantly paralleling Micheals story with the origin tale of his fathers rise to power in NYC, we can see two men live out the same life but take two completely different paths in their use and abuse of said power. Why does one become more virtuous than the other? The ending is a fitting cap for a souless scorpion. Man can be the truest monster of all. You cannot mourn Micheal Corleone.
Dennis– Didn’t Mr. Fish lay out in his review the “Shakespeare parallel” you are now alluding to as if it were something new?
Anyway, this is an excellent piece on a film that needs no further embellishment from me.
I was merely reiterrating, Frank. I did that so I could seque into the bigger idea of Coppola showing us the same life for both men and asking us why they take such extremely opposite paths.
Not to take away from Allan’s excellent piece here but I think the whole ‘sequel’ idea here though technically correct is something of an overstatement. The two films follow very exactly the two parts of Puzo’s novel in terms of structure. I have always treated it as one film. I suspect that had Coppola been allowed to do so he might well have made one film also. In any case it is not a sequel in the sense of writing anew an established story or ‘adding’ to it in some way. It is also not a director returning to the story decades later. He made them one after the other and he stuck to a great script which was the novel. There is nothing ‘new’ that transpires between the two works. It is the very same film. Now if there are changes in terms of Coppola’s visual grammar in the second work these too mirror similar changes in pace and tone in the latter half of the book. That Coppola made masterful films and effected the ‘translation’ perfectly can scarcely be denied (I actually prefer the films to the novel). But this is not a sequel in any sense except for the basic one that it was a separate film that followed the first one. to reiterate the two films are one story and very much ‘united’ as works in every way possible. Each is a concentrated drama that depends on the other. The third Godfather is very much a sequel though (even if Puzo worked on the script) and has all the pitfalls of one (not a bad film on its own).
Kaleem, your argument is sound, especially the contention that each film needs the other. As always you have provided the framework for your persuasive proposition.
Only Coppola and Scorsese among their generation have made at least two ‘central’ films each for their age. For the former these are the Godfather films and Apocalypse Now. For the latter Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Scorsese has been more prolific than Coppola of course but perhaps even he cannot match at this present moment the grand achievements of those two Coppola films in terms of iconic appeal. But there is no third American director in this sense. Spielberg has made great entertainments for sure that are a permanent part of American popular culture but his serious efforts don’t have the prestige or resonance of those great Coppola/Scorsese works. Globally though Scorsese is the more influential director. His brand of ‘realism’ has fostered whole genres of cinema. Interestingly he has turned away from this earlier self in the last decade or more.
Kaleem, while I’ll admit I’m a bit kinder than you are to Spielberg, the truth is most serious cineastes agree with you. And I also think you hit it on the head by saying that not even Scorses could match Coppola during his peak years, irregardless of the fact that career-wise Marty was far more prolific.
Let me also provide a shoutout here for Kurosawa’s the Bad Sleep Well and its legendary opening sequence, that also influenced Coppola greatly by his own admission on his Godfather introduction. But Kurosawa does it almost too well. The film is a fine work, underrated by some, but after that great beginning which really provides the film in miniature there is not much left for the director to do other than unfold that tableau. I am not completely persuaded by the Shakespearean resonances in Godfather (except in the loosest sense of cultural currency; in many ways I think that the logic of the Godfather works in opposition to that of Lear) but Kurosawa’s film is certainly soaked in it. The opening sequence is classic Shakespearean mise-en-scene, the film is otherwise considered a very loose Hamlet adaptation, an analogy that also seems forced to me beyond a point (though there are certainly parallels).
Indeed Kaleem, indeed. And what makes your argument even more convincing is that Kurosawa reveres Shakespeare…i.e…THRONE OF BLOOD, RAN. Again you have written a magnificent piece here!!!
thanks as always Sam..
Fascinating viewpoints on all three commentaries, Kaleem. I do, however slightly disagree with you in the sense that Shakespeare DOES have an influence here and not so much LEAR as RICHARD III. That the two films are basically one continuous film I am leary. There was no intent to make a second film at all as Paramount never gave much creedence at all to the original as it was being made. Coppola himself has said in the commentary of the U.S. DVD’s that the production company wanted to make a “quickie” that would cash in fast on the popularity of what they thought was a “bubble-gum pulp novel”. Hence, Part II was only given a greenlight and pressed upon Coppola when the first film started raking in major moolah and waltz off with three major Oscars (including BEST PICTURE). I agree on your assesment of Coppola/Scorsese, but I’ll cry foul to you by not considering Spielberg’s SCHINDLER’S LIST as a major film of prestige.
Dennis, fair points here. On Spielberg he’s made prestigious films like Color Purple or Empire of the Sun in addition to schindler’s List. My point is that these films do not have the centrality that the Scorsese/coppola works do and I guess I am also being somewhat predictive in suggesting that Schindler’s List never will either. Partly this is because Spielberg came to the subject somewhat late. Making a Holocaust film at that time wasn’t exactly a novel idea. On the Godather thing I haven’t heard the commentary track so I defer to you but the film doesn’t at all have the feel of a quickie!
I do know that Coppola wanted Scorsese to direct the second Godfather film but the studio eventually pressured him into it. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that artistic continuities do not often conform to ‘calendrical’ ones. Your points are therefore fair but to the extent that the two films match both halves of the work there is a larger continuity here that goes beyond the notion of an ordinary sequel where continuity is often invented.
Both Dennis and Kaleem have registered excellent arguments here!
“Another offer we can’t refuse…”
Hi! Allan,
I think that your quote “sums” up this film (The Godfather II) perfectly…because I view this film as (“just”) a continuation of the Corleone family saga.
Thanks, nice review!
DeeDee 😉
Good review Allan….
For my money, it’s only the second film to equal the original, the other one for me is ‘The Bride of Frankenstein’, whilst ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ I find to be a vastly superior film to the original (as its climax is emotional rather than SFX inspired and its texture richer).
I’ve never considered the two films to be the same work but nor would I even think of trying to compare them. The first is one of the greatest Gangster Movies (with 1932’s ‘Scarface’, ‘On the Waterfront’ and ‘Goodfellas’), whilst the second’s emphasis has been to provide a critique of the American scene and big business; the pursuit of power for power’s sake, the corrosive degradation of the soul leaving an emotionally constipated, dead Michael reminiscing echoes of an innocence lost. This last aspect and its audacious parallel cross-cutting timeline between the father building the business for the survival of the family and the son destroying it even though self-aware enough of the course he has charted (evoked in profoundly moving scene with his mother where he sits at her lap, like a lost child, intuiting his predicament and querying what his father would have done) mould it towards a rarer group of questioning, probing films; ‘Citizen Kane’ comes to mind, as does ‘The Swimmer’. And in a curious way, much of Billy Wilder’s work.
In this sense, it’s also similar to ‘Frankenstein’ and its sequel ‘Bride’. The first one is a darkly-hued horror with a primiative feel as if it was torn away from a backward hinterland, whilst the sequel is playful black comedy.
I found the original novel to be rather poor and it’s generally considered to be a fairly journeyman stuff, much as ‘Jaws’ was. It certainly seemed that way when I read it as a teenager. I must read them again as an adult. That ‘Jaws’ and ‘The Godfather’ could be fashioned from those sources….
Curiously, the two films were combined together for voting purposes in the prestigious ‘Sight and Sound’ poll of the best ten films in 2002. I smiled and understood that they wanted to knock ‘Kane’ off the top spot. Otherwise they should have included the dire third one too (same creative team, right).
Kaleem, I would also include ‘The Conversation’ in between the ‘Godfathers’, a small-scale and intimate film that dealt with the timely issue of wire-tapping in the age of Watergate. A trilogy of back to back classics that for me rank Coppola with Lubitsch, Hitchcock, Ford, Wyler, Wilder and Eastwood, ect, ect.
Though of an earlier generation as a film-maker, I’d put Sidney Lumet’s scorching ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ and ‘Network’ into the fiery mix too of ‘70s classics.
Agreed on the Conversation. This is a fine work.
Glad to know I ain’t the only one to prefer The Empire Strikes Back (to any Star Wars film IMO, not just the first.) I love the opening sequence in particular…
Though at one point I would have agreed with that point, I’ve come to see Star Wars as the best of the trilogy. It’s the most honest about its whiz-bang charm and doesn’t muddy the waters with over-seriousness: its delight and invention are pure. But they may also be in part a reaction of weariness to the past decade, whose constant attempts to fuse the blockbuster form with “dark” and “nihilist” pathos have mostly exhausted me (despite regarding The Dark Knight favorably, as the exception that proves the rule – whatever that means).
Bobby J:
This is brilliant here:
“with 1932’s ‘Scarface’, ‘On the Waterfront’ and ‘Goodfellas’), whilst the second’s emphasis has been to provide a critique of the American scene and big business; the pursuit of power for power’s sake, the corrosive degradation of the soul leaving an emotionally constipated, dead Michael reminiscing echoes of an innocence lost. This last aspect and its audacious parallel cross-cutting timeline……..”
That is precisely why I prefer GODFATHER 2. All your parallels here are most thought-provoking!!!!!
Yes Kaleem, I definately see where you’re going with this. Only Coppola could smooth the seam between the original and the follow up. And, I D0 agree that together it becomes ONE film. But, the fact remsains they are still seperate and if a gun by Lucca Brasi was held to my head and I was forced to choose which is the more preferrable, then the second half would take my prize. As to SCHINDLER’S LIST I will politefully disagree that Spielberg made a Holocaust film too late. Aside from nailing 8 Oscars for that film it is, to this day, still considered the supreme “filmic” journey into this period of history that is not a documentary. In my mind, it’s also the greatest film of its decade and Spielbergs masterpiece. BOBBY J. Thank you for mentioning THE CONVERSATION, a film that has not gotten its deserved prais in lieu of the other Coppola works. I would choose NETWORK instead of DOG DAY as it’s timeliness now seems prophetic.
Check out this piece by Zizek:
SPIELBERG’S RELUCTANT FATHERS
Slavoj Zizek
In a recent conversation, Hanif Kureishi was telling me about his new novel, whose narrative is different from what he wrote hitherto; I ironically asked him: “But the hero is nonetheless an immigrant with a Pakistani father who is a failed writer…” He replied: “What’s the problem? Do we not all have Pakistani fathers who are failed writers?” He was right – and this is what Hegel meant by singularity elevated into universality: the pathological twist that HK experienced in his father is part of EVERY father, there is no normal father, everybody’s father is a figure who failed to live up to his mandate and thus left to his son the task to settle his symbolic debts. In this sense, again, Kureishi’s Pakistani failed writer is a universal singular, a singular standing in for the universality.
This is what hegemony is about, this short-circuit between the universal and its paradigmatic case (in the precise Kuhnian sense of the term): it is not enough to say that Kureishi’s own case is one in the series of the cases exemplifying the universal fact that father is yet another “impossible profession” – one should make a step further and claim that, precisely, we all have Pakistani fathers who are failed writers… In other words, let us imagine being-a-father as a universal ideal which all empirical fathers endeavor to approach and ultimately fail to do it: what this means is that the true universality is not that of the ideal being-a-father, but that of failure itself.
Therein resides today’s true impasse of paternal authority: in the (biological) father’s growing reluctance to accept the symbolic mandate “father” – this impasse is the secret motif than runs through Steven Spielberg’s films. All his key films – ET, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List – are variations on this motif. One should remember that the family to whose small boy ET appears was deserted by the father (as we learn in the very beginning), so that ET is ultimately a kind of “vanishing mediator” who provides a new father (the good scientist who, in the film’s last shot, is already seen embracing the mother) – when the new father is here, ET can leave and “go home.” Empire of the Sun focuses on a boy deserted by his family in the war-torn China and surviving through the help of an ersatz-father (played by John Malkovich). In the very first scene of Jurassic Park, we see the paternal figure (played by Sam Neill) jokingly threatening the two kids with a dinosaur bone – this bone is clearly the tiny object-stain which, later, explodes into gigantic dinosaurs, so that one can risk the hypothesis that, within the film’s fantasmatic universe, the dinosaurs’ destructive fury merely materializes the rage of the paternal superego. A barely perceptible detail that occurs later, in the middle of the film, confirm this reading. The pursued group of Neill with two kids take refugee from the murderous carnivorous dinosaurs in a gigantic tree, where, dead tired, they fall asleep; on the three, Neill loses the dinosaur bone that was stuck in his belt, and it is as if this accidental loss has a magic effect – before they fall asleep, Neill is reconciled with the children, displaying warm affection and care for them. Significantly, the dinosaurs which approach the three next morning and awaken the sleeping party, turn out to be of the benevolent herbivorous kind… Schindler’s List is, at the most basic level, a remake of Jurassic Park (and, if anything, worse than the original), with the Nazis as the dinosaur monsters, Schindler as (at the film’s beginning) the cynical-profiteering and opportunistic parental figure, and the ghetto Jews as threatened children (their infantilization in the film is eye-striking) – the story the film tells is about Schindler’s gradual rediscovery of his paternal duty towards the Jews, and his transformation into a caring and responsible father. And is The War of the Worlds not the last installment of this saga? Tom Cruise plays a divorced working class father who neglects his two children; the invasion of the aliens reawakens in him the proper paternal instincts, and he rediscovers himself as a caring father – no wonder that, in last scene, he finally gets the recognition from his son who, throughout the film, despised him. In the mode of the 18th century stories, the film could thus also have been subtitled “A story on how a working father finally gets reconciled with his son”… One can effectively imagine the film WITHOUT the blood-thirsty aliens: what remains is in a way “what the film really is about,” the story of a divorced working-class father who strives to regain the respect of his two children. Therein resides the film’s ideology: with regard to the two levels of the story (the Oedipal level of the lost and regained paternal authority; the spectacular level of the conflict with the invading aliens), there is a clear dissymmetry, since the Oedipal level is what the story is “really about,” while the external spectacular is merely its metaphoric extension. There is a nice detail in the film’s soundtrack which makes clear the predominance of this Oedipal dimension: the alien’s attacks are accompanied by a terrifying one-note low-trombone sound weirdly resembling the low bass and trumpet sound of the Tibetan Buddhist chant, the voice of the suffering-dying evil father (in clear contrast to the “beautiful” five-tones melodic fragment that identifies the “good” aliens in Spielberg’s Encounters of the Third Kind).
Leaving aside the perverse Zizek (!) there are others who’ve made the in my judgment valid point that Schindler’s List in many ways ‘saves’ the figure of the ‘Christian’.
Zizek’s reading is interesting (if a bit absurd at times – it’s fine to see the bone as some sort of reverse-Oedipal signifier, but to imply that it was intended as such, and that there is thus an internal consistency/singularity in its use, is laughable). I’m not sure why it should be read as criticism, though, at least in the sense that that word has negative connotations. Other than his assertion that Schindler’s List is “worse” than Jurassic Park (a claim unsubstantiated) and the brief aside referring to the film’s “infantalization” of Jews, Zizek’s piece mostly just seems to open up new avenues of exploration in Spielberg’s work, and to discover threads of thematic consistency in the stories, neither of which would imply a negative viewpoint. Also, I’m not sure why Shcindler’s List “saving” the “Christian” is a point against it.
For the record, I think Spielberg IS one of his generation’s great directors, and should be taken on his own terms, not those of Scorsese or Coppola. I also think Schindler’s List is a flawed masterpiece, its flaws lying in the uneasy way entertainment (because even at his most “serious” Spielberg is a master entertainer) and horror – very, very real horror – co-exist. These flaws are, of course, also its strengths, in the sense that they add to its uneasiness, and hence its power. If nothing else, the film contains one of the most hypnotic and dreadful characters in the history of cinema: Goethe as portrayed by Ralph Fiennes.
For me The Godfather works tremendously well — as an opera, not as a film/Shakespearean interpretation per se. The incredible stylization, the fetishistic “funeral chic” of the film, the cult of the (male) gaze that would be campy were we not so thoroughly informed by and suffused with this film’s idiom, by its tremendous achievement as permanently relevant in the world of American, nay world, cinema — all of these would be disastrous if the aim had been to make a naturalistic film. In the world of opera, however, these elements work superbly, creating a spellbinding experience. (Coppola seems to have made the implicit explicit by the end of The Godfather III: the climax takes place in and around an opera performance, one where a Corleone is both performer and audience-member, not to mention that the (off-stage) action while the opera is occurring is being “directed” by a Corleone as well, itself not unlike a revenge opera).
superb comment here…
Kaleem, I disagree with you to about the two films being indistinguishable – though I do think they can be regarded as “one” film. Coppola’s style has notably matured beyond the first film – and no wonder. When he made 1, he was just a kid to whom the studio had handed the keys to the car. Though an Oscar-winning screenwriter, his directing legs were unproven and the property he was handling was far more valuable then he himself was. For a while, he (and Pacino) were on the verge of being fired. Only two years passed before 2 went into production, but his reputation had changed completely: now he was an established auteur whose vision was celebrated far and wide, and whom the studio respected enough to give carte blanche. This can’t help but have an effect on his confidence and experimentation. Plus, as you note the tone shifts from 1 to 2. 1 is a great film as well, as good or nearly as good as its sequel, but it’s also more continuous with the book and its pulp origins; it raises the story’s conventions to a new level, perhaps even transcends them, but Part II dispenses with them altogether.
Also, while the Don Vito passages are in the novel, Puzo’s book has no equivalent to the late 50s Pacino scenes, which are an invention of Coppola & Puzo for the screenplay. Indeed, these scenes, which take the film into a more consciously tragic and elegaic tone the novel would not have fit with the book’s texture at all. Hence, I have to regard the distinctions between these two films as notable: while they hold together remarkably well (certainly far more than the third film, though I like many things about it), they are hardly of a piece.
That’s fair Movieman though I didn’t mean to suggest that the films were indistinguishable on technical grounds, just that the transition from one to the other was seamless.
(I should also elaborate on how Coppola’s style differs from film to film: from its first moments, that long shot of the Sicilian plain with the titles rolling over it – which really has no equivalent in The Godfather, even in the Sicilian scenes; there are distanced shots but none so stark and dramatic; remember, this opens the movie – Part II is more “European;” more of an “art film” than Part I. This is not a question of value per se – both approaches have their merits – but it is a mark of how Coppola’s approach has shifted, and he feels more comfortable taking the mise en scene to a more stately, removed, elegaic level.)
excellent points Movieman..
and again my original comment does refer to the “changes in visual grammar”..
Movieman-I praise you. You and I seem to be cut from the same mold. If it wasn’t great enough to find a comrade in arms on APOCALYPSE NOW, I now find you and I share an affinity for Spielberg’s work and SCHINDLER’S LIST in particular. Yes I agree that he treads the water of seriousness by bouying the film with a somewhat “entertaining” quality. However, considering the final cut of the film, I see only tiny fractures of that floating to the top and dissolving before it even thinks to become a detriment. I was emotionally raped by that film on the first viewing and, although always a great admirer of his work, relished in the idea that I was able to bear witness as a terrific director graduated to GREAT director. I agree to some flaws in the film, but the merits and style far outway the little cracks in a larger sheet of glass.
Movieman: The point with respect to the figure of the ‘Christian’ in Schindler is that the film serves the ideological purpose of alleviating Christian guilt for the Holocaust and in fact centuries of Judeophobia.
I see. However, I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Needless to say, that was not Spielberg’s intention, and furthermore, if there are subconscious elements of apologia for gentiles, Christian in particular, that only makes the film a more fascinating document of Spielberg’s psyche (and by this I mean his psyche as an auteur, not as a human being, to the extent such a distinction should be made, i.e. when he straps on his artistic expression apparatus, he sees the world in a certain way – and the result may be a conflicted portrait of Judaism, which I think one could fairly say is present in the film.)
I also want to be careful about reading too many metaphors into a story which is, after all, true…we can of course ask why this particular story, and examine how Spielberg intercepts and relays the fact but ultimately there was a man named Schindler, he was a gentile, and he did save thousands of Jews.
True but this then runs the risk of becoming a redemption tale. The ending here is rather too ‘easy’ for the enormity of the subject before it. It is incidentally my view that Spielberg gives us the ‘canonical’ Holocaust which is to say the ‘images’ that we expect. There is nothing about this film that surprises one to any degree. You are certainly right about Schindler being an actual figure (Keneally’s book though is much sharper than the film.. it is also not the ‘epic’ Spielberg makes out of it). But the choice of subject is never neutral. One gets implicated into a whole set of political responses when one engages with such a subject and the question is: why did Spielberg choose a story that is as much about Christian redemption as about the Holocaust? Schindler is not the only such Christian of course. There were others, nameless and faceless, who did their bit. It is certainly not invalid to make a film about these ‘saviors’. But why is the most powerful director in Hollywood making an epic about this specific angle? Isn’t it in some ways commercially the easier film to make? It doesn’t offend anybody! Actually I think Spielberg made the riskier film with Munich and sure enough it created a reasonable bit of controversy.
Kaleem,
I am inclined to believe that Spielberg made the choices he did for personal reasons rather more than consciously commercial ones – however, with him the two are inextricably bound, as Hollywood films and filmmaking styles were practically his religion growing up and – even more importantly – he was granted immediate, and virtually unprecedented/unimitated – admittance into the American film industry as a very young man. In other words, the mainstream of American cinema is his lifeblood, and not in the same subversive, overheated way as it is for Scorsese, who glories in the cracks and fissures in the system as much as anything.
Anyway, I both agree and disagree with your assessment of the movie. Putting aside the issue that you seem to think its flaws irredeemably cripple it, while I tend to regard them as troubling but fascinating aspects of the work, what exactly ARE the flaws? For you, they seem to be primarily issues of text and theme; I would say that while I recognize those aspects, for me they are matters more of mise en scene and form: how Spielberg directs the performances, how he controls the camera movements and cuts, how he lights and photographs, how he glamorizes the horror (and above all, how he SHOWS it, with the violence foregrounded and dramatized unlike in, say, The Pianist) which are most troubling – but also signs of the film’s greatness.
At any rate, it is quite certainly a movie while worth talking about, isn’t it?
Also, Dear Movieman… I could not agree with you more about the odiousness of the performance given by Ralph Fiennes. As Amon Goethe, Fiennes reaches deep down into his bag of personalities to find a brainless and sadistic monster of unparalleled proportions. To play evil is one thing, to make it look commonplace in a characters everyday rituals (the scene where he shoots jews with a shot-gun from the terrace of his house as he has his morning coffee is the best example) is another thing entirely. Fiennes embued the character with such a sense of self-congradulatory back-patting, that one fully understands the psychotic delusionings the Nazis were under. Killing people was a right, and expected. If he killed 20 Monday and 30 Tuesday, then Tuesday was a better day. And Tommy Lee Jones took the Oscar for THE FUGITIVE. Laughable.
Dennis, what fascinates me most about Goethe is not his odiousness, which is to be expected, but his humanity. Fiennes allows us to see the person in the monster, which only makes him more monstrous. The fact that at times he can complain about bureaucracy, that he can shoot the shit with Schindler, that he can fall in love with his Jewish maid, that he can show uncertainty in front of a mirror, even experiment with mercy, all of this makes the fact that he is a bloodthirsty savage and a ruthless abuser (and lover – like Schindler, incidentally) of power all the more disturbing. His relationship with Schindler is the central source of ambiguity in the movie, and hence its most fascinating aspect – in a weird way, we sense Spielberg – one of the most powerful and shrewd men in the world – relates to Schindler, playing these power games and strategizing, far more than he does to the generally anonymous and cliched Jewish prisoners. Hence the uneasy discrepancy between the brutal violence of the Holocaust scenes and the seductive glamor of the Schindler storytelling, partly intentional, partly inevitable – a discrepancy which is also a source of art-birthing frission.
Movie Man, my pal, while I agree with you on the humanity of Goethe’s character, never allow it to be thought that his humanity is not walking a tight wire between empathy and pure psychosis. What makes his character so frightening (and thus represented Naziism to it’s nth degree) is that at any given moment he can trade said empathy for the pull of a trigger. As I stated in th eprior commentary, these are dellusional people believing in a Gog-given right, believeing if they do what God does enough times they become as God is. Goethe is an animal, make no mistake about this, and even his love for Helen Hirsche would have resulted in her death should his empathy for her reach consumated affections….I can’t believe this thread off with one of the greatest films of the 1970’s and has totally, bombatically segued into one of th egreatest films of the 90’s. Movie man, you are like an addicting drug. LOL.
Sorry to be pedantic guys, but Goethe was the greatest German literary giant. Goeth (or Göth) was a Nazi psychopath. Drop the E at the end if you please.
You know I read that today and thought something wasn’t quite right about the name. I didn’t recall ‘Goethe’ in the film but then I thought I’d just forgotten. yes of course it was Goeth. I am so glad it wasn’t Goethe!
Hmmm, I questioned myself for a moment but when others took up the same spelling (probably at my ill-advised behest, lol) I accepting my misspelling. Although I thought perhaps I was missing an “R” rather than adding an “E”…
While Kaleem, Movie Man and Dennis have taken this thread to stimulating analytical heights today, I must insure that THIS comment by the scholar Qalandar (PLEASE click on his site on our blogroll to see what a wonderful mind is on display!) is not forgotten. Here is it again, with my response:
on July 21, 2009 at 5:51 pm | Reply Qalandar
“For me The Godfather works tremendously well — as an opera, not as a film/Shakespearean interpretation per se. The incredible stylization, the fetishistic “funeral chic” of the film, the cult of the (male) gaze that would be campy were we not so thoroughly informed by and suffused with this film’s idiom, by its tremendous achievement as permanently relevant in the world of American, nay world, cinema — all of these would be disastrous if the aim had been to make a naturalistic film. In the world of opera, however, these elements work superbly, creating a spellbinding experience. (Coppola seems to have made the implicit explicit by the end of The Godfather III: the climax takes place in and around an opera performance, one where a Corleone is both performer and audience-member, not to mention that the (off-stage) action while the opera is occurring is being “directed” by a Corleone as well, itself not unlike a revenge opera).”
I buy into this big time! Coppola is a huge opera fan, and this undercurrent has indeed run through all three GODFATHER films. In GODFATHER 3, which is NOT as negligable as some think (Movie Man recognizes this) he used Mascagni’s Intermezzo from “Caveleria Rusticanna” to great effect, as well as the obvious setting of the opera house. (mentioned here by Qalandar) There is an operatic sweep to all the big violent scenes, and there is an abstract visual element at play here that invokes intense passions, which are more subdued in any rational Shakespeare adaptation, where there is more of a literary connotation to character. That’s not to dismiss the parallels brought to the table here, but to rather accentuate the more compelling proposal.
Coppola’s love of opera again surfaced most compellingly in TETRO, which was just released.
Sam, I can no longer consider Godfather III on the same general level as the other two films, a fact I once labored to convinced myself of, but its ending is the most powerful moment in all three movies, the logical culmination of the epic cross-generational saga, and indeed one of the most emotionally devastating passages in all of cinema.
Movie Man, I never have considered GODFATHER III remotely on the level of its illustrious predecessors, but I think it is far better than the dire assessment it has received from a number of people. And I can’t agree with you more about your definitive praise for its final, shattering sequence! It is one of cinema’s most emotional moments. Give much of the credit though to Mascagni. Without the poignancy of one of Western music’s most sublime compositions, it wouldn’t have been a quarter as effective.
To Mascagni and, yet again, to Murch who – if I’m not mistaken – felt that the sound should be cut out from under Pacino’s scream.
To Mascagni and, yet again, to Murch who – if I’m not mistaken – felt that the sound should be cut out from under Pacino’s scream. (To be honest, I find that moment of silence even more powerful than the Mascagni music which follows, undeniably transcendant in itself – the two together are unsurmountable).
OK Movie Man fair enough. That is a very indisputable point, even though the power of the music made its mark before that speechless sequence. But, your argument that both work hand in hand is the ultimate assessment.
It’s ironic too that Sophia Coppola who gave a very amateurish performance in the film should be the recipient of such intense grief.
Yes it is!
I concur with MovieMan and Sam on Godfather III.
MovieMan, on your Schindler point to be honest I quite like the film. The problems (I prefer this word to ‘flaws’ for this film) as I see them I leave as open questions. But I am not necessarily dogmatic about this one.
Sorry for misreading you – or do you mean that you “like” it subjectively, i.e. enjoy it, but feel it is not a great movie?
The movie has many strengths. I don’t think one can simply be dismissive of the movie. Perverse as the word might sound here I think it’s a ‘seductive’ piece of cinema. ‘Horror’ of course can be so. So yes I do I find it compelling but I think there is nothing surprising that emerges from the film as one digs deeper. My view always is that no matter what the subject in question there must be insight a work provides (if a serious subject is being attempted). Otherwise we are in the realm of the predictable. What does one get out of Schindler’s List on the subject that one didn’t already know? Unless one thought every German Gentile personally responsible for the Holocaust and was surprised to discovered a man named Schindler!
Here’s a flame-thrower of a piece that also discusses Schindler:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul/24/worst-best-films-ever-made/print
The first sentence sums up the author’s supreme arrogance and irrationality..
‘Turgid, lazy mess of half-realised conceits’
Yes, sir, your writing is just that. Sadly, he’ll go a long way…they love people who slag off ancient stuff as boring. Get back to Vin Diesel and do the world a favour.