You come here and do this review on this day, my daughters wedding: The Godfather Review

The Godfather (1972)

Dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Starring Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Caan & Robert Duvall

Ranked #2 in AFI top 100 films

 

 

 

 

” Don Corleone, I thank you for allowing me to come on this, the day of your daughters wedding.”

Here is a quiz.  What do Film students, cinephiles, critics and gangster rappers all have in common?  Scarface?  Wrong answer.  It would be the number 2 ranked film in AFI’s top 100 movies of all time and the film that saved Francis Ford Coppola career at the same time.

I’m not going to bore anyone with a complete retelling of the gist of the story because honestly, if you haven’t seen this movie then you are not a fan of not just American film but film as a whole.

What makes this film work and makes it almost a perfect film is the way that the film and it’s characters are portrayed.  This film is told in a completely closed world where we are allowed to sympathize with people that are for all intents and purposes evil.  We are invited to consider the Mafia in it’s own terms.

With in this small group of individuals we feel the greatest sympathy for Don Corleone, head of the NY families and life long criminal who comes off as an admirable and noble character where we can find no fault or disapproval in what he stands for or disapproves of.  He is the moral epicenter of this film.  He provides old world thinking where the mafia has no place for drugs as that’s a “dirty business”, and yet while the other five families structure themselves and position themselves for that power and money that will come from controlling the drug trade, Vito stands tough.  That’s why his death is a gigantic blow to the morality of the film.  It’s as if when he died, a giant died as well.

What makes this film stand the test of time is that we are privy to the inner workings of the Mafia, the secret society and how it works.  We are given access to its honor code and system and are never shown nor see any civilians becoming victims of its business practices.  No single mothers forced into prostitution, killed for debts it owes the family or shopkeepers shaken down for protection money.  We never see the law enforcement constantly causing problems for the family.

My one problem with how the film works comes in the character of Michael Corleone, the youngest son and heir apparent to the family’s throne.  He tries to come across as someone who wants no doing with the family business nor wanting to become the man his father was or is.  However, with in the opening scene, he becomes a braggart.  He sits there and boasts about his father, the power he has and the people he has in his pocket.  He does this with a deft smile on his face because he knows as we know that he is his father.

The other aspect is the use, or should I say the almost nonexistence of women in this film.  While this plays on the old world of tradition when it comes to The Mafia and the lack of women in power, the old saying is that behind each great man is an even greater woman.  Yet Vito’s wife is just a large Sicilian shadow, Sonny uses and then tosses them away and Connie is so disregarded that even her husband, married into the family is never allowed to participate in the family business.

This movie is still a favorite among mine.  The stories of the making of The Godfather are even more legendary than the movie itself.  The writing is amazing with small nuances that follow no standard formula but yet propel the film from scene to scene.  The music, sorrowful and sad is placed well that it only exists as background to what happens on film and yet when played is automatically known and recognized.

This may be one of the most perfect films ever made.  There were gangster films before it, many after it.  It is quoted, imitated and yet nothing can ever come close to this film.

4.5/5 stars.

James Falcon