Posted on 09/24/2008 9:39:24 AM PDT by Borges
The “Godfather” films remain the 20th-century answer to Shakespeare’s plays of royal succession, with the twist that here Prince Hal grows up, not into Henry V, but Richard III.
Watching the first film, you are struck again by how little screen time Marlon Brando actually occupies. Most of his work is done in the 20-minute opening sequence, as the Godfather sits in his study, receiving supplicants on the day of his daughter’s wedding. This is a piece of superbly efficient expository writing, setting out an exotic milieu, describing its rules and moral configuration, and establishing the larger-than-life figure who presides over and protects it.
Like another venerated American epic, “Gone With the Wind,” the first “Godfather” film is essentially a study in vanishing feudalism: the old, aristocratic masters who made their empires out of sweat and blood are fading into the background, to be replaced by the middle-class, mercantile interests represented in “Gone With the Wind” by the blockade runner Rhett Butler and in the first “Godfather” by the drug-dealing upstart Sollozzo.
Part II takes place in a more modern world, where capitalism is king, and it is difficult to tell where gangsterism leaves off, and normal business procedures begin. The action shifts to a global scale, as the Corleones conquer Nevada and, very nearly, Cuba — and Mr. Coppola rises to the occasion with a sense of physical scale and epic conflict that no amount of computer-generated-imagery enhancement has yet been able to reproduce.
At the center of it all, of course, remains the family drama. In an increasingly rootless country American audiences envied the Corleones for their powerful sense of ethnic and family identity, the privilege of belonging to an extended, self-reliant and self-protecting group.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The only way to deal with the 1983 Scarface is as an over-the-top, campy comedy.
Sophia Coppola was a default choice.
I agree with your assessment of her acting ability.
She was unbelieveable as Andy Garcia's love interest and as Michael Corleone's daughter.
Thank you for that.
Waaaaaaayy better than the Da Vinci Code and a true mystery.
I agree, again with your assessment; there was something about the Hagen character, and Duvall's appearance in this masterpiece that imbued it with the sense that we were seeing a real history of those times.
I just couldn’t remember who the guy in Sopranos was... now I remember it was Sal, right? The guy played by Steve Vanzant, guitar player for Springsteen’s E Street Band.
Sopranos really rocked. I didn’t get into it until late, but if the Godfather is the best movie of all time, I think the Sopranos is one of the best TV shows of all time. The character study really continued what the GF started, in terms of showing how the American consumer culture impacts an insular, almost tribal culture or subculture within it.
I know the Italians get angry that they are so often portrayed as gangsters, but the story is really that of the assimilation of the italian immigrant class of the early 20th century. It just so happens that the gangsters are the most riveting to watch dramas about.
Well, since she was the baby in Godfather I, I can see how that decision was made... it added a lot of continuity, but in the end it was a sentimental decision, unnecessary from a dramatic point of view, and shouldn’t have happened.
And... btw, cousins getting together is not clearly incest. It would be better between second cousins, but in many cultures cousins marry all the time.
Not so, he was also great in Scarface - another legendary movie character. He's also been really good in lots of other movies. Good actor. Not one of the all time greats, but very, very good, with some truly great moments. I like DeNiro better overall. DeNiro has more range. I love him in Meet the Parents. You're so used to him being a heavy dramatic actor that when he busts into comedy you are a little taken aback, but it works, it really does. I hate to say it because he's such a freak and an ahole, but Nicholson is probably the best actor of his generation. Never typecast, he's played about every type I could think of and made most all of them work. Hoffmann is also near the top of his class, but I'd say he isn't as gifted and wide-ranging as Jack. What a waste of talent.
I don’t think Goodfellas was a very good movie. It started off really well, and the time shift with the body in the trunk and then how it got there was brilliant, and the story of that real life guy was fascinating, but the movie itself dragged. At least Joe Pesci got whacked.
I always thought Duvall’s was the best performance out of all of the actors in The Godfather.
I agree, if they had cut about 30 minutes or so out of Goodfellas it would have been a lot better; I think this is the case with almost EVERY Scorcese movie.
I disagree on Nicholson.
I do agree that he's a great actor, BUT he has basically played the same character in just about every movie he's ever been in. I think he basically plays himself and his characters have aged as he has.
Exactly! Of course I could say the same about DeNiro. Duvall has played roles where if you didn't see the credits, you wouldn't have known it was him.
Duvall had two of the greatest scenes ever filmed and they came near the end of each movie:
Godfather I: When he told Tessio that he couldn’t “get him off the hook.”
Godfather II: When he tells Frank Pentangeli to commit suicide.
Both of these scenes demonstrate that Hagen is every bit as ruthless as Michael even though he is not personally threatening. His scenes with Jack Woltz are also great, because he pays attention to everything and keys in on the one thing that Woltz truly cares about, his horse.
He sure had some classic lines though, ones I repeat to this day... “Say ‘ello to mye lee’el frien’”, “Djew wahn fargh we’ me? Hokay.”, etc.
I think DeNiro has more depth than Nicholson, he’s certainly typecast, but he does break from it sometimes.
Compare “Carnal Knowledge” to “As Good As It Gets” and you will see the same self-centered misogynist with a 25 year age difference. You could slide “Terms of Endearment” in the middle and you still have the same guy.
To me, the main problem with “Scarface,” aside from being totally unrealistic, is that DePalma doesn’t understand the difference between mob violence and gore.
I also remember in the beginning of the movie his reaction when he discovers Sonny engaged in flagrante delicti with a member of the wedding party.
Well, you've got a point there. He is typecast, it's just a rather unusual type. He would have made a good Charles Manson.
"Can't do it, Sally."
Got to love Robert Duvall!
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