Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 classic, The Godfather, is to gangster films what Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments is to super spectaculars.
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I remember watching one of those cable TV documentaries a few years back about gangsters and the narrator remarking that by the early seventies real-life Mafiosi had lost touch with any sense of pride in their dubious heritage. Then "The Godfather" came along, and many of the younger crowd of hoods began imitating what they saw on the screen. You don´t think the "Dapper Don" just happened, do you? The clothing, the style, even some of the talk was copied from the movie. Art imitating life and, in return, life imitating art. The circle goes round and round.
Francis Ford Coppola´s 1972 classic, "The Godfather," is to gangster films what Cecil B. DeMille´s "The Ten Commandments" is to super spectaculars. It´s among the grandest of the lot in scope and vision, a film eclipsed in this regard only by Coppola´s own 1974 sequel, "The Godfather, Part II." Yet "The Godfather" tells a uniquely personal story that places it in a league of its own. It´s no wonder, then, that the American Film Institute voted it their third best American film in history or that it is sometimes even considered THE best, as "Entertainment Weekly" praised it in their book, "The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time." It would be over a dozen years before Coppola attempted a third installment in the series with 1990´s "The Godfather, Part III," which didn´t quite live up to expectations but turned out to be a pretty good movie, anyway. Why the "Godfather" films (or "Citizen Kane" for that matter) had to wait so long to see the light of silver disc is anybody´s guess, but here they are, "Godfathers I, II, and III," looking better than we´ve ever seen them before in the home, packaged together in a grand, five-disc boxed set that also includes a whole mob of extra materials. "The Godfather Collection" is a little pricey, but it´s required viewing for motion-picture buffs, gangster-movie buffs, home-theater buffs, and just about anybody else who values good filmmaking.
"The Godfather," as you know, actually chronicles the life and times of two fictional godfathers of crime, Don Vito (Marlon Brando), the old man and patriarch of the Corleone family, and his son Michael (Al Pacino), who eventually inherits the mantle of Boss. Based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo, the story begins in 1945, at the close of the Second World War, at the wedding of the old Don´s daughter, Connie (Talia Shire). Coppola has a wonderful eye for detail, and the wedding reception is as good an introduction as any to the big Sicilian family that would dominate all three "Godfather" films. But it´s when Coppola takes us into the Corleone home during the festivities that we get to see what´s really up; the family may be in the midst of celebration, but business goes on as usual as supplicants come to do homage to the powerful Don and ask favors of him. We´re also introduced here to son Michael, a returning War hero; his fiancee, Kay (Diane Keaton); his older, stormier brother, Sonny (James Caan); and his other, weaker brother, Fredo (John Cazale); along with family associates Clemenza (Richard Castellano), Tessio (Abe Vigoda), Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana), and consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall). Plus, we meet Al Martino as pop singer Johnny Fontaine (supposedly patterned after Frank Sinatra) and Richard Conte as a powerful rival, Don Barzini. Later, we meet Sterling Hayden as a crooked cop named McCluskey; John Marley as a Hollywood mogul, Jack Woltz; and Al Lettieri as a ruthless henchman, Sollozzo.
Interestingly, it´s been said that in order for the first "Godfather" film to be made in New York, Coppola had to agree not to use the words "Mafia" or "Cosa Nostra" anywhere in it. Otherwise, there may have been some interference with the production by the New York "families." Apparently, the mob liked what they eventually saw. Coppola initially wanted Sir Laurence Olivier to play Don Vito Corleone, but novelist Puzo wanted Brando, and Brando won out, thanks to his own eager desire to play the role and despite Paramount´s less-than-enthusiastic appraisal of the idea. Brando later said he tried to imitate gangster Frank Costello´s voice in the movie, but he had to redub some of his dialogue because it was so hard to understand. The film eventually won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Screenplay Adaptation.
Thanks to the enormous success of "The Godfather," Paramount gave Coppola more money and a freer hand in directing the sequel, "The Godfather, Part II." Using a broader canvas, Coppola provides not one but two stories in the longest of the three "Godfather" movies. Not only do we get to see Michael´s consolidation of strength as new head of the Mob family, we get to see how it all started in flashbacks to a young Vito Corleone´s rise from poverty to power during the early part of the twentieth century. For me, these are the best parts of the picture, providing an epic landscape of events and an exquisite tapestry of characterizations.
Everyone assumed Brando would again star in the sequel, but he said he had done the first film as a social comment on American corporate power and had no interest in doing another. The fact that Paramount still didn´t want much to do with the tempestuous Brando probably added to his turning down the role. So, Coppola worked around him, filming the few scenes in which the older Don Corleone is supposed to be present with the Don out of the room! Fortunately, the rest of the cast was to shine with even greater brilliance. Actor´s Studio director and "method" advocate Lee Strasberg made his screen debut as Hyman Roth, the money man of the mob families, a part patterned on real-life gangster Meyer Lansky. And, of course, Robert De Niro was tapped to play the younger Don Vito, a milestone in the actor´s career. This second film garnered twice the Academy Awards of its predecessor, again for Best Picture, and this time also for Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (De Niro), Best Screenplay, Best Score, and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. By the way, if the Corleone estate at Lake Tahoe looks impressive, it should be; it was the property of former industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.
By the time "The Godfather, Part III" was released in 1990, public interest in gangster films was beginning to wane. In any case, the movie fell short of its progenitors in critical appraisal and box-office receipts. Reviews of the day tended to point fingers at Coppola´s decision to cast his own daughter, Sofia, in the major role of the Pacino character´s daughter. Ms. Coppola had done little or no acting in films previously and was thought by many critics to detract from the overall high standards of the production. Frankly, I don´t think many people among the general public even noticed her lack of theatrical experience, and, in fact, she carries off her part with a sweet naiveté that is fully in accord with her film character. No, I rather suspect that the third film´s lackluster performance can be attributed more to the fact that it´s overly complicated and hard to follow and that most of the Corleone family we had come to know (and dare I say "love"?) had been killed off or disappeared by this time. After all, Brando was gone and De Niro and Robert Duvall and James Caan and Richard Castellano. Only Pacino, Shire, and Keaton were still in evidence, looking much older and more careworn than in the earlier pictures. Nevertheless, the introduction of Sonny´s hotheaded son, Vincent (Andy Garcia), is inspired, and the movie has a polished grandeur about it that´s hard to deny, especially in the famous closing moments during Coppola´s poetic intercuts between opera hall and murder plot. "The Godfather, Part III" was nominated for seven Academy Awards but won none. The nominations were for Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Andy Garcia), Cinematography (Gordon Willis), Song (Carmine Coppola, music, and John Bettis, lyrics), Art Direction, and Film Editing.
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