When Director Francis Ford Coppola and Novelist Mario Puzo collaborated on the original *GODFATHER, Puzo wanted to film the story chronologically, with the sweep of an epic; Coppola preferred to write a screenplay which allowed cinematic flexibility. They compromised. They drew from Puzo's scenario a much more immediate story. (Puzo claimed that his main interest in writing the novel had been his research on The Mafia in Sicily.)
When they came back to the scenario, after The GODFATHER (1972) became as much a sensation as the novel, Puzo still wanted the chronological approach, and Coppola was somewhat more amenable. Out of these tensions, as filmed and edited, came a miracle: THE GODFATHER II (1974) -- another masterpiece.
The intercut, brokenbacked epic paralleling the lives of young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) and Son Michael (Al Pacino) seemed just right to both critics and public alike. Although I have reservations about the awkwardness of some of the flashbacks to early 20th Century Sicily and New York's Little Italy, I also agree it is a masterpiece, the keystone of an edifice: one of the few successful motion picture trilogies.
As noted in my previous review of THE GODFATHER, this film, like others in the trilogy, follows a similar pattern. Briefly: 1) ceremony, celebration, business; 2) a threat to the Corleones, leading eventually to the death of a principal; 3) an attack on the Godfather which requires him temporarily to relinquish power; 4) an expansion of Corleone influence; 5) a second religious ceremony and a bloodbath insuring a continuation of the Institution of the Godfather. (In repeating the pattern, Coppola is in his beloved Sir James Frazer's territory. We require a chieftain, a king, a president, a leader; then the leader is tested. When the leader is dead, we must have a new leader -- all to extend the power of the family, the tribe, the clan, the state and now, the multi-national.) In THE GODFATHER II, however, the main schema is shadowed by a smaller-scaled subplot of the forging of The Family by Vito Corleone.
Near the middle of THE GODFATHER, a disillusioned Kay (Diane Keaton) is suddenly courted by a sobered Michael Corleone, after a year of family business, and mourning the death of his Sicilian Bride. He tells her that he is working for his father, Vito. Kay is puzzled, asking Michael, didn't he want to avoid that? He tells her, his father is no different than any other powerful man, "a Senator or a President."
She protests such foolishness: "Michael, a Senator or a President doesn't have men killed."
"Oh, Kay," he replies, knowing now The Corleone Family State Secrets, "who is being naive now?"
However, he assures her that the Corleones will be legitimate in five years time.
At the End of Part II, Michael Corleone is far from legitimate and he has lost his soul, but he is virtually unopposed, not just in New York or Las Vegas, but in America. As he suggests to Conciliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), "If History has taught us anything, it is that we can kill ANYONE." By that, he means not just a mob leader, but even President John F. Kennedy, whose assassination is two years away.
We promised you a party, but we must have some other assassinations first, for the film begins in 1902, with the funeral procession for Vito's murdered father, followed by the assassination of his brother, then the shotgunning of his mother, who has tried to avenge her husband and save her remaining son. Vito (De Niro) succeeds in escaping to America.
Now, we have the party, in the bright Alpine light of Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada side. The occasion is the confirmation of Michael's son John. Unlike the relatively homey wedding which began THE GODFATHER, here a professional dance team tangos with a full orchestra on the Lakeside stage of a large belvedere. Familiar guests such as Momma (Morgana King), Brother Fredo (John Cazale) and Sister Connie (Talia Shire) are in attendance; and new faces: Inheritor of the New York business Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo) and Connie's latest boyfriend (Troy Donahue). Michael Corleone has just given a large charitable cheque to Senator Geary of Nevada (G. D. Spradlin). Between festive moments, business must be taken care of.
Fredo is habitually unhappy about his lack of control in the Family; Connie needs travel money and a blessing for her lover; the arrogant Senator Geary doesn't want to sign off on a Nevada Casino Deal; and Frank Pentangeli is enraged by the lack of respect he receives from the minions of Eastern Mob Leader Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg). Michael handles these business items, and others, with the charm of a diplomat.
Roth is the hand behind most of Corleone Family problems, and when the compound is attacked by hitmen that night, Michael immediately suspects a move by the Roth forces. He visits Roth and Pentangeli, making a deal with each to cooperate on a plan to expand casinos and prostitution in Cuba, but shortly, Pentangeli is attacked in a bar the same way Luca Brasi was in THE GODFATHER, with a garotte. (Watch for Danny Aiello doing the deed.) The old don, however, is spared by chance, and thinking he has been double crossed by Michael, enters a witness protection program.
Meanwhile, as the plans go forward for a conference of the most powerful business interests in North America, legitimate and otherwise, Senator Geary is found, or more likely, lured into a messy situation in a brothel, and from that moment he is in the pocket of the Corleones. He proves of use when the Family is investigated by the U.S. Senate.
A rising theme is that Michael comes to believe Fredo betrayed the Family to Hyman Roth; and cut into the main plot, by flashback, is the story of how young Vito Corleone was drawn into Crime because of his desire to protect his family and friends, and because his talents for diplomacy and murder were also useful.
Toward end of the film, the gang wars are reflected in Castro's Overthrow of Bautista in Havana during late 1959, and by the corruption of the U.S. Senatorial Process.
Avoiding the Federal noose, having lain low after a narrow escape in Havana, Michael feels he has carte blanche to order the Assassination of Hyman Roth upon his return to New York, thereby consolidating his power over the Gangs of America.
Following the funeral of their Mother, Michael deals with Fredo, whom he confirmed in Cuba had helped the Roth hitmen carry out their attack on his family at Tahoe.
At the same time, he is surprised, shocked and enraged when Kay tells him that the child she lost while he was in Cuba was a son, and that she had had an abortion. Their marriage is over.
These latter events kill Michael's spirit because, unlike Vito, who was an innocent, and sought power to protect his family and friends, Michael is an intellectual who sacrificed his family and friends to extend and preserve his influence over America. This steady commission of mortal sins undermines him in ways we can judge only in the final episode: *THE GODFATHER III.
The same team who worked on THE GODFATHER handle the photography and editing, and Walter Murch's manipulation of sound is one of the great achievements of technology and art in the 1970's
Once again Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola provide music, songs and musical theater, some of it carried over from the earlier film, and some of it new, such as "Sensa Mama," the Italian vaudeville sketch early on, the Latin Dance Extravaganza in Havana, and the chill dirge on the waters of Tahoe, as Michael watches the sunset and listens for the shot that will end Fredo's life.
The returning cast and the new players are perfect. I can't think of anything in their performances I would change. Lee Strasberg, founder of the famous Actors Studio, should be singled out for a beautifully modulated performance, as complacently middle class and as ravenously sinister as any big businessman who gets the bit in his teeth. Based on the real life Treasurer for the Mob, Meyer Lansky.
Al Pacino expands upon the complexly warm and brutal portrait of Michael Corleone he established in THE GODFATHER. By the end of THE GODFATHER III, Pacino has completed one of the seminal performances in American movies. Robert De Niro, working in Pacino's shadow as young Vito, does the best he can, which is very good, indeed.
My one complaint is that I find a few of the transitions confusing, some of the flashbacks to the subplot awkward, and after the scene in which Tom Hagen tells Michael of Kay's supposed miscarriage, I judge the placement of the flashback arbitrary, as if the desperate editors said, we have to get this stuff in somewhere.
A small cavil, from a small critic.
THE GODFATHER II is the climax of an American success story we don't want to acknowledge but can't help watching.
Next there must be the Denouement: THE GODFATHER III (The Opera)!
I promise you a surprise.
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*For those who would like to read Macresarf1's Epinions of some of the films mentioned above, go to the following URL's:
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