I had obviously heard a lot about The Godfather even before watching it as a kid – and had chalked it up as a really violent movie. So imagine my dismay when I finally saw the movie and found out it was more drama than action.
It took years of repeated viewings to reveal the layers over the true and ghastly core of the movie. Today, it is one of my favourite movies despite its dark content, and I have watched it repeatedly, sometimes twice a year.
Today on 24 March, The Godfather turns 50 and recently saw a widespread release in theatres to mark the anniversary. Unlike what you might think, The Godfather is not an art-house movie. It was released to widespread acclaim and huge crowds when it hit theatres for the first time in 1972.
The film brought to the fore the ugly side of Italian-American life in the US and its nefarious connection to the mafia. It is also a film on the so-called five mafia families of New York. Based on a bestselling but often sleazy book by author Mario Puzo, a relatively unknown Francis Ford Coppola directed the movie with élan and panache. Coppola co-wrote the screenplay along with Puzo.
Paramount Pictures had bought the novel and dealt with many directors before zooming in on Coppola, who had, in 1970, co-written Patton, and was a rising star in Hollywood. The Godfather cemented Coppola’s reputation as a director and major figure of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement. Paramount also brought in Coppola to direct the movie because of his Italian ancestry, and he was deemed to have a feel for the book. [Fun fact: In 1987, 15 years after The Godfather was released, Mani Ratnam made his masterpiece Nayakan, which was heavily influenced by the Hollywood movie.]
The Godfather was the highest-grossing film of 1972, and for a while, was the highest-grossing film ever made, earning almost $300 million at the box office.
The movie opens with an over 20-minute long wedding sequence in which Vito Corleone, the head of the Corleone family, gets his daughter married. Vito Corleone is played by Marlon Brando with superb authority and swagger. As a Sicilian, Corleone cannot say no to favours asked on the day of his daughter's wedding, and is seen in a movie dealing with an undertaker and a baker, both of whom ask him for illegal favours. The movie begins with the famous line, "I believe in America," and an extended and agonizingly slow zoom out from the undertaker’s face to Corleone’s shoulder.
The first hint of onscreen violence is purely over the top, and occurs when a Hollywood mogul’s prized stallion Khartoum is beheaded and put on the big shot’s bed for refusing to grant a part to Corleone’s godson, Johnny Fontane [an adequate Al Martino] in a major movie.
Post-war America and the emergence of the corporate culture is the background against which both the movie and the book are set.
A host of A-list actors deliver powerhouse performances in the movie, and they include Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, Vito’s youngest son; the intense and terrific James Caan as Sonny, Vito’s oldest and temperamental son; Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen as ‘consigliere’ to the Corleone family; veteran actor Sterling Hayden as Captain McCluskey; Talia Shire as Connie, Vito’s only daughter; and Diane Keaton as Kay Adams, Michael’s girlfriend and, later, wife.
The plot begins in earnest only when Sollozzo aka The Turk, who has a sordid reputation with the knife, approaches Don Corleone as a possible partner to sell narcotics in exchange for finance, legal protection, and political backing. But when the Don spurns him, Sollozzo has him shot in the sequence in which editors William Reynolds and Peter Zinner flex their muscles. However, Vito Corleone survives the attack. His oldest son Sonny get command of the family, and goes to war with the Tattaglias, another crime family, for backing Sollozzo. When Sonny is brutally shot and killed in a machine-gun attack, Michael, who seems to be the smartest in the family, takes over and attempts to fish out the betrayer. The film ends in the famous baptism sequence, in which Michael wipes out his enemies and establishes himself as the Don.
It is a great plot, and Coppola does a great job with the screenplay, cutting down on the sleazy bits in the early part of the book, and establishing an outstanding rhythm with Puzo’s help. The film received Oscars for best direction, best-adapted screenplay and best actor [Brando]. The film transcended expectations, especially in the gangster genre, and single-handedly revived Brando’s flailing career.
I have always thought that The Godfather, for all its prominence, was unfair to the women in the movie, and by extension, the women in the audience.
Not only are actors like Diane Keaton, a major star when the film was made, reduced to playing bit parts, but they are also not credited with enough intelligence in supporting the men in their lives. It is even more ridiculous that critics have over the years ignored this gaping lacuna in the movie. The film ends in a depressing fashion when Michael clearly keeps his wife out of his business even as he is, quite excitingly, adorned Don.
The Godfather Part II, as it was so stately called, was soon developed by Paramount, with much of the crew and cast returning. It became the first sequel to win the Oscar for best picture. Some critics even consider this movie to be superior to its predecessor. Unlike the first part, this movie is only partly based on the book, and Coppola was given more creative control in the final product.
The second part serves as both a prequel and sequel to the original, and Coppola was keen to show both the rise of Vito in Sicily and the fall of his son Michael in America. The movie shows the aftermath of an assassination attempt on Michael, even as Vito enters a life of crime. Robert De Niro plays the young Vito Corleone.
The Godfather Part III is the only movie in the trilogy to focus on the morals involved in a life of crime. Andy Garcia joins the cast as Sonny’s illegitimate son, Vincent, with his father’s famous temper. Many people could not digest the scene in which Michael attempts to confess his sins, but this critic found the sequence quite memorable and brilliantly enacted. The movie did not do well, mostly because it was made and released after a gap of nearly 16 years owing to Coppola’s insistence on leaving the franchise alone after the second movie.
Gordon Willis's cinematography might yet be the most subtle part of the films. His work is common to all three parts of the trilogy. One of the most influential cinematographers in American history, Willis, portrays the 1970s as a time of great moral conflict, only to tone down that trope stark nature for the final part.
The music by Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola [Francis’s father] is lilting and haunting. When Michael learns of his father’s assassination attempt, the music turns brilliantly ominous.
The trilogy, taken as a whole, is a testament is a great filmmaking. Even as I acknowledge that both Brando and De Niro are great actors, the film is really the story of Michael Corleone, as played with devastating impact by Al Pacino, and his epic fall from grace. It is a story of a man who is torn between the love of his family, his addiction to power, and how much he sabotages himself because of his inherent need to stay ahead. Seldom are stories better told. The movies have aged gracefully. This year offers a special occasion to re-watch them.
Nandhu Sundaram is a freelance journalist based in Chennai. He loves the movies, reads avidly, and writes as prolifically as he possibly can. He tweets at @nandhu_hack
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