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| Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) finds it hard to live in the shadow of his late father, Vito (Robert DeNiro). |
Release Date: Dec. 12, 1974. Running Time: 200 minutes. Screenplay by: Francis Ford Coppola, Mario Puzo. Based on the novel, The Godfather, by: Mario Puzo. Producer: Francis Ford Coppola. Director: Francis Ford Coppola.
THE PLOT:
Sicily, 1901. Antonio Andolini is killed after defying Don Ciccio (Giuseppe Sillato) and his 9-year-old son, Vito, is forced to flee the country. Confusion at Ellis Island results in him being renamed "Vito Corleone." He settles in an Italian immigrant community in New York, working an honest job and eventually marrying and starting a family. He is poor but reasonably happy - until local big shot Don Fanucci (Gastone Moschin) costs him his job and then extorts him. Vito sees only one solution that will allow him to protect his family and retain his own dignity, an action that sets in motion his ascent to head of the largest crime family in New York.
Las Vegas, 1958. Vito's son, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), has secured his position as head of the Corleone Family. He has moved his family to Nevada, where he hopes that his financial stake in several hotels and casinos will enable him to make the Family entirely legitimate, fulfilling both his promise to his wife, Kay (Diane Keaton), and his own original intention to stay away from a life of crime.
The centerpiece of his plan is a massive business deal with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), an old associate of his father's who is attracting investors for development in Havana, Cuba. Keeping this deal on track requires turning a blind eye to the aggression of some of Roth's associates, angering Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), the successor to Peter Clemenza.
An attempt is made on Michael's life mere hours after he rejects Pentangeli's complaints. Michael knows that the architect of the hit was Hyman Roth. But he also knows that someone inside the Family must be working with him. Michael is left with increasingly few people to trust as he is faced not just with disruption of carefully laid plans, but with the very real prospect that he could lose everything he holds dear!
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| Michael realizes that he's been betrayed by one of the increasingly few people he trusts. |
AL PACINO AS DON MICHAEL CORLEONE:
By the end of the first film, Michael had walled off anything in himself that might be considered "weak" in the process of adopting the mantle of "Don Corleone." This had to pose a challenge for Al Pacino for the sequel, because this movie requires him to start from that end point and carry it even further. The first film saw him suppressing what little warmth remained in him; the second film sees the remaining embers entirely extinguished.
One way both the script and Pacino manage to show this shift is by seizing on moments of warmth in the first half. He apologizes to Kay for having to associate with mafia figures at the initial gathering, promising that he's still trying to legitimize the Family (for the record, I think he's lying to himself more than to her). After the attempt on his life, he makes Tom acting don, calling him a "brother" and expressing full faith and confidence in him. In Havana, he commiserates with Fredo about how hard it is to live in their father's enormous shadow.
After the Roth deal implodes, the second half revisits each of these relationships, and we see that the previous hints of warmth are gone. Michael snaps at Tom, going so far as to directly question his loyalty near the end. He refuses to listen to Kay, shutting her out first figuratively and, eventually, literally. He insists on bringing Fredo back to the compound, only to tell him, "You're nothing to me now."
Pacino is masterful throughout. He shows genuine love for his family, albeit heavily suppressed, in the first half. After Michael is betrayed and after the failure in Cuba, he changes entirely. The coldness remains a surface, his soft and even tones still covering strong emotion - only now the emotion he's suppressing is rage. He is angry at everyone around him, most of all himself.
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| Vito Corleone prepares to make Don Fanucci "an offer he don't refuse." |
ROBERT DE NIRO AS DON VITO CORLEONE:
Vito's rise to power is expanded from one of the few major pieces of Mario Puzo's novel not to have been included in the first film. I think these scenes are the true heart of this movie. Michael's story on its own would be too cold to retain viewer engagement. The cutaways to Vito inject warmth and a hint of humor.
Vito doesn't shy away from violence, but he is a caring man at his core. He disapproves of Fanucci, wondering why an Italian would use his influence to bully other Italians. When he gains power, we see him using it with generosity, such as when he pressures a slumlord to not only revoke a widow's eviction but to lower her rent as well.
Over the course of the movie, Vito gathers a close circle of friends and family, young versions of the same inner circle that surrounded him in the first Godfather, such as Clemenza and Tessio. In the 1950s thread, meanwhile, Michael sheds the people closest to him. Vito's final scene has him departing on a train with his family in tow; Michael's final scene sees him sitting entirely alone.
Robert DeNiro's performance respects Marlon Brando's original, but it isn't an imitation. He borrows the vocal rasp and a few mannerisms, but DeNiro otherwise creates his own interpretation of Vito, one that brings the character to life.
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| Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) pays a visit to Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo). |
OTHER CHARACTERS:
Tom Hagen: He is unwavering in his loyalty to Michael, and he's genuinely touched when Michael refers to him as his brother. This twists the knife all the harder when Michael becomes increasingly short with him in the second half. Tom argues against Michael's ending orders as being vindictive and, worse, pointless. He remains loyal, as he has always been, but he's left to feel less like "Family" and more like a simple employee. When he talks with Pentangeli, the other man compares the Corleone Family to the Roman Empire. Tom agrees that "it was once," his phrasing showing recognition of a decline.
Kay Adams Corleone: As the movie opens, she's still a loving wife trying to accept her husband's less savory qualities and to believe him when he promises change. After the assassination attempt, she stops believing. As she and their children sit, waiting as the compound is searched, she directs a glare at Michael. I think that glare marks the moment that she begins emotionally disengaging from him. On this viewing, I find myself questioning whether she's telling the truth when she makes the declaration that repels Michael. She only says it after it's clear that he has no intention of letting her leave him. I'm not saying this was the intent - but I could see it being possible that she chooses a lie that would kill his feelings for her just so that he'll let her go.
Fredo Corleone: The first half stresses a closeness between him and Michael that was mostly unseen in the first movie. In a rare human moment, Michael lends emotional support as Fredo mulls living in their father's shadow, and he entrusts Fredo with bringing a cash payment to Hyman Roth. Later, Fredo lets show his resentment at being passed over in favor of Michael: "You're my kid brother, and you take care of me. Did you ever think about that? ...I can handle things. I'm smart. Not like everyone says, not dumb, smart! And I want respect!" John Cazale briefly out-acts Al Pacino in this moment, shaking with impotent rage, his gestures uncontrolled spasms that show his weakness even as he vents the frustration of wanting to be seen as strong.
Frank Pentangeli: Richard Castellano declined to return as Clemenza, whether because of salary or a desire for control over his dialogue or a reluctance to regain lost weight. Whatever the case, while young Clemenza (a spot-on Bruno Kirby) plays a major role in the story of Vito's rise, in the movie's present Clemenza has had a suspicious heart attack, leaving Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo) in charge of his territory. Pentangeli fills the role that would have been Clemenza's, clashing loudly with Michael only to be left to fear that Michael has now turned on him. There's no question this would be more effective with Clemenza, not least because of the younger Clemenza's prominence in the flashbacks, but Michael V. Gazzo plays the role well and his scenes work.
Hyman Roth: Roth never passes up an opportunity to compliment Michael, and he makes a public show of making the younger man his successor - but the more he talks about his own ill health, the more Michael realizes that the old man intends to live forever. "He's been dying of the same heart attack for twenty years." Roth clings to the same refrain about "business" that pervaded the first movie, and it's still a lie. His motives for acting against Michael are entirely personal, as he reveals in a scene in which actor Lee Strasberg allows the genial front to drop away, revealing white hot fury. He outplays Michael, using a Senate hearing as a backup plan to strike against him if assassination fails, and is in general the embodiment of the saying, "Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young."
Sonny Corleone: James Caan appears in a single flashback, for which he received the same salary as the entirety of the first film. He just about earns that payday, seemingly effortlessly recreating the character while cranking up his screen presence to cover for the absence of an originally-intended Marlon Brando cameo. The scene shows the final family celebration before the war. The interactions as Sonny holds court strike another contrast against Michael's reign. Sonny argues with multiple people around the table, but everyone's relaxed, the people around the table feeling like a family. It's the one way in which Sonny actually would have been a better leader than Michael, if only he was less impulsive; he draws people to him, while Michael can only keep them in line through fear.
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| "I want respect!" Fredo (John Cazale) lashes out at his brother. |
THOUGHTS:
"All our people are businessmen. Their loyalty's based on that. One thing I learned from Pop was to try to think as people around you think, and on that basis, anything is possible."
-Michael speculates about an attempt on his life as he cedes control of the Family to Tom.
There's an ongoing argument as to which is the better Godfather movie. It's a meaningless question, because while the two movies are stylistically similar, they are starkly different works. The first Godfather tells a perfectly structured story that ends with a satisfying climax. The second Godfather is messier and less intrinsically satisfying, growing more emotionally remote as it approaches its end. As a movie to watch, the first one is a lot more engaging; as a movie to think about, the second one is a larger work that offers more to chew on after its end.
The Godfather, Part II opens with a recreation of the first film's final scene, as petitioners pay homage to the new "Don Corleone." We see a close-up of Michael's face. Then the movie cuts to his father's empty chair. It is over that chair that the title finally comes up, emphasizing the absence of the man who actually deserved the monicker, "Godfather."
Michael's story, particularly after the Intermission, seems deliberately designed to push viewers away from him as he grows colder and more isolated. The first movie ended in a masterstroke as Michael consolidated his power. There's nothing comparable here, with Michael's final orders amounting to petty revenge that no longer serves any purpose. There's no sense of a climax - Just ugly incidents that clear Michael's board of a few remaining opposing pieces after the game has already been won.
In the first movie, Vito bristled at the undertaker thinking they were murderers. Vito insisted on using only the amount of violence that a given situation called for. By the end of the second movie, Michael has all but claimed the moniker of "murderer," telling Tom: "I don't feel I have to wipe everyone out. Just my enemies, that's all."
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| Vito and his family celebrate Fourth of July. |
Francis Ford Coppola was at the height of his powers as a filmmaker, and The Godfather, Part II was the second of two masterpieces he released in 1974 (after The Conversation, a low-key thriller that is every bit as brilliant as this). I already discussed his mastery of frame composition and camera movements in my review of the first Godfather, and that remains just as true of the sequel.
The flashbacks to Vito are slightly but visibly sepia-tinted, which lends the impression of historical photographs come to life. Vito is frequently framed surrounded by either his direct family or his friends, like Clemenza, who will become Family. By contrast, even early in the film, Michael is shown wearing cold colors and is frequently framed alone. After Cuba, he almost exclusively dresses in black. His office is dimly lit, leaving him draped in shadows. He has few outside scenes after the Intermission and, by the end, he's frequently shot either through or against windows, as if to erect a barrier between him and the world and even between him and the viewer.
In the first Godfather, Michael tried to avoid involvement in the Corleone Family, only getting drawn in to save his father from those who would have killed him. He turned to crime to protect his family, just as we see Vito doing in the past. In the second film, Michael becomes ever more powerful... but in so doing, he fulfills the very worry he expresses to his mother: "By being strong for his family, could he lose it? ...Lose his family?" Alone and feeling betrayed by everyone, he surrenders the reasons that he sought power for the sake of power itself.
It's a haunting story, beautifully told... but if not for the Vito segments, I suspect it might be too bleak. It's ironic that Francis Ford Coppola would later reissue the final film in the trilogy as, "The Death of Michael Corleone"; to all intents, Michael the person dies here, leaving behind only the husk that is "Don Corleone."
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| Sonny Corleone (James Caan) holds court at the last family celebration before World War II. |
SEQUEL AND ALTERNATE VERSION:
In 1990, Francis Ford Coppola directed The Godfather, Part III. Though its reputation has nose-dived, it was reasonably well-received at the time. Reviewers didn't pretend that it was a patch on the first two movies, but they acknowledged it as a well-made film in its own right. I haven't seen it since the 1990s, so I will withhold judgment until I rewatch it - and I will be taking a sidestep from Best Picture Winners to round out the trilogy with The Godfather, Part III, as a supplemental post.
When I covered the first Godfather, I noted the television mini-series version of the first two movies that was titled, The Godfather Saga. This version recuts the entire narrative into strict chronological order, restoring many deleted scenes in the process. This means the first "episode" of the mini-series is mostly made up of the DeNiro footage from this movie, which is not the optimal way to watch it. There is a continuous arc in Vito's tale, so it just about works as a narrative piece in its own right. However, the re-editing destroys the contrast between Vito's rise and Michael's moral fall, and it renders the final "episode" into a grim death march as Michael becomes ever more alone, without the Vito scenes to counteract that.
I would label the mini-series as interesting and worth viewing after seeing both movies in their original form - but even more so than with the first movie, I think the original release is by far the best way to watch The Godfather, Part II.
OVERALL:
The Godfather was an American masterpiece. Remarkably, co-writer/director Francis Ford Coppola manages to repeat that with the sequel. It's an emotionally colder work, matching its remote protagonist, and it's less immediately satisfying than its predecessor - but it's also a rich and compelling work, one that lingers in the mind long after viewing.
Rating: 10/10.
Preceded by: The Godfather
Followed by: The Godfather, Part III (not yet reviewed)
Best Picture - 1973: The Sting
Best Picture - 1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (not yet reviewed)
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