The Movie Thread

[Kiwi]

I think it might even be worth rewatching the first one before you jump into the second. It's something I've done with many of what became my favorite films. Taxi Driver, Rocky, Godfather. First time I watched Taxi Driver, I watched it again a day later. Great films get better the more you watch them.

Godfather one is intentionally misdirecting for newcomers. Most people go into the film thinking it's about Marlon Brando's character when it's actually about Al Pacino's, who feels like a side character for most of the film. For that reason, you might consider a rewatch to solidify your thoughts on it.

The restaurant scene in The Godfather is pivotal to the last season of The Sopranos. It gets referenced over and over again. Maybe I'll make a post about it on The Sopranos thread.

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Very interesting post. I will take note - thank you!

I think after watching so many great TV shows over the years it's easy to see how much is borrowed from the greats. It really is a revelation and adds another layer. When I first watched Breaking Bad i mentioned how they stole certain scene narratives or style from The Sopranos. Not a bad thing, just something you notice. So forgive me I will have a modern lens interpreting it.

Interesting your point about Brando. The set up of Pacino late to the wedding and Brando constantly asking for him (also being the war hero) I felt was not really unexpected but justified and made Pacino's time in Sicily such a great balance.

(Re: Sopranos -Tony's visit to Naples and Furio's forbidden desire with Carmela is a great nod to Pacino's time in Sicily)


Anyway, you're right, I should probably watch again but it took me this long I need to hurry things up. I've never seen Jaws or Taxi Driver but it's Christmas so we'll see how we go

 

[bubs]

Very interesting post. I will take note - thank you!

I think after watching so many great TV shows over the years it's easy to see how much is borrowed from the greats. It really is a revelation and adds another layer. When I first watched Breaking Bad i mentioned how they stole certain scene narratives or style from The Sopranos. Not a bad thing, just something you notice. So forgive me I will have a modern lens interpreting it.

Interesting your point about Brando. The set up of Pacino late to the wedding and Brando constantly asking for him (also being the war hero) I felt was not really unexpected but justified and made Pacino's time in Sicily such a great balance.

(Re: Sopranos -Tony's visit to Naples and Furio's forbidden desire with Carmela is a great nod to Pacino's time in Sicily)


Anyway, you're right, I should probably watch again but it took me this long I need to hurry things up. I've never seen Jaws or Taxi Driver but it's Christmas so we'll see how we go

I may have watched Jaws from start to finish more than any other movie, it never gets old. Definitely an all-time classic and worth watching over Christmas break.

 

[Tippy]

I think it might even be worth rewatching the first one before you jump into the second. It's something I've done with many of what became my favorite films. Taxi Driver, Rocky, Godfather. First time I watched Taxi Driver, I watched it again a day later. Great films get better the more you watch them.

Godfather one is intentionally misdirecting for newcomers. Most people go into the film thinking it's about Marlon Brando's character when it's actually about Al Pacino's, who feels like a side character for most of the film. For that reason, you might consider a rewatch to solidify your thoughts on it.

The restaurant scene in The Godfather is pivotal to the last season of The Sopranos. It gets referenced over and over again. Maybe I'll make a post about it on The Sopranos thread.

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I had to re-watch Godfather 2 several times to understand the plot and I finally came to the conclusion that there are certain things about it that don't actually make sense but that's part of it...the paranoia of Michael - not fully knowing who your enemies are. I also never enjoyed the flashback scenes and still don't. I'm only really interested in Michael's story.

Without spoiling the ending I can just say it hits a huge punch and is one of the most chilling bummer endings ever.

But the first one I think just had so much joy in it as well, something that is all the more noticeable from the absence of it in the sequel. The grand wedding that kicks everything off as well as the sense of there being a unity in the family and a sense of justice and honour.

2 represents a world where that is all slowly eroded when a new type of ruthless leadership emerges. A necessary one maybe but one comparatively worse for the soul. Yet we still have sympathy for Michael because we know what he was and even understand his intentions to an extent.

The thing I dislike about the third one is the lack of connection to the previous ones. I think if they'd kept Tom Hagan in it and made it somehow more linked to the whole series, it'd be a lot better.

There's a really good book about Francis Ford Coppola writen by Sam Wasson where he goes into how all of Coppola's movies were basically personal one way or another. Godfather was about his own sense of being Michael in his own family where his father was an established powerhouse of a composer in his own right. What he captured even more strongly than the mob world was this sense of family - the importance of family as well as the dilemma it creates when obligations of family rub up against personal ambitions.

The film is traditional in the sense that it suggests that we must subvert our individualism for family. I think that's why the film endures so much because on some level people connect with this idea on an instinctive level. And we all aspire to have a family unit - it's the way things should be. But they aren't that way.

And the mistake Michael makes is of course that he in time loses touch with what family even is due to the fact it's so intertwined with the mob world and what that demands.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

I had to re-watch Godfather 2 several times to understand the plot and I finally came to the conclusion that there are certain things about it that don't actually make sense but that's part of it...the paranoia of Michael - not fully knowing who your enemies are.

I think the plot actually makes more sense the more you think about it.

Spoiler

Michael is not able to forgive Fredo because he knows Fredo really did want to kill him. After all, who moved the curtains for his assassination attempt and who shot the two button men in the beginning? Michael was simply too smart for anyone else's good.

I also never enjoyed the flashback scenes and still don't. I'm only really interested in Michael's story.

I loved them. The cross fades are some of the best transitions I've ever seen in a film. If the first film is about the fall of Vito and the rise of Michael then the second is about the rise of Vito and the fall of Michael. Coppola understood the story as a betrayal. In a very fundamental sense, Vito was the ultimate betrayer of Michael. Fathers betray their sons but sons never betray their fathers.

There's a really good book about Francis Ford Coppola writen by Sam Wasson where he goes into how all of Coppola's movies were basically personal one way or another

This is especially true for the second, since most of the story was original, and thus personal to Coppola, and not adapted from the novel. Some of Coppola's family members even play Michael's family members. Such as his sister, Talia Shire, who plays Connie, and his mother plays Michael's mother in one scene.

The film is traditional in the sense that it suggests that we must subvert our individualism for family.

And the second serves as the antithesis to the first, where the family is sacrificed for the individual.

I like the grittier, darker, more cerebral tone that the second one had over the rosier, romantic, warmer tone that the first one had. Someone could walk away seeing Michael as a hero by the end of the first, but the second makes it crystal clear that he is a villain.

I believe we are no longer meant to sympathize with Michael by the end of 2, so his characterization in 3 can be jarring, because he was written to be very sympathetic in the third one.

 

[Tippy]

I think the plot actually makes more sense the more you think about it.

Spoiler

Michael is not able to forgive Fredo because he knows Fredo really did want to kill him. After all, who moved the curtains for his assassination attempt and who shot the two button men in the beginning? Michael was simply too smart for anyone else's good.

I loved them. The cross fades are some of the best transitions I've ever seen in a film. If the first film is about the fall of Vito and the rise of Michael then the second is about the rise of Vito and the fall of Michael. Coppola understood the story as a betrayal. In a very fundamental sense, Vito was the ultimate betrayer of Michael. Fathers betray their sons but sons never betray their fathers.


This is especially true for the second, since most of the story was original, and thus personal to Coppola, and not adapted from the novel. Some of Coppola's family members even play Michael's family members. Such as his sister, Talia Shire, who plays Connie, and his mother plays Michael's mother in one scene.


And the second serves as the antithesis to the first, where the family is sacrificed for the individual.

I like the grittier, darker, more cerebral tone that the second one had over the rosier, romantic, warmer tone that the first one had. Someone could walk away seeing Michael as a hero by the end of the first, but the second makes it crystal clear that he is a villain.

I believe we are no longer meant to sympathize with Michael by the end of 2, so his characterization in 3 can be jarring, because he was written to be very sympathetic in the third one.

Spoiler

I would have to rewatch it again but if Fredo was really behind the killings two things - how does he receive the phone call seemingly surprised by it all? And who exactly slit the throats of the asssasins on the compound to stop them being questioned?

I'm not sure Vito is the betrayer in the sense that the way the story is set up it appears Michael has basically no choice but to get involved to save his father's life. At least initially, with the hospital scene. Once he gets that initial taste - that his craftiness and cunning and leadership skills can serve his family, I believe he then makes the ultimate choice with the restaurant scene to go to the point of no return. But Vito really never wanted it for Michael. The scene with him crying in hospital once learning the news confirmed that.

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

Spoiler

I would have to rewatch it again but if Fredo was really behind the killings two things - how does he receive the phone call seemingly surprised by it all? And who exactly slit the throats of the asssasins on the compound to stop them being questioned?

I'm not sure Vito is the betrayer in the sense that the way the story is set up it appears Michael has basically no choice but to get involved to save his father's life. At least initially, with the hospital scene. Once he gets that initial taste - that his craftiness and cunning and leadership skills can serve his family, I believe he then makes the ultimate choice with the restaurant scene to go to the point of no return. But Vito really never wanted it for Michael. The scene with him crying in hospital once learning the news confirmed that.

It's open to interpretation, but even Coppola in the director's commentary talks about some of the influences behind the story. He mentions being interested in histories about Persian kings and the succession of their dynasties. A pattern he noticed is that the fathers would betray the sons, but not the other way around.

In the ending of 2, Michael reflects on his life before the mob. We are shown two flashbacks. The main flashback is the scene of Michael making a choice to stay out of Cosa Nostra by joining the marines. But the second flashback is of Vito puppeteering Michael's hand when he was a child as they're riding on a train. I never see anyone discuss why these two scenes are interplayed with each other. My interpretation is that the film is saying that Vito betrayed Michael, and the rest of family by extension, by joining the Mafia. Vito's decision not only determined the course of the rest of his life, but his family as well.



The theme of fate is made explicit in the third film, but I would argue it is implicit in the second. On the theme of betrayal, when Michael confesses to the priest in 3, he says that he betrayed his wife and himself, his children by extension.



In the first film, I agree that Michael made his bones in the restaurant scene. But I think Michael's choice was already made when he visited Vito in the hospital and told him "I'm with you now." Michael goes from being opposed to Vito, which is better seen in the deleted scenes, to being ever loyal.

 

[FrancisK]

I finally watched The Godfather yesterday for the first time.

I don't feel any need to write a review - mostly because i'm still digesting it - but I understand your quoted message above a little clearer now.
I will say this though, for a movie made in the early 70's and how long it is, it is superbly paced. That point alone says a lot about modern film making.


I will now follow up in your honor @GodfatherPartTwo and watch The Godfather Part Two.

Read the book, gives a lot more story than the movie. Lots of missing pieces....