When Francis Ford Coppola created “The Godfather” in 1972, he was a young director who was always looking over his shoulder, weary of being fired during the making of that iconic film. That movie’s great critical and commercial success gave him enormous clout when the studio was willing to give him anything he wanted for a sequel. Using unused elements from Mario Puzo’s original novel and having full creative control, “The Godfather Part II” is considered by many as the greatest sequel ever made. Many consider it even superior to the original, and while I am not one of those people, I still revere it as a masterpiece of American Cinema.
When the first film ended, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino in what may be his greatest performance), had just consolidated power over all the crime families in New York, becoming the new Godfather. This film opens at the start of the last century when Vito (Michael’s father), as a child in Sicily, is made to witness the murder of his brother and mother by the local crime lord. Friends of the family smuggle him out on a boat to America as he becomes one of the countless new immigrants who were essential in building America into the great nation it has become. Coppola was not interested in showing us a chronological historical story of the Corleone family, and his decision to intercut these early Vito scenes with scenes of Michael ruling over his criminal empire was brilliant, adding depth of understanding to the epic story. The movie he created was unique in cinema at the time, making this film a prequel and a sequel at the same time. Through this method, I was shown how Vito became the revered and respected leader he was when the first story opened, while at the same time, Michael’s development from heroic figure to ruling crime lord is given more depth.
Vito Corleone is by all accounts a special man. Intelligent, thoughtful and with a personal moral fiber that Brando showed in the first film. Here, once grown up in New York, Vito strives initially to be an honest man but is forced out of his job due to a favor promised to the local mobster. The movie shows Vito learning the lessons he would later pass on to his son. He refuses to be pushed around and abused and realizes that he needs power to attain this freedom. Robert DeNiro is tremendous as the young Vito. It is a testament of his performance that even though he has no physical resemblance to Brando, he made me believe that his Vito and Brando’s Vito are the same man. From the way he speaks to his entire body language, I felt that DeNiro not only studied the first film’s Vito, but also the way Brando performed in the 1955’s, “Guys and Dolls”. DeNiro became a young Brando, playing a charismatic crime boss, and in so doing he became a totally convincing young Vito Corleone. From an honest store worker, Vita moves into the world of thieves, slowly building an enterprise run like a family. The movie gives a strong comparison to the crime family and Vitos’ own nuclear family, which eventually included three sons and a daughter. The youngest son is Michael, and the majority of the movie revolves around Michael’s control and management of the crime empire he inherited from his father.
When the first movie ended, Michael promised his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) that within five years the Corleone empire would be completely legitimate. He also coldly lied to her about having murdered his brother-in-law. In Part II, the time is already 7 years since the end of the first film, and the empire is far from legit. That is not surprising, since we already know that Michael is a calculating liar. The movie shows how the power of being head of a criminal empire is as powerful as the power of being head of most countries. One of the themes of the movie is the corruption of power and Coppola enjoyed comparing organized crime with government. Michael also begins to rot inside as the reality of who he is overpowers his good will. While the first movie elegantly romanticized Vito and his empire, without detailing too much on how he got his power, this movie goes into cold ugly details. The destruction of lives that result in prostitution, gambling and the promotion of addictions is not glossed over here. As Michael Corleone, Al Pacino gives a controlled, multi-ranged performance. Michael is not a man for giving speeches. Some of the most powerful scenes involve Pacino just standing and listening. That I was able to understand what he was thinking within his silence is a testament to the performance. This also results in a more powerful effect during the few times he loses control of his temper. It makes these outbursts more demanding and terrifying. This is a dangerous man who does not get angry easily. When he does, you better duck. The Michael segment revolve around his slow crumbling of his family and his ruthless victories over his enemies, shown within a serpentine plot of investment within the pre-communist Cuban gambling industry just before and during the Cuban revolution. In the first movie, Vito asks Michael if his family makes him happy, to which Michael smiles that it does. What Vito failed to warn him of, was that the life he had now chosen would destroy that happiness. Pacino, with all his cunning as Michael, never realized this either until it was too late, making him a tragic figure of Shakespearean proportions.
Like the first film, “The Godfather Part II”. It is full of glorious set piece scenes of operatic grandeur. Accompanied by another magnificent score by Nino Rota, the movie is as Italian as it is American. One such segment, which is maybe the best of any segment in either movie, involves a young Vito, cold as ice, standing up to the local crime boss, earning his respect, while at the same time planning and performing his assassination. The scene occurs within the Little Italy of the start of the 20th century, in the middle of a neighborhood Italian festival with parade music (A Rota gem), that follows the crime boss on the street and Vito above him on the rooftops until the stylistic and satisfactory conclusion. It is a breathtaking scene of cinematic flair. Throughout the movie, the cinematography is glorious, using the golden tint used to signify memory in portraying the prequel scenes of the young Vito and, the stark black to red colors that are front and center in the more modern sections with Michael.
Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro give two of the great movie performances in the film, but they are not the only ones who have an unforgettable screen presence in the movie. The father of method acting, of which DeNiro and Pacino are two of the best practitioners of, was Lee Strasberg, who was the founding director of the prestigious acting studio in New York. Strasberg was a theater actor and he only made one motion picture. That one picture is, “The Godfather Part II”, where he plays the Jewish Gangster and enemy of Michael, Hyman Roth. Strasberg is brilliant as Roth, who, like Vito, keeps his own counsel and makes friends with his enemies. Strasberg as Roth loses control and lets out his true feelings just slightly in one unforgettable scene in a Cuban hotel room after Michael asks him who gave the orders for a hit on one of Michael’s Captains. Like Roth, Strasberg is a frail old man whose frailty and weak physique is not enough to hide his cunning, strength, and imminent danger. Each scene with Strassberg as Roth is like spellbinding theater.
“The Godfather Part II” is an intricate, deep, epic film about what makes up America. Immigrant power, economics and greed. While I still prefer the first film for its romanticism, it is Part II that is the more complex and complete of the two films. It is also, along with part I, a true masterpiece.
1001 Movies before you die 