For many people, it was a crime epic, but
for some movie gurus, it’s all about life,
death and human fragility.
For generations, The Godfather has been a thematic psychodrama delving into the true meaning of life since it was premiered on March 15, 1972.
A new restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s movie was released in cinemas on February 25 worldwide. Thanks to state-of-the-art digital technology, all stains and flaws were repaired in the new version.
After 50 years, Mario Puzo’s masterpiece is back to the box office again. Pride, vendetta, passion, shotguns, banquets, music, deaths, births, funerals and weddings are dramatically well knitted. Unsurprisingly, the writer, Puzo, is an accomplished novelist.
“My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse… Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana) held a gun to his head and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract. That’s a true story. That’s my family, Kay. That’s not me,” Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) told his fiancé, Kay (Diane Keaton), explaining the complicated relationship between his father Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and singer Johnny Fontane (Al Martino), who was trying to get a role in a Hollywood picture against the will of its producer.
With all its simple wording, the previous dialogue in the nearly three-hour long film set the dramatic morals of the film: family, business and personal beliefs. Michael simply put it, “That’s my family, not me”.
However, like father, like son, we see Don Michael Corleone at the finale has become a gangster patriarch like Don Vito.
One of Puzo’s best knitted turning points is a scene, in which Michael, while trying to protect his hospitalised father, is humiliated by Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden). McCluskey punches Michael in the face and nearly breaks his jaw.
That punch turns Michael from a war hero, law-abiding citizen into another version of his father, with all the wisdom of the years and business acumen.
In one of the film’s master scenes, Michael sitting in an armchair with one leg over the other, saying how he will kill McCluskey and Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), who attempted to kill Vito. Michael then makes it clear to his brother Santino, or Sonny, (James Caan): “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business!”
The nice college boy is a Corleone to the core! He will be a stronger and even wiser version of Vito.
Was Vito a villain? It’s hard to judge. On the screen, all of them were a bunch of killers. However, after watching the movie more than a dozen times, Vito and Michael were decent human beings who were victims of a corrupt society and personal treachery.
However, Michael and Vito never put the blame on society. They are protecting their family, which is a red line for anyone, even their own kinship! Not a long time before giving the nod [in the film’s part two] for the killing of his brother, Fredo, Michael warns him in part one: “Fredo, you’re my older brother, and I love you. But don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again. Ever!”
Music is a value added to the film. Composer Nino Rota was like a painter, portraying love, rage, suspense and bloodshed throughout the movie. In Sicily, where Michael is hiding, he falls in love with Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli).
His bodyguard jokingly says: “In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.” Rota’s iconic Sicilian love theme deserved a million Oscars. Unfortunately, he didn’t win one.
It was this Sicilian beauty that made Michael reveal his true identity and put his life at stake.
After the killing of Apollonia in Sicily, Michael returns home to reorganise the family business according to the maxim ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’. Orchestrating what could be the millennial diabolical bloodshed, Michael attends the baptism of his nephew to give himself an alibi.
Masterly, Coppola and Puzo feature the killings of the family’s enemies: the heads of the Five Families, who plot against the Corleones and kill Santino, and Moe Greene (Alex Rocco) who stand against the family’s interests. All of these killings are carried out while Michael renounces the Devil and all his works!
Later, we see Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) killed for betraying the Corleones. Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo), Michael’s brother-in-law, is killed too for his role in the mass killing of Santino.
The Godfather won only three Oscars in 1973: Best Picture (Albert Ruddy), Best Actor (Marlon Brando) and Best Screenplay (Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola).
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