The Godfather, Part II

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) was an instant masterpiece, a critical and box-office smash that immediately become both a pop culture touchstone and one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed films. While the original remains the favorite of most viewers, many critics and film buffs prefer Coppola’s equally successful 1974 follow-up. The Godfather Part II is a true epic, building on the already brilliant original to create a tragedy of monumental proportions. If ever a movie approached the depth and complexity of a Shakespeare play or classic novel, or deserved to be called a work of art, Coppola’s film fits the bill.

The film tells the parallel stories of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), who has now assumed control over the Corleone crime syndicate, and his father Vito (Robert De Niro). Vito arrives in turn-of-the-century New York fleeing the vengeance of a Sicilian mob boss (Giuseppe Sillato). Struggling to make ends meet as a menial laborer, Vito teams up with Peter Clemenza (Bruno Kirby) and Salvatore Tessio (John Aprea) to knock off extortionist Don Fanucci (Gaston Moschin) and set up his own racket. Forty years later, his youngest son Michael, so reluctantly dragged into the family business in the original, has moved to Lake Tahoe, Nevada and is ambitiously planning to expand the family’s power and influence – much to the dismay of his wife Kay (Diane Keaton), who grows increasingly disgusted with her husband’s ambitions. Michael survives a botched assassination attempt, and tries to root out the perpetrator – either his father’s old business partner Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) or hot-headed underboss Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo). Michael must deal with an attempted business deal in pre-revolutionary Cuba, a Senate probe orchestrated by Roth and featuring Pentangeli as its star witness, family problems with Kay and reckless sister Connie (Talia Shire) – and, most tragically of all, the treachery of his jealous older brother Fredo (John Cazale).

Part II is not so much a sequel to The Godfather as a continuation of the same story. The film is rich enough in character, story and thematic depth to accommodate its lengthy run-time; not a frame of film is wasted or superfluous. Even more than the original, Part II works on a number of levels: as a bustling, sprawling crime epic, as a cynical exploration of the American Dream and its collapse, as an examination of the effects of crime, corruption and capitalism on American society, and most of all, as a tragic, sweeping family melodrama.

Vito Andolini’s success story is a wonderfully subversive version of the American Dream. With his family massacred by a Mafia chieftain in Sicily, Vito finds things no better in America; Little Italy is dominated by extortionist Fanucci, a seemingly dangerous figure pulling a bluff on his fellow immigrants. Vito’s attempts to make an honest living as a grocer are ruined by Fanucci, and plunges into a life of crime out of necessity – with his growing family, even temporary unemployment is a dangerous proposition. Vito’s ambitious nature leads him not into a life of petty crime, but straight to the top, almost immediately forming the foundation of America’s largest crime syndicate. Vito is still a criminal, but his ambitions are borne out of necessity and the best of motives, in this case supporting his family; in the crooked world he inhabits, he is indeed an admirable figure.

When we first met Michael, he was a cheery, idealistic WWII vet, accepting his father’s business but wanting nothing to do with it, but circumstances beyond his control forced him to follow in Vito's footsteps. The ending of the original showed how Michael had transformed into a cold-blood criminal, but Part II makes clear the full breadth of the transformation and the attendant personal tragedy. Unlike Vito, Michael becomes a domineering, power-hungry bully who blackmails, bullies and humiliates his family and underlings into submission, and shows his enemies no quarter. His murders of the weak Fredo and terminally ill Roth serve no practical purpose; they are simply cold-blooded power plays, carried out simply because Michael can get away with them. He genuinely believes that his actions are in the best interest of the family, even as Kay, Fredo and Connie drift away from him; but in the end, Michael views the “Family” as the organization rather than the actual blood ties. The film’s postscript, a flashback to younger Michael confronting Tom and Sonny (James Caan) over their “plans” for his future, suggests that Michael’s current problems are a toxic combination of his natural character and the demands of Mafia life. Michael was always the loner, the individual, the ambitious one, and put in a position of absolute, illicit power, these seeds germinated into something evil and destructive.

As impressive as Michael’s character arc is, he is only one of the film’s huge cast, each of whose destinies are shaped by the film’s protagonist and his increasingly destructive actions. Every character gets a standout moment: Senator Geary (G.D. Spralin)’s pulling back his glad-handing politician persona to reveal a crooked, reptilian schemer; Roth’s speech on the death of his business partner Moe Greene (killed on Michael’s orders, of course); Fredo spewing his repressed anger and frustration at being passed over by Michael; Tom is humiliated and forced into declaring unconditional loyalty to his brother; Kay attempts to force Michael to confront the affects of his life on their marriage and his children. It’s no wonder that seemingly the entire cast received an Oscar nod for their work; the dynamite screenplay by Coppola and novelist Mario Puzo provides each actor with some really meaty material to work with. The character of Pentangeli is a minor flaw; originally Clemenza had been intended for the role, but when Richard S. Castellano demanded too much money, he was written out of the script. Fortunately, Pentangeli is a more than adequate replacement for Clemenza, thanks to a fine performance by Michael V. Gazzo.

If the original film stressed the Mafia as a metaphor for capitalism and big business, Godfather II takes this symbolism even further, showing the degree to which organized crime infiltrates and corrupts American society. We have already discussed the way that Michael’s business creeps into his home and destroys any chance of personal happiness, but his actions have affects far beyond the limits of his Lake Tahoe mansion. This is made most overt during the Cuba sequences, where Michael and Roth join a group of “respectable” businessmen at a reception hosted by dictator Fulgencio Batista (Tito Alba), each of whom desire a slice of Cuba’s lucrative market (represented none-too-subtly by Roth’s birthday cake). The Senate committee is largely ineffectual, its members effectively controlled by Roth, and its investigation easily stonewalled by Michael. Senator Geary is the only politician who knows what Michael’s up to and is in a position to stop him, but he is a crook concerned solely with personal gain and is quickly checkmated by Tom, who uses a gruesome “accident” to blackmail him into submission.

Technically, the film easily matches the original. Coppola distills a variety of filmic sources, from old American masters Griffith and Welles to Italian auteurs Visconti and Fellini, creating a unique and expressive film, both nostalgic and pretty yet gritty and violent. Gordon Wallis’s moody, expressive cinematography is simply a revelation throughout, being both beautiful and ugly at the same time, adding immeasurably to the film’s tragic atmosphere; the use of color throughout is particularly impressive. The movie moves skillfully from Sicily to New York (past and present) to Miami to Lake Tahoe to Cuba to Washington to Vermont, and all of the locations seem authentic, with perfect editing transitioning seamlessly between locations and eras. As a bravura set piece, the sequence where Vito stalks Fanucci through Little Italy before assassinating him nearly matches the brilliant baptism sequence of the original.

The huge cast is remarkable. As mentioned above, all of the major characters get a chance to shine, leading to a whole slew of brilliant performances. Al Pacino gives unquestionably the best performance of his career, showing Michael’s continued decline towards power-hunger and self-imposed isolation – an achievement even more impressive than Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane. John Cazale is heart-breaking as Fredo, treacherous and boneheaded but ultimately pathetic and pitiable. Robert De Niro is exceptional as Young Vito. Robert Duvall provides a performance of quiet, restrained dignity, showing Tom’s quiet frustration and anguish with Michael. Diane Keaton has less screen time than the original but she makes an even stronger impression, with her subtle acting in the Senate hearing scenes and her climactic confrontation with Michael showing Kay’s increasing disgust and disillusionment. Lee Strasberg, Michael V. Gazzo and J.D. Spralin do fine work in other key roles. The film’s assorted thugs and criminals are portrayed by some of the best character actors around: Richard Bright, Tom Rosqui, Joe Spinell and Amerigo Tot as Michael’s assorted henchmen, Danny Aiello, Carmine Caridi and Dominic Chianesse as Roth’s goons, Gaston Moschin as Vito’s rival, and Harry Dean Stanton as an FBI agent. The Senate committee includes Peter Donat (later Mulder’s dad on The X-Files), sci-fi author Richard Matheson, and film producers Phil Feldman and Roger Corman.

If the original Godfather is a masterpiece, Part II is perhaps the high point of American cinema. Although the third installment is lacking compared to the first two, it provides a serviceable conclusion to the story, bringing the tragedy of Michael and the Corleone Family full circle. Between them, the Godfather trilogy provide a rich, complex – a work of art, and a truly great American epic.

Rating: 10/10 – Must-See