The Godfather

As a birthday gift for my dad, I'll review one of his favorite movies.

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) is rightfully acknowledged as one of the all-time greats. It's a near-perfect movie that brilliantly blends entertainment and art: it's just as appealing to the mass audience as to the arthouse crowd. Richly textured, beautifully shot, perfectly cast and enjoyable on many levels, it is a masterpiece.

Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is a 1940's-era crime boss in New York City, controlling a huge empire of vice and racketeering. Sons Fredo (John Cazale), Sonny (James Caan) and Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) happily follow him into the family business, but college-educated Michael (Al Pacino), a decorated WWII veteran, hopes to go straight. When business rival Solozzo (Al Lettieri) tries to kill Don Vito for refusing a narcotics deal, Michael is forced into business and volunteers to kill Solozzo and crooked cop McCluskey (Sterling Hayden). While Michael hides in Sicily, the hot-headed Sonny initiates an all-out war with the family's rivals, with tragic results. Don Vito successfully negotiates a truce upon recovering, leaving Michael to settle accounts.

Most of the classic gangster movies - Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, Howard Hawks's Scarface - were short, violent movies focused on entry-level thugs shooting their way up the criminal ladder. The genre had mostly burned itself out by the '60s, occasional hits like Bonnie and Clyde and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre notwithstanding. Movies that actually explored the inner-workings of organized crime were rare, and even the best gangster pics rarely achieved much depth or significance.

The genre always cynically reworked the "American Dream," with Italian and Irish immigrants clawing to the top with bullets rather than hard work. The Godfather's higher-stakes shows the Mafia operating like a corporation, negotiating zones of control, getting rid of weak employees (the traitorous Paulie (John Martino), the slimy Carlo (Gianni Russo)) and debating whether to sell new products. Aside from colorfully-staged hits of rivals and tratiors, the Syndicate's victims are kept off-screen. Morality is purely subjective: Don Vito has no problem with racketeering and prostitution but feels narcotics are out of line; Michael scoffs at Kay's notion that "Presidents don't have people murdered!" The Godfather is a very cynical, very '70s film.

Coppola and novelist Mario Puzo ingeniously weave a complex, multi-layered tapestry that works on many levels. The Godfather is a quintessential "guy movie" but it's just as much a family melodrama. Each of the Corleones has a "fatal flaw" that causes them to lose their way: Vito's worsening judgment, Sonny's impulsiveness, Tom's weakness, Fredo's gullibility. Michael rises to the top by being more brutal and calculating than his brothers: his transformation from innocent outsider to cold-blooded crime boss is genuinely chilling, as much a natural extension of his strong-willed character as something forced by circumstance. The women are non-existent: victimized, beaten and cheated on, they're cut out of the family business, showing that beneath Don Vito's idealized "family" is something truly rotten - something the sequels would bring out in disturbing detail.

The film would falter if it couldn't make the Corleones interesting. Coppola and Puzo achieve this by focusing squarely on the family; the absence of an outside viewpoint, of Elliot Ness-style cops and victimized prostitutes and drug users, makes the story work. The script develops every character, making them likeable (or at least sympathetic) even as they do horrible things. Accusations that The Godfather glorifies the Mob are beside the point: the Corleones are compelling because they're interesting characters, not because they're gangsters.

Coppola's direction is beyond brilliant: after a decade of B-list studio work (Finian's Rainbow) and screenwriting chores (Patton), Coppola immediately established himself as an auteur. Stylistically, the movie is more akin to Luchino Visconti's Italian epics (The Leopard, The Damned) than a Hollywood product, with its slow, langorous pace, meticulous attention to period detail, handsome photography and focus on family rituals (the wedding, the baptism), taking time to establish character, plot and mood. The movie is full of brilliant set-pieces but Coppola outdoes himself with the baptism finale: its striking use of parallel editing, stylish direction and Nino Rota's foreboding score creates a sequence of unmatched brilliance.

Marlon Brando's oft-parodied portrayal of Don Corleone rescued him from a decade of dismal failures. He makes a Vito a fully sympathetic character, his mannerisms and accent denoting a man who's been powerful for so long that he takes it for granted. He's a tragic figure who loves his sons but is unable to adapt to the changing times. It isn't a patch on the best of his '50s work, but compared to his slumming in The Chase and haminess in Burn!, it's something special.

Much of the supporting cast shot to stardom. Al Pacino's only notable role prior to this was The Panic in Needle Park; he was almost a desperation pick after Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford dropped out. James Caan had played a bumbling sidekick to John Wayne in Howard Hawks's El Dorado; Robert Duvall's had starred opposite Brando in Arthur Penn's flop The Chase.

Each of these actors is pitch-perfect: Pacino's chilling descent into criminality, Caan's self-destructive compulsion, Duvall's inner conflict and cool-headedness, are all brilliantly rendered. John Cazale starts his remarkable string of films before his untimely death (The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon); his Fredo is backgrounded here but will become the sequel's tragic center.

Diane Keaton and Talia Shire also built careers from their small but crucial roles. Shire is obnoxious but Keaton plays Kay with the perfect mixture of naivety and disbelief. Old Hollywood hands Sterling Hayden (Dr. Strangelove) and Richard Conte (13 Rue Madeleine) play villains, but the reptilian Al Lettieri (The Getaway) steals their thunder. Richard S. Castellano and Abe Vigoda get choice supporting roles.

The Godfather is fully deserving of its peerless reputation. I prefer Part II for its added depth and complexity, the way it builds on existing characters and achieves Shakesperean heights of tragedy, but the original stands on its own merits as a masterpiece.

The Long Riders

We continue our Western sojourn with Walter Hill's The Long Riders (1980), a rather pedestrian take on the Jesse James legend. Sam Peckinpah protege Hill learned how to film action scenes from Bloody Sam, but he evidentally didn't pick up on his mentor's penchant for crafting a good story. The result is a disappointing movie that should have been much better than it is.

Outlaws Jesse and Frank James (James and Stacey Keach), Cole, Bob and Jim Younger (David, Robert and Keith Carradine), and Ed and Clell Miller (Dennis Randy Quaid) begin a career of banditry in post-Civil War Missouri, robbing banks, stagecoaches and trains. Viewed as folk heroes by the locals, their exploits bring them fame and the attention of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. After a series of shootouts and murders with the Pinkerton posse, the James gang scatters, reuniting to knock off a huge bank in Northfield, Minnesota. The robbery is badly botched; the James boys leave the Youngers behind, and return to Missouri, only to find themselves in the crosshairs of the treacherous Ford brothers (Christopher and Nicholas Guest).

Bluntly, The Long Riders is a poor piece of storytelling. Hill moves awkwardly from one set-piece to another, with all-too-brief interludes in between. Key plot points are poorly set up: the Fords get two blink-and-you'll-miss-'em scenes early on, then disappear until the end, when they betray Jesse for no reason. The gang scatters after a Pinkerton raid, then reunites (with two new, heretofore unknown members) just minutes later. When the James and Younger brothers start sniping at each other before Northfield, we wonder where this tension comes from as they've gotten along just fine up till now.

The screenplay (in which the Keach Brothers had a hand) is the primary culprit. It's pure exposition, moving from one scene to the next without drive or motivation, moving as fast as possible, doing little to develop its characters or provide an underlying story. The film is too brisk-paced to be boring but neither is it very compelling. Many scenes work on their own merits, but bereft of real context they don't amount to a whole lot.

Hill paints his outlaw-protagonists as heroes, a conceit that has worked in many other Westerns, but the script does little to enamor us to them. The gimmick of casting acting brothers as outlaw brothers is a good one, but it doesn't amount to much since all of the characters except Cole are one-note ciphers. Hill doesn't demonize the Pinkertons, but neither does he explore why the outlaws became criminals, why they were so popular, and why we should root for them. A late scene where a nosy reporter (Felice Orlandi) interviews the Youngers is too little, too late, and doesn't add anything.

In the action department, Hill definitely delivers the goods. Hill attempts to one-up Peckinpah with his bloody slow-motion shootouts, and nearly succeeds. The film's highlight is the botched Northfield robbery, a near-ten minute sequence that rivals The Wild Bunch's big shootouts for poetic barbarism. Hill's use of slow-motion, quick-editing and incredible sound - the speed fit to the images - is remarkable, and the effect is both hypnotic and horrifying. Handsome photography by Ric Waite, and a wonderful Ry Cooder score, make the movie look and sound really good.

Of the cast, David Carradine (Kill Bill) comes off best; he makes Cole a lively and interesting character despite the script's limitations. Stacey Keach is alright but brother James is a blank slate in the nominal lead role. Pamela Reed shines as Cole's feisty gal pal; James Whitmore Jr. and James Remar have nice supporting roles, and Harry Carey Jr. (The Searchers) pops up in a cameo.

The Long Riders is a disappointment, especially considering the talent involved. If Hill had put half the effort into storytelling that he had into the shootouts, this is could have been a great film. As it is, it's a mediocre Western with little to offer besides some neat action scenes.

RIP Mitch Miller

Via AOL:

Mitch Miller, the goateed orchestra leader who asked Americans to "Sing Along With Mitch" on television and records, has died at age 99.

Follow the bouncing ball!

T-Shirts with Messages

A friend of mine gave me a t-shirt with the slogan (pictured left) very recently. I'm not usually into confrontational 'message' t-shirts, but I quite like it. I think St Joan of Arc would have rather liked it too.

Some friends of mine who read this blog probably think I'm batshit insane anyway, so why not let it all hang out?

Gunfight at the OK Corral

John Sturges's take on the Wyatt Earp-Doc Holliday story is a fun old-fashioned Western. Simple in its storytelling and morality, it's a pure piece of Hollywood myth.

Marshall Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) and gunslinger Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas) have a run-in at Fort Griffith, Texas, where Earp saves Holliday from a lynch mob after he kills a rival (Lee Van Cleef). Doc shows up in Dodge City, and eventually joins Wyatt as a somewhat-reluctant deputy, locking horns with slimy gunfighter Johnny Ringo (John Ireland), who tries to steal Doc's girl (Jo Van Fleet) for good measure. Wyatt eventually leaves for Tombstone, Arizona, where his brothers Virgil and Morgan (John Hudson and DeForrest Kelly) are already set up as Marshalls. When Earp and Holiday find that Ringo is in town, allied with crooked rancher Ike Clanton (Lyle Bettger), the stage is set for an epic gunfight.

Gunfight at the OK Corral is about as conventional as a Western can be: the good guys are really good, the bad guys really bad, everything easily defined and coded, the costumes and scenery polished and pretty. Wyatt may tell juvenile delinquent Billy Clanton (Dennis Hopper) that being a gunfighter is tough, but that doesn't square with the cool, stylish heroes we get in Wyatt and Doc. The titular showdown is shorn of the messy background and escalating Earp-Clanton confrontations: it's a cold-blooded Cowboy murder that drives the Earps to righteous vengeance. If it lacks the artistry of John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), it succeeds on its own simple terms.

Some pacing or dramatic economy could have helped a bit. The first hour takes place in Dodge City, making the title something of a misnomer, and is just lengthy scene-setting and character development. Both Wyatt and Doc engage in ill-fated romances that significantly bog down the plot. When we finally do arrive in Tombstone, things feel a bit rushed. Earp's brothers are virtually bit characters, and the conflict with the Cowboys isn't really developed: the Earps show up and demand the Clantons leave town, and there's an end to it.

Sturges's skills in action and male bonding serve the film very well. Charles Lang's Vistavision photography is striking, making the most of beautiful location work and giving the film an epic scope. The final gunfight is exciting and well-staged, with the heroes' use of strategy making it a cut above the usual blast-'em-to-pieces fare. Dimitri Tiomkin's score is good but Frankie Laine's hectoring title ballad is repeated twice too often.

Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster make a great pair of leads, playing off each other marvellously. The Wyatt-Doc dynamic dominates the film and having these frequent co-stars in the role goes a long way towards making them work. John Ireland is promoted from second-tier baddie in My Darling Clementine to principal villain. Jo Van Fleet is good but Rhonda Flemming has zero chemistry with Lancaster. Dennis Hopper has a bit more to do than in most of his Westerns, making Billy an almost-sympathetic kid. Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam put in their requisite appearances.

Gunfight at the OK Corral is far from the best take on Wyatt Earp and his war with the Cowboys, but it's hard to criticize it on its own terms. It sets out to tell a simple story in an exciting fashion, and the end result is hard to argue with.

Oliver Stone's Clown College

(This is semi-OT and may express political views. If you just read this blog for the movie reviews, come back this afternoon.)

Oliver Stone hasn't made a good movie in fifteen years, so it's not surprising he's desperate for attention. He has an upcoming documentary series in which he condescends to tell us about "the secret history of America," in which he posits his feverishly-paranoid, conspiracy-tinged worldview as an objective truth that has incredibly eluded trained historians.

It's not surprising that the thrust of Stone's documentary appears to be regurgitated Howard Zinn: that American history is an easily-decoded series of evils perpetrated by corporate America and the political elite on lower classes and other countries.

More disgusting than that is his comments on the likes of Hitler and Stalin, pretty much the only two people you'll get 95% of people to agree are evil.

"You cannot approach history unless you have empathy for the person youmay hate," Stone said during the show's trailer, which promised to put historical villains "in context."

Stone apparently knows nothing about how historians actually operate. The whole idea behind writing history is "putting things in context." You haven't stumbled across some mind-blowing secret, Oliver.

Of course, there's the question of what context he wishes to put them in, but we'll return to that.

Stone's comments regarding Hitler, the Holocaust and the "Jewish-controlled media" have drawn the most attention, earning the ire of people both left and right. I have little to say about this: it fits in perfectly with his plethora of other paranoid ramblings about corporate America and what he calls in Nixon "The Beast."

Stone tells us that:

"Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He's the product of a series of actions. It's cause and effect."

You're right! The thousands of books on World War II and the Third Reich make no effort to explore the context of Hitler, why he came to power, why he launched the most destructive war in history and the world's largest genocide.

"He's not saying we're going to come out with a more positive view of Hitler," emphasized professor Peter Kuznick, the lead writer on the project. "But we're going to describe him as a historical phenomenon and not just somebody who appeared out of nowhere."

And who is this revelation going to startle? Certainly not William Shirer, Richard J. Evans, Ian Kershaw, Martin Gilbert, Allan Bullock, Joachim Fest and the many other reputable historians of the Second World War. Heck, anyone who's read a fair amount of Nazi and WWII-related literature is unlikely to find this shocking.

This is rank condescension. Nazi Germany is probably the most written-about phenomenon of the 20th Century, analyzed from pretty much all angles possible and scrutinized to death. That doesn't mean, of course a fresh perspective of it can't be found, but it is rather obnoxious, boneheaded and self-serving to claim that you are the first to look at the Nazis "in context." What else have historians been doing for the past seventy years?

Of course, Stone shows where his true interests lie with this JFK-flavored commentary on Barack Obama:

Stone also warned that the same military industrial complex forces that he's explored in movies such as "JFK" and in "Secret History," are now corrupting Barack Obama.

"You can understand why Obama is following in Bush's footsteps in Afghanistan," Stone said."Obama is very much trapped, we believe, in that system. And so that's what we're going to try and show you — the way it works."

More directly, consider:

We want to move beyond opinions … Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM.

So putting Hitler and Stalin "in context" means putting them in the context of a worldview that reflexively blames America for everything bad that has ever happened.

There is a grain of truth to this observation, but it's a gross, ideologically-driven oversimplification. It ignores the political and economic situation within Germany which enabled Hitler's rise to power, and effectively absolves Hitler of blame for his actions, not unlike Pat Buchanan. It's "The Beast," the American bogeyman, and perhaps even those pesky Jews who put Hitler in power, amirite?

"Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated."

What an ingenious observation. Someone ought to make a movie about that subject.

I'm not even sure what this means, anyway. "Just a man"? In the strictest definition, yes, but most men do not rise to control of a large nation-state and wage a genocidal war. "Could easily have been assassinated"? So could anyone.

It's not only Hitler who Stone feels gets an unfairly bad rap, but (less surprisingly) Joseph Stalin, who Stone calls

the man who “fought the German war machine” and hence as an individual who cannot be judged as “only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’”

Of course Stalin fought the Nazis, albeit after signing an alliance with Hitler and carving up Poland and Eastern Europe with him. Unless you're Luxembourg, that's what you do when a foreign army invades your country. He also instituted a horrendously tyrannical regime that ruthlessly slaughtered political dissidents, crushed all dissent, assassinated opponents perceived and real, subjugated Eastern Europe to Communist rule, and generally served the interests of Joseph Stalin.

His current apologists in Russia notwithstanding, it's hard to see how anyone could view Stalin in a good light.

Parenthetically, he also seems to claim that "Truman's decision to drop the Atomic bomb" is an "overlooked" part of American history, too - ignoring the ongoing, quite intense debate over its justification and righteousness among historians. But this is simple idiocy, not horribly offensive in and of itself.

Stone's comments don't compare favorably to right-wing nutjobs either. His comments about putting Hitler "in context" seem uncomfortably close to David Irving's coda to Hitler's War, in which he promises

to clean away the "years of grime and discoloration from the facade of a silent and forbidding monument" to reveal the real Hitler

Not to mention Pat Buchanan's recent book which blamed Churchill and Great Britain for the war and the Holocaust, more or less absolving Hitler of guilt - a book that I found myself dissecting in excrutiating depth for a class project.

Funny how the extremes converge on issues like this.

I'll make one final point before moving on:

Stone may have something resembling a point that the popular discouse of history, as opposed to its academic practice, is fairly simplified. Not everyone is a historian or even a history buff; pervasive, one-dimensional views of events and people exist anywhere someone doesn't care to look further into an issue.

The conclusion, however, is not that Hitler and Stalin have been unfairly portrayed; it is no fault of historians that Hitler and Stalin are demonized. These men were as close to objective evil as is possible. "Putting them in context" is what every historian seeks to do. Their approach may be flawed, faulty or biased, but this is a flaw inherent in human beings. Context can help explain why something happens, but it does not change essential facts. And taking things out of one context and putting them in another (as Stone is hinting he's done) is something else entirely.

And, dare I suggest, Stone is about the last person to lecture any historians on bias, honesty or "putting things in context." I would certainly trust a Richard Evans or Edvard Razinskii over a nutjob film director. And certainly you lose any high-ground by ranting about the "Jewish media."

Stone's films, or at least some of them, are great as historical fiction, but anyone taking them remotely seriously is doing themselves a disservice. And his posturing as an actual, real-life historian, instead of a purveyor of paranoia-charged cinematic phantasmagorias, is insulting.

The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford

Andrew Dominik's 2007 Western is both fascinating and frustrating. On my first viewing two years ago I found absorbing and declared it a masterpiece, one of the decade's best and perhaps a high-point for the Western genre. Rewatching it a month ago, however, I found it long, interminable and hard to sit through. Perhaps it was a question of mood, but undoubtedly the movie is frustrating by its nature.

While the action-packed, audience-friendly remake of 3:10 to Yuma got a wide release and did respectable business, The Assassination of Jesse James got almost no release and, despite glowing critical reviews and a few Oscar nods, more or less vanished. It's easy to see why. Long, artsy and pretentious, Jesse James almost defies audience attempts to be engrossed in it. It's ultimately more interesting as an experience than a great film.

Legendary outlaw Jesse James (Brad Pitt) is nearing the end of his career: most of his gang is dead or in prison, he is being hunted by Pinkerton agents, and he has to rely on newcomers like Bob Ford (Casey Affleck) and his brother Charlie (Sam Rockwell). Bob idolizes Jesse, having read of his accounts for years, and his attentions begin to unnerve the outlaw. Still, Bob and Charlie drift in and out of Jesse's life as Jesse deals with inter-gang dissention, including an attempt by Jim Cummins and Ed Miller (Garret Dillahunt) to betray him, and the fall out of Dick Liddel's (Paul Schneider) liaison with the cousin (Kailin See) of a fellow gang member (Jeremy Renner). As the increasingly paranoid Jesse begins to settle accounts, Bob and Charlie decide to turn Jesse in, dead or alive.

Jesse James is perhaps the West's most romanticized outlaw, the unrepentant Confederate Robin Hood who continued the Civil War by robbing Yankee banks and trains. It's all hooey, of course, but it makes for a great myth, and Hollywood has not been lax in telling his story. Henry King's 1939 Jesse James was a straight retelling of the traditional myth. Samuel Fuller's I Shot Jesse James (1949) refocused the story on James's killer, but had the sensibility of a lurid penny-dreadful. The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972) and The Long Riders (1980) added a dark, revisionist edge to the story. The latest James film was the abysmal American Outlaws (2001), a Young Guns-style shoot-'em-up which revived the old myth as a pure cartoon.

Dominik's take on James, while taking its cue from the Fuller film (several scenes are copied almost verbatim), is barely a Western at all. Though it contains requisite set pieces - a train robbery, a shootout - it plays more like a slow, moody period piece than a Western, a Missouri Barry Lyndon. The violence is muted and blunt, the big shootout a fumbling, bloody affair; long, in-depth talking scenes (with wonderfully rustic period dialogue) take up more time. It's revisionism at its most stark, replacing genre tropes with gritty realism. It seems like a Western made for people who don't like Westerns.

Dominik's direction is technically excellent but adds to the difficulties. The story is elliptical and almost dream-like, with plot points lazily dealt with or abandoned, actions hinted at but never taken, long swaths of time passed over in montages. Warren Ellis and Nick Cave's brooding score adds a lot to the film's atmosphere. Rodger Deakin's impressive cinematography unspools with the deliberation of a Kubrick or Mallick film, striking images existing both for their own sake and to advance the story; the only complaint is an overuse of time-elapse photography. More tiresome is a hectoring, obnoxious narration that says too much for no real reason.

Despite its visual grandeur, Jesse James is most effective as a straight drama and character study. The film omits James's most memorable exploits, showing him at the end of his rope: paranoid and fatalistic, yet foolish enough to trust the Fords and to believe he has a future as an outlaw. His relationship with Bob is the center of the film, and the most interesting strand of the story. The infatuated, hero-worshipping Bob is a creep who helps codify Jesse's downfall: if he's relying on guys like Bob Ford, he must be in dire straits. Unlike in I Shot Jesse James, Bob has no noble motive for his betrayal, merely fear and self-preservation. These two make a fascinating pair of protagonists, and the story's deviations from their relationship - the lengthy Dick Liddel-Wood Hite spat - seem almost superfluous.

For all the problems getting there, the conclusion is excellent. The brilliant scene where Bob finally kills Jesse is a remarkable set-piece, and the final twenty minutes, with Ford haunted by his fame - forced to relive the assassination in a stage play again and again - are rivetting and appropriately tragic. These scenes are served well by the pervasive melancholy, with characters stiffly acting out a pre-ordained fate. Both men were hounded by notoriety, but Jesse escapes it through death; Ford becomes "the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard," perversely demonized for killing a criminal.

Brad Pitt is excellent: his persona enhances James's star quality and mythological stature, but Pitt divests himself of his usual mannerisms and makes James believable brooding, charming, violent and fatalistic. Casey Affleck is pitch-perfect though one wonders why James trusts such a snivelling creep. The supporting cast is hit-or-miss, though through no fault of the actors. Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon) is solid as Ford's brother, and Sam Shepard makes an excellent Frank James. Female leads Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel are reduced to cameos. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), Garret Dillahunt (No Country For Old Men), Ted Levine (Shutter Island) and Paul Schneider have memorable small parts.

The Assassination of Jesse James is not entirely successful as a Western, and for all its virtues will probably alienate a lot of viewers. It probably could have been told a lot more economically and conventionally, but it stands as a unique viewing experience for those with the patience.