TS: Godfather vs Godfather II

Really the best way to watch the first two movies is that 7 hour long thing (The Godfather Epic) they did for NBC where they put them all in chronological order and added an hour or so of outtakes, but I don't think that's available anywhere anymore.

OTM

it's a testament to something that despite the mess it's still so highly regarded.

The second is more powerful though; the shooting of Fredo is very good and I thought a nice contrast with killing Don Ciccio; it starts with killing a bad guy who nobody misses. It ends with killing your brother. I hated Michael after that.

Yeah, right?

Even though I know the first is supposed to be the greatest film of all time and everything, I just have no desire to see it, but I can't figure out why.

In Part II: I always liked the end of Frankie Five Angels with Tom in the prison yard.

the deniro bits are straightforward enough. childlike, really.

but can anyone come out here and explain the rest of it?

there are two brothers michael is trying to shake down in vegas? and hyman roth is in cahoots with them, possibly? but hyman claims to be on michael's side?

they try to kill michael, and try to pin it on the old guy back from new york.

and then they try to kill that old guy, and tell him it's on michael's orders (this is confusing, because maybe it is michael!).

er, and at some undisclosed point the feds investigate the corleone family and they have to go to court.

i think i would have liked a godfather 1.5, in which vito and mo green (=bugsy siegel?) and hyman roth build up their empire of crime. i guess roth is coming out of chicago?

Brando's performance is mostly hammy crap. And if you ever see I in a theater, Diane Keaton's assorted hairstyles draw gales of laughter.

Not compared to III!

does "ham" mean "jew"?

kidding.

I loved Strasberg in 2, the scene where he's talking about Moe Green (Siegel), not getting a plaque and all that...

right, but don corleone isn't a funny, warm, or human kinda guy.

Coppola himself says he could've done a smarter, more polished job on the first one (much of which he shot under rumor of being imminently fired).

Also, his performance in the film is overrated anyway! Oh noes, DeNiro learnt Eyetalian!!! Oh noes! FILM OF TEH YEAR! etc. If he learnt Eyetalian, got fat, and shaved a mohawk into his head, now you'd be talking.

"completely and utterly," eh?

No, it wasn't "necessary," but Coppola's triumph (and Mario Puzo's too, i guess) is that they deepen this pulp with a flashback that's no hazy romanticization of the Corleone family, but a clearheaded explanation of how this family sunk their meathooks into the New World.

No scene moves me more in GFII than the one in which young Vito, alone in a dank Ellis Island room, sings a half-remembered tune in this angelic voice, his back to the camera. Unnecessary, yes, but haunting.

Alfred, if you want to respond to the entirety of what I wrote, which is that one or the other part of the movie was unnecessary and that having BOTH is what constitutes train wreck status, that would be nice. I'd prefer it if they left out almost all of the "modern day" crap!

gabb, you mean Gordon Willis not Parks yes? II is one of the great 'underlit' American films. Gimme gimme gimme my dark, well-upholstered interiors.

The second one I kept waiting for the cops to show up and violently bust everyone. Kung-fu cops. I couldn't figure out what the fuckin' point of that shit was at all.

It's not a BAD film -- Pacino is just about as good (and Joe Mantegna offed too soon), but almost everything else is two to ten notches below the standard.

i am amused that dom kind of repped for 'you've got mail', upthread.

The bum lines are worse in II, and the pattern repetition thing is overdone, and I still can't figure out exactly what Fredo did (give the location of Michael's bedroom? Kill the shooters himself?). I do think the De Niro stuff romanticizes the Don, and that his turn to crime is a little too elegant. But it's still a great family drama.

III sucked mainly because he stopped being Michael and started doing "Al."

er, yes. I'm not a fan of dark, "well-upholstered" interiors per se. I love Willis' dark moody semi-exteriors in ATPM, but perhaps only because they're balanced by the warm light of the newsroom (never has fluorescence looked so good) and the, er, harsh light of day when Woodward walks through that Justice Department (?) courtyard.

A rather perverse claim, since at the time of On the Waterfront I don't believe Brando was getting his lines through an earpiece or from cue cards scattered around the set and taped to his fellow actors' foreheads.

god cazale makes me want to cry in II. damn.

I think I like the first one better. They are both true masterpieces.

i used to be a big fan of these and have had this conversation a bunch of times with friends. i've flipped back and forth over the years, but at this time in my life i think my answer is: Goodfellas.

Godfather. Godfather II was very good too, no doubt, but it was mostly Coppola whereas the first one came directly from Puzo's book (and did a wonderful job of editing, as there was a lot of editing to be done).

I've always been iffy on the Hymen Roth story, but other story arcs like Fredo's betrayal, and the Robert Deniro scenes (which sort of come from the book, but are modified a bit) make up for it.

I've always been curious what would have happened if they had left in popular characters from the book Nino Valenti and Lucy and her doctor boyfriend, and ended the first movie after Michael shoots the cop and Sollozzo, and then picked up the second movie after that, ending it where the first movie did.

I kinda think though they did the right thing in getting rid of those excess characters as on the screen it can get tedious.

The Godfather remains the only movie I've seen more than 10 times.

it's too bad they couldn't get clemenza back for 2, and brando.

also anyone who complains about brando in one i am not on the level with

I'm going with the first one, though I like them both.

i mean for all the great sadness and double-layered story of the second, with the first you've got brando... james caan... clemenza dude (forgot his name)... abe fuckin' vigoda!!

My father loved the book, and when he originally heard in the 70's Marlon Brando was going to play Vito Corleone, almost blew a gasket, and said he thought he was going to be horrible. He loved his performance!

And so do I.

"Never let anyone outside the family know what you're thinking again!"

yea, it really was a tour de force of acting.

If they were making a movie like that for the first time today they'd get a bunch of pencil dicks to play half of the parts.

Ben Affleck as Fredo Corleone....

The ending of the first one is also just plain one of the greatest endings ever.

the murder of the heads of the five families while Michael becomes Godfather to Connie's son...gives me CHILLS

The ending of the first one is also just plain one of the greatest endings ever.

-- Eric H., Sunday, January 13, 2008 8:47 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

ya. it's so familiar and i've seen it a billion times and yet seeing it again the other day that last shot still hit me in the gut.

II. Because Leopoldo Trieste is in it and the whole Don Fanucci Assassination sequence is awesome. I love the entire DeNiro part of the film w/o reservation.

I like that Sterling Hayden is the bad cop in "I".

don fanucci so great. love the way he slurps back his coffee.

Don Fanucci : what a peacock. I kind of love that Vito messes with him for a bit before the meeting in the stairwell.

pretty great flicks, i'll go with II. the first one is awes but also just slightly more ridiculous and i've never been able to buy michael going from xmas-shopping civilian to ice-cold soldier that quickly, at least in the manner that it played in the film.

though i think as both versions of michael he's totally hoos for the role.

im surprised you dont buy the transition, i think that's done sooooo well.

i mean, if you think that doesn't work, doesn't that pretty much wreck the entire movie?

i don't understand the confusion about II's plot- it's a couple of years since i've seen it but i could follow it pretty well at the time.

anyway- II for me, but they're both great films. i've never seen three but might pull the boxset out of the xmas wrapping tonight if it's quiet.

ModigGrabb12 (6 days ago) Show Hide
Who is the Godfather in the movie The Godfather? and do he die? please answer and dont say like watch the movie : )

Thegodfather847 (4 days ago) Show Hide
watch the movie

lol

re-watched both of these recently. both great, but i think i'd go with one.

on the current "Coppola restoration" of I & II:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2008/09/the-coppola-res.html

"G,
I hear the new Godfather restorations are an improvement, and look as good as they ever did, but they do not live up to the expectations set by the home theater crowd. Apparently Gordon Willis, who supervised the operation, went back and duplicated the look the films had when they originally premiered...."

Not to be disrespectful or vulgar, but the "home theater crowd" can go eat a bag of dicks.

I've looked at about an hour of the Blu-ray of One, and I admit they did a very bold thing. They reproduced the film with all the grain, with all the blown-out whites of the wedding scene...all the same "imperfections" that made the studio people want to fire Willis. And help make Godfather the glorious film it is. I'll be looking at a lot more in detail soon.

There's no fucking hope for these people, I swear.

more on the new discs... I've seen these enough for awhile, but would visit if someone has BluRay.

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006733.html

I really wish the Godfather Epic thing they did for NBC back in the day was on DVD. Still the best version I've seen.

all that footage is available in one of the older sets, yeah?

or just not cut together 'chronologically'?

I really wish the Godfather Epic thing they did for NBC back in the day was on DVD. Still the best version I've seen.

^^^

Kehr's review today made these new prints sound mouthwatering.

As bonus scenes maybe, but yeah the NBC version (which they released on VHS in the 90s) is the only one which sets it up chronologically.

I remember that version, and you can see why they cut scenes like Vito and the boys visiting the dying consigliere, but they do add texture.

plus young hyman roth!

I watched the two of them eight years ago, and haven't seen them since. At the time, I thought the first one was superb and was left lukewarm by the second one, but I'm not sure if there was necessarily anything rational about either reaction.

the NBC recut is the only version I've seen, when it was rerun on AMC or something a few years ago. but I didn't see the whole thing, so as a result, I've only seen part of 2 and part of 1! I should finally watch these

Rosenbaum on I & II, Kael, and Bush's America:

For the Pauline Kael who viewed Kane as “kitsch redeemed”, the notion that The Godfather could be viewed as a different kind of kitsch rather than as a noble Shakespearean tragedy is never considered, because there are certain ideological givens about American violence and power, even at their most infantile and unreasoning, that are too serious to be scoffed at, especially when they’re bathed in “Rembrandt” lighting....

This development can perhaps be traced in part back to Kael’s use of the adjective “Shakespearean” near the end of the first paragraph of her review of The Godfather, Part II. Her second paragraph—– which casually identified its predecessor as “the greatest gangster picture ever made,” immediately after announcing that Part II “enlarges the scope and deepens the meaning” of its predecessor—–marked the lamentable suspension of her Orwellian scoffing at pretension that was perhaps the strongest virtue of her early criticism. In terms of her own unapologetic trash aesthetic, a far better candidate for “greatest gangster picture” would surely be the Hawks-Hecht-Hughes Scarface, no less arty than Coppola’s blockbuster but far more exuberant and irresponsible (and far more honest about its own amorality), and in most respects closer to the starkness of Greek tragedy, incest and all, than to any Shakespearean tragedy or historical melodrama.

It’s a moot point whether Coppola intended this, but the ethical contrast between Vito Corleone (Brando) as an earthy, charismatic gentleman Mafiosi and his cold-blooded son and successor Michael (Pacino), a Machiavellian who winds up engineering the deaths of family members—–a brother-in-law in the first film, a brother in the second–—tends to mystify or at least detract from the degree to which both men are killers. If we’re being asked to brood about the moral and stylistic decline of the Corleones, we’re less likely to be attentive to the continuity of violence between the nostalgically depicted past and the more coarsely perceived near-present.

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=14913

Mocking pretension does not mean you accept trash at all times.

good article but this:

Mythologies about macho power and the pride of wanton blood-spilling are arguably at the roots of what put George W. Bush twice into office

is total bullshit.

I would agree -- no more than they raised the new Michael Corleone to power.

^^ not sure if that is or is not a ref to obama

By contrast, consider all the depictions of violence in such otherwise very different films as Renoir’s The Rules of the Game and Jarmusch’s Dead Man, which refuse the very possibility of violence having any kind of dignity whenever or however it occurs.

really have no idea what he's getting at. TRotG really is too dissimilar and i don't know why he's brought it up. but i don't think the violence in 'the godfather' is more dignity-y than in the (incredibly boring and lame) 'dead man'. even then, is this a generalizable principle? he appears to be applying it as one.

it's illegitimate to bring in bush to back up this point anyway.

i think he's in dodgy territory talking about that tudor propagandist shakespeare, too.

The outsized success of both Godfathers helped to mark the eclipse of foreign film distribution in the U.S. for the sake of glossy American art movies, a little bit before Woody Allen’s (and Martin Scorsese’s and Paul Schrader’s) mining of similar fields started to take hold.

interesting point (although it can't be a criticism of 'the godfather', or indeed of any other film), though, y'know, bertolucci released 'last tango' and '1900' after it, and in fact 'the conformist' had been a paramount film; and iirc 'the leopard' had hollywood money in it (and it was rubbish). something tells me there may be bigger reasons why art-house distrib declined after the early '70s.

the relevance of 'psycho' eludes me.

'the leopard' had hollywood money in it (and it was rubbish)

rong but it was also '63 so I'm not sure how that fits in unless you think it was by Bertolucci (wdn't surprise me)

imo he's drawing a false dichotomy between european and american cinema, the date is irrelevant.

i have no idea why you would think i would think bertolucci directed that film.

would have to look into it, but as remains the case, european cinema tends to depend on upfront distribution $$$ from the evil americans. why coooouuuuld explain why the (incredibly awful) film stars an american.

"Really the best way to watch the first two movies is that 7 hour long thing (The Godfather Epic) they did for NBC where they put them all in chronological order and added an hour or so of outtakes".

OTM

― ArfArf, Thursday, January 22, 2004 7:18 AM (5 years ago)

ok no this is very offtm.

like any Visconti, bronson?

cuz there's no Coppola Godfather w/out his influence

no i don't like any visconti. (or fellini.)

such is the mysterious way influence works.

The outsized success of both Godfathers helped to mark the eclipse of foreign film distribution in the U.S. for the sake of glossy American art movies, a little bit before Woody Allen’s (and Martin Scorsese’s and Paul Schrader’s) mining of similar fields started to take hold.

Unless there's stats to support this, bullshit.

rosenbaum firmly believes that all any popular american filmmaker has ever done is rip off europe (note deliberate use of "movies," as opposed to foreign "films"). it's a running theme throughout pretty much all of his work, tho i hadn't previously seen him take it so far as to dismiss "citizen kane" as "white elephant art" or "a studio sucker-punch."

maybe i've just read too much movie criticism but i'm really getting weary of the whole "white elephant vs termite art" thing.

I like Rosenbaum, but every critic eventually gets impaled by his own rickety schematics, but Kael rode her contradictions to greater aesthetic success; you can't reduce her to a position on the Farber scale.

"ok no this is very offtm."

Have you even seen the version I'm talking about?

yes! if we're thinking of the same thing, this is what they often show on cable. i've only seen it once, and i don't remember all of the differences to go into detail unfortunately; but from what i remember, the extra scenes didnt really do anything for me, and the linearization of the story kinda disrupted the emotional arc and watered it down, at least they way i had remembered it (and wanted to remember it). some things just aren't meant to be fucked with.
that said, i'm sure someone who's never seen either of the first two could watch the long, combined version and think it's great. I just think it's inferior to the two individual movies

They are still showing it on cable? Why won't they release it on DVD then? Such jerks.

It's been over 15 years since I saw that version, but I found the Michael half of Part II much improved by not having to compare it to the far superior DeNiro half. But to each their own.

Well from that perspective, i can certainly see why you'd like that version better. i've never gotten why people disliked the michael part of pt II so much though (mostly comparatively, but still). i can see the point that it drags a little, but michael is such a dynamic character! as someone said upthread, the way he goes from such a sympathetic character to someone worthy of hate is remarkable (though i never really hated him; i've found the cognitive dissonance he effects to be most interesting).

The problem is that by the point that II starts he's already an unsympathetic character so basically you are just watching half a movie on a guy who starts out being a monster and ends being a monster.

i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, but for me, his actions at the end of I/start of II arent condonable yeah but it seems like he's getting into it for the right reasons, and he's completely reluctant to even get into the biz at all. it's by the end of II with the whole wife thing and fredo thing that he really passes the point of no return for me

Uh I don't even know how to respond to that. . . since it's so completely wrong on so many levels.

I think the door's thud at the end of I is sposed to indicate Point of No Return.

getting back to thread topic, I >> II

bronson is def enrique, right

Is preferring I to II some sort of quintessentially enriquean opinion?

no, that wasn't really a piece of evidence.

what do peeps think of the book? i just started it, it's a pretty enjoyable trashy page-turner! and i like how it fills in a lot of blanks.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, August 11, 2006 5:25 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

the book's great!! i just started reading it last week, am about 300 pages in. (actually is the 2nd time i've read it - first time when i was 15 or so, so i didn't remember much)

but yea, really enjoyable trashy page-turner. i love it, so entertaining. all the secondary characters are great, too - johnny fontane, lucy mancini, nino, the hollywood stuff, etc. those chapters are awesome.

it helps too to have the movie's cast in mind when reading, and prob makes the book that much stronger.

btw i've seen the movies a ton of times, would probably pick pt. I. but after i finish the book i'm gonna watch em over again (I & II, at least. i don't really need to see III ever again).

I like part 2 better because Cazale is spellbinding in it.

can i see 2 without having seen 1? it's playing at the theater

how confused would i be? i'm one of those people who has trouble following murder she wrote, remember

Hell no man. I mean...it's not extremely connected to the first one since it takes place years later, but for you to appreciate Michael Corleone's character arc, you have to see the first, otherwise you won't get it.

Gotta have the context. if you have time to spare, rent Godfather, watch it, the ngo to Godfather 2

ok, thank u

very confused imo

yea you'd probably be like "why do they keep flashing back to this dude growing up in Italy for?"

not too much. There are several characters from the first one that appear as younger versions of themselves in the "origin story" plot, that, not having seen the first one, their appearances wouldn't be as significant.

Robert de Niro plays the Marlon Brando character as a young man. Marlon Brando died in the first one. Al Pacino plays his son as an adult. There was another brother, Sonny, that was going to take over from Marlon, but he was killed. Al originally didn't want to work in the family business, but he ended up doing so after Sonny was killed.

yyyyeah i guess, the flashback scenes might not mean all that much to you, though they'll still be cool. might be nice to read a quick non-spoiler synopsis of pt 1 before going to 2?

xpost ok i basically agree w/ EWP, but if you've put seeing this off for this long, you might never get around to it so i say go for it. i'm gonna guess you'll like it enough to watch both multiple times so it won't matter much

just can't imagine someone not having seen Godfather. that has to be the only movie I've seen more than 10 times....

yeah which is why he should jump into this while he can and love it and want to see the first and then watch both again!

buy a fedora too

I've seen the first one and it still took ~3 viewings of Part II before I actually understood the whole thing. To be fair though it wasn't the flashbacks that confused me, it was everything in Cuba.

yea but to be fair that whole cuba thing was extremely confusing.

I found reading the book clarified the first film a lot

I found reading the book clarified the first film a lot

Totally.

You really do need to see the first one first. I saw the third one first, and was all WTF the entire time.

The Lucy Mancini's Giant Vagina subplot in the book is totally bizarre.

it really, really is.

skip 2 go straight to 3

what bizarro world are YOU living in?

Watch Tetro instead.

There's a hot 18-year-old boy in it.

I slightly prefer 1, but 2 really is fantastic and one of the few movies to do the prequel/origin story concept right, IMO.

watch Tron first and then see Godfather II. It'll make more sense...

"Love Theme from Godfather II" (Bangalter/Homem-Christo)

Both of them are kind of only ok though, the first is good for how hot Al Pacino was back then though.

I disagree with the first half of this sentence, but the second half is very true.

Also:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ioUIF-hSXD8&hl=en&fs=1&";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ioUIF-hSXD8&hl=en&fs=1&"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Oh god dammit. Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioUIF-hSXD8

the first one I can sit down and enjoy in much the same way as I can enjoy any of the Man With No Name westerns. Like you got all this incredibly overcooked art-directed-to-death scenery and half the cast is gnawing on it like crazy and the other half is staring at them like "I don't understand the language of these ridiculous people from the Unstoic Lands. It must be because I have the largest and steeliest balls ever filmed." Then the musical score comes and kicks you in the head three or four times. You know, good hangover movies.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

watched II on TV last night, there were definitely some scenes missing (Fredo lets himself get pushed around in front of Michael by some of the Vegas mobsters right at the beginning of II, right?) and it didn;t seem to make as much sense as the only other time I've seen it. Still great.

Maybe that's one of the extra scenes that turned up in the sequential 6-hour version that was shown on television once? There's no scene like that at the beginning of II, which (after the stuff with young Vito back in Sicily) begins with the big party at the Corleone compound in Nevada where Michael donates a huge sum of money to the university...which you know because you just watched it. The scene you think might be missing isn't missing, though.

well, it wasn't right at the beginning, but i can definitely recall a scene near the start where fredo gets slapped around and it ends with michael telling him never to takes sides with anyone against the family again- it strengthened the b/g for fredo's discontent for certain. never seen the 6hr sequential version, i've caught II on DVD previously.

Now I realize what you mean--the Moe Greene scene. That's in the first film, about 2/3 of the way in. I didn't realize the sequential version was still available.

"I don't understand the language of these ridiculous people from the Unstoic Lands. It must be because I have the largest and steeliest balls ever filmed."

this sentence is making me lose my shit right now and of course its written by TOMBOT

<3

ah, that explains it. been too long since i saw first one.

http://vimeo.com/24595172

sam fuller doing a screentest as hymen roth

That's really something. I was expecting the worst, but as an actor, Fuller's suprisingly okay--better here than in Pierrot le fou. The problem is that he looks criminal. One of the things that makes Lee Strasberg so indelible is that he's just a kindly-looking old man watching college football on a Saturday afternoon.

As a drama assignment, I always have my grade 6 students perform famous movie scenes (picked by me, of course--we run a top-down operation around here). A couple of my boys did the big Michael-Fredo scene from GFII this year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg8jODlrka0&feature=related

One of them was a kid who's generally very quiet, but much to my surprise, he really pulled out all the stops. You just haven't lived until you've seen an 11-year-old cry out, "I was your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!"

the Max Clemenza Fischer Players

serious question: do you folks think that the godfather part ii is enjoyable/comprehensable even if you haven't seen part i? i'm tempted to show the 2nd part in a college course but i don't want the folks (i imagine at least 50%) who haven't seen the first one to feel alienated.

I think most of your students who hadn't seen I (hard for me to believe, it's on TV so incessantly) would still experience II as a great stand-alone film. What they'd miss are resonances and echoes that they wouldn't know they're missing. And I'm sure I'm not alone in having found parts of II confusing even after seeing I. (Think I finally figured out everything eventually.)

my second guess is that less than 25–30% of them will have seen the first. of course, i can always suggest that in the weeks leading up to the 2nd one, that they find 3 hours and watch the first one. i don't think anyone would mind that.

it's not important that they grasp every last plot point, just that they not be so distracted by what they're missing that they'll feel resentful or alienated, or tune out.

I always have my grade 6 students perform famous movie scenes

Very curious to see what scenes you force 12 year olds to perform.

I think GFII has a tighter script and a somewhat more compelling story arc. The cast seems stronger, too. Brando was not at his top form in GF. Last Tango was in the rear view miror and Superman was just over the next horizon. otoh, Pacino reined in his histrionics much more than he usually did and it helps GFII a lot.

Sure, go ahead and show II. It can stand alone.

amateurist: is there any reason you're not just showing the first one?

Blue Velvet, Straw Dogs, like that--and yes, forcibly, often to the point where they're in tears.

Other answer: Duck Soup, The Wizard of Oz, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Graduate (the "Oh no, it's completely baked" scene), Lost in America (interview for crossing-guard job), It's a Wonderful Life, The Hustler ("You owe me money..."), Ninotchka, etc. The GF II scene above and Marge's interrogation at the dealership in Fargo are about as far as I push it. (xpost)

I had the same question--wouldn't it just be easier to spend an extra three hours and show both?

Last Tango was in the rear view mirror

So to speak...

Just a bit of chronological fudging on my part. Both released in 1972. Not sure when they were each shot. Tango is easily the more estimable Brando performance. Far less gimmicky.

i'd kill to see a college prof/TA have his students act out scenes from zardoz ... though it's obv not appropriate for sixth graders (not even in this time and era).

I was referring to an infamous scene, Aimless.

amateurist: is there any reason you're not just showing the first one?

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, April 30, 2012 9:14 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a few reasons: i've got the early '70s covered, a lot of folks have seen #1 already, and most important, #2 helps me make some points i want to make better than #1. although part of me wants to show "mandingo" or "foxy brown" for the mid-70s.

xp to clemenza

(a fly wends in and out of Aimless's mouth, unmolested, as he gapes, glassy-eyed)

Wuh? Oh. Yup a yup! Gotcha! Sumpin' doin' wit' butter, or sumpin'.

what other films are you showing?

i don't even want to go through it since it's really in flux right now. can someone think of a good film to use to teach about fairly early (mid-90s?) digital postproduction (in particular, CGI but not exclusively CGI) that's not Jurassic Park??

not that i have anything against j.p.

T2 was 92 wasn't it?

maybe you can show a few key scenes from the first one?

on topic: maybe the first one is an objectively greater movie, but the melancholy drift (that slow and steady way we become someone we hate) of part two is always very moving to me.

yeah i think part II is even more of a hybrid between a traditional american genre and a European-style art film than the 1st. it's the ambitious narrative structure, languid pacing, etc.

part ii seems snappier and more action oriented than part i, though. just in terms of pacing it feels a lot more like superman ii than superman i, even though superman i is the one that has the idyllic old country scenes and the backstory and whatnot.

there are definitely more and bigger action setpieces, but it's also like 4 hours long

i think i might have watched the chopped up tv version.

hell maybe i'll watch the two godfathers tonight, make a night of of it.

or at least pt. 2.

i've been meaning to revisit them myself -- tbh i've always found them a little hard to love, as great as they certainly are.

see, i think the tv version (which arranges everything chronologically) basic saps out all the lyricism from part 2. also this is a bit of an idiosyncratic reading, but i always imagined that the flashbacks in part 2 were Michael's romantic imaginings of his father's rise, hence the final flashback which does seem to be Michael's memory.

it's not very romantic, though! papa corleone is pretty much a thug.
is the video game worth playing? it was supposed to incorporate some weird brando resurrection technology.

Ryan's interpretation is interesting--I've never heard that proposed before.

i've been meaning to revisit them myself -- tbh i've always found them a little hard to love, as great as they certainly are.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, May 1, 2012 5:25 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i completely agree, but it's hard to avoid them if you're teaching a class.

I thought the second one was "objectively" the better one, in the sense that it's got qualities most critics prefer: less pulpy, slower, emphasis on chiaroscuro, foreign languages.

i guess the game is not so good:
'They never asked me if I thought it was a good idea. I went and I took a look at what it was ... What they do is they use the characters everyone knows and they hire those actors to be there and only to introduce very minor characters. And then for the next hour they shoot and kill each other. I had absolutely nothing to do with the game and I disapprove. I think it's a misuse of the film.'

hard to agree that de niro's corleone is presented as a thug, tbh.

Youth lends a certain glamor to thuggery. Also, golden, suffusing light.

in the context of the story more effort is arguably put into making his descent into violence understandable or sympathetic than in justifying much or all of the other violence we see?

imyo

vito's or michael's descent?

Lots of shots of Vito and his family enjoying their company (to emphasize their father's love) and bitter at their poverty so that the audience accepts why he chose crime. Also: the local obese white-suited Italian boss is made a sleaze compared to hollow-cheeked taciturn Vito.

yep, and the backstory from the old country etc also.

Vito's whole shtick since Part I is that family absolves all sins, but i dunno if the audience is meant to buy it, except to the extent that Michael destroys his family.

and to the extent that Michael even loves his family.

Watched I and II over the weekend.

I - I adore Brando, not so much his delivery but all the small things he does to add color to Vito. The way he casually brushes off Solazzo's pants at the sit-down, that opening scene with the cat...he feels like a real person, somehow? I read Kael's review and I like the thing she said about how Brando internalizes all of the power of the Don. It's like his violent past is buried deep in his old man soul so you can feel his power just by him being in the room. And the quietness of Pacino just gets me. He's so measured and good in the beginning, and then measured and ready, and tough; and then measured and calculating.

II - I've only seen it once before. I def found the details of the story a lot more confusing, especially the Roth connections and the double-play Michael was making about his suspicions on who shot him up at Tahoe...but the DeNiro scenes were fantastic. And the way it was like the thread you were watching going forwards with DeNiro, by contrast wtih Pacino it's like even though he's building that empire you're seeing him lose everything that Vito gained. All through I, Vito is surrounded by associates and family and friends adn everyone is so close to him, the parties seem like huge extended families...but Michael has everyone on a pending kill list, even his own family. I have been thinking a lot about what exactly it was that bred that impulse in Michael, as though he misinterpreted the shooting of his father as a call to arms to shoot everyone who crossed his path from then on.

The last couple of scenes of II really slayed me though. That table scene with Sonny, Fredo, Michael and Connie and I'm kind of teary just on the weight of seeing them all alive again, lol. And then Michael staring out at the lake alone at that big mansion.

Oh, and I adore the score. Adore it. Maybe moreso in I than II though. I it was much more noticeable, felt much more like a radio melodrama with its musical cues.

sorry for the blather I've just had it in my head all day and had to get it out!

It was only over many viewings that that most of the details in II started to fall in place--there are probably still a couple that I couldn't fully explain. (E.g.: Why does Michael go off on Pentangeli the way he does during his "In my home" tirade? He seems to have made up his mind by that point that it was Roth who set him up, not Pentangeli.) My favourite line from the flashback dinner scene: "Talked to my father about my future? My future."

YES. That killed me.

I loved Fredo's speech in the chair to Michael too, the one you said some of the kids in your class performed upthread; the way he's flailing around helplessly in that stupid chair while simultaneously pleading for respect was hilarious and sad.

Coppola notepad

http://cinephilearchive.tumblr.com/post/39323234557

I really think evidence that Coppola even fleetingly considered the Indian chief from "F Troop" for Don Corleone to be p significant.

TS: Anthony Zerbe as Sonny Corleone vs. Anthony Zerbe as Tom Hagen

I didn't realize Zerbe was in his mid 30s at the time, always seemed older.

The theatre where I saw II last night was giving these out at the door:

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/fredo_zpsaa284eb3.jpg

I'm sure this has been raised many times, but I'd never thought about how puzzling the timeline is jumping from II to III. II ends sometime after 1958--within a year, say. III is set in 1979. Mary is around, what, 6 or 7 in II? That'd make her late 20s in III. But isn't Sofia Coppola supposed to be 18 or 19 in III? Or am I mixing up the actress's age with the character's?

yeah that whole thing did my head in, I had to stop thinking about it

Literally the first time I'd ever thought about it, primarily because I try never to think about III.

did you know today was the day don michael corleone traveled forward in time to die on at the end of godfather 3?

I watched them back to back a while ago (or at least, within a day or two of each other)...such a bad idea.

You need a xanax to deal wtih the transition

I did II and III within a couple of days of each other too. It's interesting to see up close just what happens to the functioning of it all when you tear out the European art film element and replace it wholesale with a US soap element.

It took me a good hour to stop saying GAH! MY EYES

i really loved III when i saw it at the movies. but i was 15 and i was so damned in love with sofia coppola. can't face seeing it again.

http://www.scoutingny.com/the-godfather-the-new-york-city-filming-locations-then-and-now/

at last we know where clemenza's house is!

lol 128 Mott St

Ned that is neato!

kinda sad about that Bronx restaurant going, since Tessio said "it's perfect for us... good food..." My fave bad laugh of the movie.

Ambience was important, too: everyone minds his business.

I hafta think the mansion in Staten Island gets some drive-up tourism.

Reminder: Abe Vigoda is still alive.

tessio's yelp review was glowing iirc

The commenters up re seem to locate the barbershop in the St Regis Hotel, so all my fave noise enemies are invited there for a shave.

Being alive is the smart move. Tessio was always smarter.

the stuff on page 2 about the tollbooths/AFB is great

The Godfather. Only the Deniro part of the second movie are any good. I barely cared about Al Pacino's character at the end of the first movie why would I (or anyone else) want to struggle through half of another movie and ANOTHER whole movie after that. Blurch.

Really the best way to watch the first two movies is that 7 hour long thing (The Godfather Epic) they did for NBC where they put them all in chronological order and added an hour or so of outtakes, but I don't think that's available anywhere anymore.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, January 22, 2004 1:32 AM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://i.imgur.com/euQhZxX.jpg

every time I pass Old St Patrick's (maybe once a year) I get the urge to go in and reject Satan and all his works.

And settle all family business?

"Really the best way to watch the first two movies is that 7 hour long thing (The Godfather Epic) they did for NBC where they put them all in chronological order and added an hour or so of outtakes, but I don't think that's available anywhere anymore."

I dig the ending on that edit where they use that unused scene with Michael coming back from WWII at Christmas time as the bookend showing the family together and happy.

The first one is a better stand alone movie, but to me it's all one piece in my mind as I have spent more than a few holiday's watching them back to back on TV over the years.

that Christmas scene is in the official cut of G2, I do believe.

Was just going to say that.

It's been so long since I saw the 7-hour version, I can't specifically remember any of the added scenes. But I do recall that even the slightest change--a few extra seconds at the beginning or end of a standard scene--jumped out at me immediately.

Brando wanted too much $ to be in it, but since they got Caan and the other dead folks they put it in anyway. xxp

I def saw the Complete Novel in '77 before I saw II standalone.

if it's the scene in which Michael announces he's enlisted it's in the original GII.

that's right, it's sposed to be '41 and he's back from Yale.

have we ever discussed the Vito chronology? i think he's identified as nine in 1901 when he flees Sicily, so when the first movie starts he's 53?? Brando is made up and acts like 70 at least.

The chronology in the three films is a muddle. So is costume and set design.

I like the eighties cuts of the disco-era GIII Andy Garcia.

Did discuss the questionable chronology of Mary Corleone's age on this or another thread--the character, as I figure it, is almost ten years older than Sofia Coppola in III. (Which is tied for the 83rd most questionable thing about III.)

http://www.filmsquish.com/guts/files/images/the-godfather-part-ii-alone_2.JPG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbchmWS5jIU

the prince of darkness

Duvall:

What was Brando like?

This might sound like heresy to some: More right for “The Godfather,” that part, was the guy who starred in “The Sopranos.” [James Gandolfini] was more willing to play the pr—. Brando was more heroic. On the second day of filming, there was a makeup guy who came in the dressing room, saying, “He’s playing this like a kindly old uncle.” He was more romantic. But Brando was wonderful to work with. His scene with Al Pacino, he had a big sign in a tree. He was reading his lines. [Laughs] He was a master at reading those lines all over the place.

A picture went viral recently of you on the set with Brando’s lines attached to your body.

Yes! Someone pointed that out to me recently! Another guy, Luca Brasi [actor Lenny Montana], we’d have him take Brando’s lines away. And Brando would have to stop. We had him do his monologue to Brando then stick out his tongue and say, “F— you!” We put him up to it. It was good to have fun on the set, to keep it relaxed.

http://www.metro.us/newyork/entertainment/movies-entertainment/2014/05/16/robert-duvall-night-old-mexico-interview/

Wilford Brimley is still alive?!

he's not THAT old... he was barely 50 when he did Cocoon.

Anyway, Willis:

“There weren’t a lot of contemporary mechanics introduced, like helicopters and zoom lenses. It was a tableau form of moviemaking, where the actors move in and out of frame, very straightforward. It was supposed to feel like a period piece… There was no discussion of lighting. I just did what I felt like doing. The design came out of the juxtaposition of the bright, cheerful garden party wedding that was going on outside, and the underbelly in this dark house. I used overhead lighting because the Don was the personification of evil, and I didn’t always want the audience to look into his eyes, see what he was thinking. I just wanted to keep him dark… (In those days) screens were so blitzed with light that you could see into every corner of every toilet and closet on the set. I’d always hear, ‘They have to be able to see it in the drive-ins….’ When the dark stuff started to appear on the screen, it seemed a little scary to people who were used to looking at Doris Day movies.”

http://thedissolve.com/news/2271-gordon-willis-1931-2014/

wilford brimley is only 79 years old, but he's looked 60+ since 'the thing'.

yeah I didn't realize he was playing so much older

it was always weird to see such an ornery 26 year old shilling for quaker oats.

because the Don was the personification of evil

this is weird, i never felt like the godfather movies ever portrayed the don as the personification of evil! pacino certainly esp. in part ii but vito was always potrayed in a heroic fashion

yeah, i thought that was the most interesting quote. i prefer whatever movie Gordon Willis saw. altho he seems to be referring only to the scenes in which he's shadowed and distant.

(maybe the moment most suggestive of this is the dissolve (yes?) from Jack Woltz's screams echoing around his estate to Vito in repose)

Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2CX20bBNJE

well, except his eyes appear to be lit if closed there?

anyone see the 'new' HBO 7 hour doohickey? seems to be just The Saga (the VHS set from the late 80s) again, only in HD and widescreen.

Really??! Oh man I want to see it then. VHS thing from the 80s (which was originally shown on TV in the late 70s) is my favorite version of I/II.

Wow.

"The Godfather Epic is the TV version of Francis Ford Coppola’s famous gangster movie saga, in which The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are cut together chronologically with additional footage left out of the films. It aired on NBC in 1977 and was later released (in shortened version) on video in 1981. The result is a jumping-off point for debates about the differences between film and television, and even streaming content. Or, you know, you could just hang out with Al Pacino for a while."

i think thematically something is lost by Vito '20s and Michael '59 not being contiguous. or do people judge that tactic to be some kind of failure?

(i saw it Saga-style on network TV)

I judge it to be a failure simply because I judge the Michael section of II to be a failure. In the context of the extended epic, it's flaws are somewhat minimized.

interesting... i spose i would agree as far as "he's lost his soul" was already the ending of I. But I think most of the supporting characters (Fredo in particular) are more fleshed out and human than in the first. Plus you have Strasberg, Gazzo etc.

(also as i don't much like Brando's performance his absence doesn't bother me)

i enjoyed watching it in the saga format.

i like the saga format because (slightly) more Godfather but it's lesser than the 2 movies precisely because of losing the chronological juxtapositions

I watched the first half of III the other day. Not sure if I'll finish it. I'd heard how bad Sophia Coppola is, but I don't think she's much worse than everyone else. Everyone looks lost or indifferent.

certainly not worse than eli wallach

that said i didnt hate it in '90

seeing The Epic on VHS (it came in a leather-y box!) back in 89/90 was most jarring to those of us in the UK who'd only ever seen the TV versions. loads of great extra scenes sure but also much more violence in the bits we thought we knew already. back in '73 the BBFC had insisted on cuts to the toll booth sequence for example (the kick to the head etc) so The Epic was even more gory than it had been in Theaters.

I always thought she's possibly the best reason to see the film--a couple of really bad line readings, otherwise she's pretty good. Garcia and Mantegna are flashy and forgettable. Pacino, ugh.

i always quite liked III, although no Duvall sucks.

Pacino is basically just as good as he was in the first two. I'd rather he'd have won his Oscar for III than the shouty blind vet movie.

I didn't hate III but I haven't seen it since I was 15

I do remember the audience at the cinema laughing when Pacino falls off his chair

my friend calls that 'Arte Johnson from Laugh-In'

So I spent, y'know, the entire day watching the HBO epic. Hypnotic, and maybe my favorite viewing (having seen the first two films probably four or five times before). I think the chronological restructuring may have led to me catching lots of little things I never noticed before. And the 'new' scenes were welcome additions (in much the same way that I thought the Redux scenes added to richness of the tapestry of Apocalypse Now). Recommended way to chuck a day away!

I don't know how I'd completely failed to previously notice that Harry Dean Stanton is in part 2.

Did you catch Danny Aiello?

No! Goddamnit, now I need to watch it again.

I didn't know who Danny Aiello was the first few times I saw the film (no one did), but after Moonstruck, I probably watched it another half-dozen times before picking him out. (It's a speaking part and a memorable line.)

i have new fav moments in OG Godfather each time I watch. lately it's watching Willie Cicci chillin, gettin a shave, right before plugging Cuneo. and Clemenza sayin "oh Pauly...you ain't gonna see him no more"

also never realized that actor was the main character in Maniac o_O

The more time goes by, the more I'm convinced that the first film is the only good one. Part II has its moments, but it is hugely overrated.

weirdly I had the opposite trajectory, considering it overrated for a while and now loving it almost as much

video at first link

https://thefilmstage.com/news/watch-francis-ford-coppola-and-the-godfather-cast-reunite-in-80-minute-tribeca-panel/

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/the-godfather-tribeca-reunion

wow I started a thread on ILE

The number of people who side with Michael over Kay during Part II's abortion fight astounds me.

Well, by people, I mean YouTube commenters, so I guess I withdraw the observation.

Probably just real good Catholics.

I remember reading Rex Reed's Godfather II review in the NY Daily News when it came out (I had just seen the first on TV). He singled out that scene for praise, and it now seems to me the clunkiest scene in the film.

So, Rex Reed, off the mark for half a century.

OVA!

when AMC showed the chronological Saga in 2012, there were credits sequences for each 'episode' that featured footage not seen for decades on tv, dvd or anywhere. some of it from footage from the jettisoned final hour-or-so of GFII which was set in the 60s; Micheal walking in the woods with a teenage Anthony, having dinner with Connie etc. tiny bits of footage which of course i'm sure 99.9% of people couldn't give a toss about but it was all news to me.

https://christopherpierznik.com/2016/04/18/some-of-my-favorite-deleted-scenes-from-the-godfather-films/

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/47rX31mjEVo/hqdefault.jpg

I spent a day watching that thing when it dropped on HBO. As with Apocalypse's Redux, I'm apparently cool with Coppola plugging as much extra footage into his classics as he sees fit. It's a shame that it might not ever see a home video release.

that was fredo?! in the boat? he didn't have a tache! plus he disowned him about 30mins prev. I don't get it.
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, March 16, 2004 2:00 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

still the most baffling post ITT

False fred

"I killed my mother's son after he shaved" - Godfather III

this was put together by a friend of ours who teaches at Berkeley, with the heavy lifting done by undergrad students. Dozens of different aspects of the film covered in a publication workshop.

http://theseventies.berkeley.edu/godfather/

fab! thanks

In 2006, EA released "The Godfather" for PS2, Xbox and PC. (See The Godfather )

Most everyone, including Brando, allowed their likenesses to be used in the game except for one major character. Can you figure out who wouldn't sign the release?

https://i.imgur.com/VlI7o0F.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cI1r4fw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hwbn2r6.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Ntw5sJu.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/a0EcMEk.jpg

^LOL

Still trying to guess? Here's another shot of Michael.

https://i.imgur.com/YopnmXS.jpg

Whoever it was, I heard he was being tough on the negotiations.

es un teléfono de oro macizo

i recently discovered that in the many non-canon Godfather novels published post-Puzo, there is one that has Michael befriending JFK (by another name) in their youth because their fathers are both bootleggers.

The guy does become president, but is shot in Miami, not Dallas.

Maybe Tarantino should buy the rights.

Heard a radio promo for an upcoming show by Gianni Russo at a casino in Niagara Falls. "You know him from The Godfather"--well, not immediately, had to look up the name. It's Carlo! Tempted to go, just so I can walk up to him at some point and say, "You have to answer for Santino, Carlo."

http://www.fallsviewcasinoresort.com/entertainment/event/gianni-russo

Just don't tell him your username.

I served as godfather for my friend's son's baptism today. I'm a devout non-churchgoer, so we had to, uh, finesse the paperwork a bit.

Anyway, I had to suppress a giggle when I was asked if I renounce Satan. Tomorrow, I settle all family business.

What I really wanted to do was give the Pentangeli answer:

"Do you renounce Satan and all his works?"

"Yeah...sure."

http://www.stinque.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/pentangeli-480x220.jpg

I had the VHS of the Godfather epic and its the one that I know.

it turns the whole thing into a sprawling dynasty tale to be enjoyed over consecutive nights... the third doesn't even seem as bad, when you dont see the joins between each film... (although its pretty obvious when we hit no.3)

Madness that its not available on DVD/Blu-Ray!

I think its available in the US on streaming, but never managed to get a VPN to make it work.

this lockdown has me jonesing for a big sprawling well made epic to take up a few evenings.

Have at it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Z9H9mG-SI

dexter fletcher directing intrigues me but part of me is kinda cringing at how this could go?

will give it a go though

Begs for an actual documentary.

One of my go-to lines is, "Tell Mike it was only business. I always liked him."

Begs for an actual documentary.

I read the Harlan Lebo making-of book many years ago, and there are definitely amazing stories there, but trying to dramatize it...I even bailed on the trailer when I heard "It's a metaphor for the American dream." The guy does look like Robert Evans, I'll give him that.

Probably get more mileage out of this treatment for De Palma’s Scarface.

I always have the same problem with shit like this & Being the Ricardos: "Oh no, will they be successful at making The Godfather??"

This could be terrible, yet I'm intrigued.

Lou Ferrigno as Lenny Montana is pretty good casting

I had to check to see if that was really him, my goodness he has aged well

update

it is very dumb, often insists on repurposing lines from the movie in different contexts like WE GET IT. PLEASE DON’T DO THAT. also we’re 4 eps in, already up to 4 cannoli references. STAHP.

Michael Goode is great as Robert Evans,
Dan Fogler’s Coppola also great, Burn Gorman does a nice Bluhdorn. The movie-specific story is engaging even with annoying biopic exposition, but there’s a lot of sidestory w Italian American League that is tedious, and Ruddy’s lovelife storyline is kinda deadweight imo.

It’s based on “Albert Ruddy’s experiences making the Godfather” which is weirdly specific & so he takes credit for pretty much everything short of the weather bc everyone else on the studio side is dead & cant sue him. Plus he’s 92 so i guess he wants his flowers.

I am kinda enjoying it now that I have accepted that it is kinda trash, sorta like a vh1 biopic. Hard not to get sucked into the story though bc hey, it’s thd Godfather yknow?

oh and Juno Temple is great, maybe my favorite

is there a scene i'm forgetting or looking at my phone during or something where michael and carlo interact at all between michael's return from sicily and their confrontation during/after the baptism? the structure of 1 is so solid and every little ironic turn (the undertaker payoff-- a weakened don having to buy peace by locking his remaining children into the drug business he fears-- michael's "escape" in sicily and his dreamlike trad marriage only knitting him deeper into the "thing" he will return to imprison kay in, both thru the ritual of the marriage itself and thru its vendetta-driven termination) is so carefully-even-mechanically set-up/paid-off, it is weird that this crime of michael's that is clearly meant to carry all this weight (summoning talia shire for her second big scene etc) doesn't seem to have anything balancing and leading towards it. i guess the sleight-of-mind is to encourage us to project our own feelings about connie/carlo/sonny onto michael, since we were actually there for the whole thing, and not on a different continent.

still prefer 2 for leaning into the epic qualities but 1 is v committed to being a perfect melodrama in a deliberately old-fashioned way that makes tiny questions like this diverting to me in a way they wouldn't be about a sloppier movie.

(not a "plot hole" question about like "why would michael want carlo dead"-- this is plain enough-- just feels like a missing floorboard that he never looks across a room at him and smolders silently or anything.)

Michael is such a genius mastermind that he didn't need to be there to figure out what happened.

yeah obviously he (and-- connie says-- everyone) suspects (and then he confirms). i'm not saying how did he know. it's just mostly the kind of movie where we would be able to see him knowing at some earlier point. 2 feels less of an obligation about this kind of thing.

I don't think there's any set-up for Michael ambushing Carlos at the end. I hadn't thought about it before your question, but now I'd say that's one of the reasons that last scene is so scary: it happens out of the blue.

it happens out of the blue

this is true-- a contrast, too, between his actual sudden murder (a decision of michael's) and the slow formal forseen see-off of abe vigoda (advice of the don's). modernist vs postmodernist godfathering

To me, this is the point: nothing gets past him and he is indeed settling ALL scores.

Fredo and Johnny Ola got past him in II; it was only Fredo's slip-up at the Cuban club that alerted him.

Different film

yeah, it was the 'keep your friends close, enemies closer', aka, delay the fuck out of your vendettas so people get complacent and don't see them coming.

part of how Michael let the five families, Moe Green, even his own family members think the Corleone family had weakened so that the assassinations take everybody by surprise and he's back at the top of the heap, moving to Nevada with a big 'fuck you' on the way out.

xxpost did they, though? I mean he pretty much knew it was Hymen Roth from the beginning, used Pentageli as bait, and I'm sure he had to have some suspicions that the most obvious mark in the family is his doofus brother.

he just has incredible patience and plays the long game in testing his suspicions.

also how dumb is Fredo that he can't remember what he said ten minutes ago.

I think the scene where Michael declares Carlo his new right-hand man in Nevada provides something like the planking for the assassination scene, but it's only really apparent in hindsight. You don't notice it in the moment since there's so much happening in the scene, but in hindsight, it's obvious that it made absolutely no sense for Michael to promote Carlo to that level (he has no reason to put that kind of trust in Carlo) unless it was to keep Carlo close.

which is another thing that baffles Hagen, not only is he fired, but you make THIS prick your partner?

but of course he doesn't read between the lines, cos he ain't no wartime consigliere

Michael knew about Roth, for sure--figured him out early--but I really believe he had no inclination Fredo was involved. His reaction when Fredo lets Johnny Ola's name slip strikes me as genuine shock and dismay.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/ola.jpg

I think the scene where Michael declares Carlo his new right-hand man in Nevada provides something like the planking for the assassination scene

! yes this is it, tho clem's point still applies imo. thanks to all

there are things being negotiated now that are gonna solve all your problems and answer all your questions

Tessio is also maybe dispatched with a certain amount of honor because Michael really does know it was strictly business, whereas with Carlo he knew it was personal (also Carlo being actually a member of the family of course.)

We don’t see Tessio’s death but we can imagine something quick vs the torturous ugly and not even hidden nature of Carlo’s demise (I hope they didn’t pass any honest cops on the way to the quarry or whatever, with C-man’s legs sticking out the windshield!)

if you read the book, you were treated to descriptions of each victim's sphincters releasing by Puzo

def but it's also implied that michael (ironically given icy performance and intended grooming for abstracted stringholding legitimacy) kills personally where his father would not right? connie says "you waited until no one could stop you" (revived thread because of this line prob)-- much is made mid-movie of the don's refusal to continue vendetta over the v same crime, sonny's death-- then we are shown these two formally identical "go out to the car" executions w these v diff vibes+meanings-- and it's the business one that follows posthumously from the don's final preoccupation+command and the personal one that is part of some kind of step into new territory for michael?-- (also of course the one that leads him to discover he can lie to kay's face)

it's just mostly the kind of movie where we would be able to see him knowing at some earlier point. 2 feels less of an obligation about this kind of thing.

I feel like Part 1 gets trickier in this respect as it goes along. Initially, we're allowed to follow Michael's thinking very closely, and we see the sequence of events clearly as one thing leads to another. When Michael takes over as Don, he becomes much more of a closed-book, we're given much narrower glimpses into his thinking, at times he's bluffing the audience as much as his associates and his enemies. The scenes feel more fragmentary, and it's only afterwards that they all fall into place.

yes! all i rly meant by modernist vs postmodernist godfathering was that the last third of this felt way more like 2 than i'd remembered.

(in that spirit then i should say leads "us" to discover he can lie to kay's face)

DLH, I forget the more minute and precise differences in the scenes but generally I feel maybe like Hagen handling Tessio’s goodbye vs Michael dealing w/Carlo more personally ties in with that

yes-- tessio even tries a final futile explicitly personal appeal to tom, but (the conditions do not allow, and) tom is a robot

that was a bit of a ruse, I took Connie's lines to be more reflective of her naivety. The Don's speech wasn't him actually foregoing vengeance, it was a clever sleight of hand. He promised that *he* would not be the one to break the peace made that day (but he made NO promises for his son, when he took over as Don).

Vito had clearly seen Barzini was muscling in on Corleone territory and after acquiring protection of judges, that wasn't likely to stop. The Corleone family was practically getting 'chased out of New York', as Moe Greene said, and the only way the equilibrium-resetting assassination of the 5 heads would work is if the Corleones feigned weakness. Vito going into retirement, transitioning to a peaceful, old wine-drinking man, the Corleones trying to expand into Nevada, which to the untrained eye, looked like them trying to flee New York rather than an intentional business strategy.

Vito was a violent man, no different than any other Don, but he knew if he got his vendetta against Sonny right then and there, the war would continue, and they weren't in a good place to win - next up to be whacked might be Michael, or Tom, or Vito himself. But I have no doubt he wanted revenge.

You even see Vito coaching Michael for what's to come, you just think at the time he's helping him avoid being betrayed by Tessio, but Vito also says there are reasons why Hagen can't be involved with what's to come, which almost certainly means "war and blood is coming". and the reasons Hagen can't be involved, besides "not being a wartime consiglieri", is that as soon as the five heads of the families, Moe Greene, and Carlo are dead, he'll most certainly be reinstalled in his position on arrival to Vegas, and it removes the risk of Hagen being incarcerated along with the other members of the family for these crimes as he has no foreknowledge. it's also possible they thought Hagen would try to shut it down, as it was a crazy idea.

Godfather II was truly the film where Michael broke w/ his father and became ruthless in a way that was positively unhinged, a need to win despite the costs. In a way he was more like Sonny in terms of his rage, but not his recklessness.

xxxxpost

what if it was 1977 and Michael was engaged to Annie Halll

Vito also says there are reasons why Hagen can't be involved with what's to come, which almost certainly means "war and blood is coming". and the reasons Hagen can't be involved, besides "not being a wartime consiglieri", is that as soon as the five heads of the families, Moe Greene, and Carlo are dead, he'll most certainly be reinstalled in his position on arrival to Vegas, and it removes the risk of Hagen being incarcerated along with the other members of the family for these crimes as he has no foreknowledge.

I hadn't thought of this. Is this from the novel?

I don't remember, to be honest - I read it in high school. but the book does have a lot more insight into the thinking of the individual family members that kind of fills in gaps.

I always felt that they were protecting him in a way just from the way that scene unfolds.

some people have asked me why Michael makes such a quick transition to wanting to join the family's dealings after his long-standing distance and disapproval, and I'm always like "for us Italians, the moment sometime tries to kill your papa, it don't matter what disagreements you had with him prior. people are gonna die."

Your explanation of Michael freezing Tom out makes sense, but I also always thought it just had a lot to do with Michael's vindictiveness; he obviously bears some kind of personal grudge towards Tom at various points in II (e.g., when he confronts Tom about his mistress). He could be channeling Sonny's belittlement of Tom in I ("That's easy for you to say, Tom, he's not your father").

i agree that it is hard to imagine even the sainted-via-omission don of these movies being above taking revenge for the murder of his son but i'm just talking about carlo here-- connie says "you all" blamed him for sonny's death and whether she is naive or not i don't think the idea is that michael alone has the insight to figure out he was involved, and presumably the corleones can do what they want with carlo regardless of their position in mob geopolitics. the celebrated baptism montage murders are indeed exactly the kind of thing the don might have done-- then the baptism ends and michael exits the church with one more murder of his very own left to do, set aside special, a denouement.

quite possibly, but I'm not sure if that enmity had sunk in yet? he has that tender moment with Hagen after his assassination attempt at the beginning of II, but by the end, he's cold as ice to him. part of that, I think, is him either assuming Hagen helped Kay get the abortion, or at the very least, didn't try hard enough to stop her (or figure out that she was trying to get one).

(xp also of course he says the very same thing to carlo that sonny said to connie-- "you think i'd make my sister a widow?"-- then unlike violent hothead sonny immediately makes his sister a widow.)

some people have asked me why Michael makes such a quick transition to wanting to join the family's dealings after his long-standing distance and disapproval

There's also that beautiful moment after the hospital face-off, where he lights a cigarette for Enzo and realizes that he's stayed steady and calm through the whole thing, where I think he discovers that he has a taste for this stuff

forgot xpost for previous post

dlh, I see your point. I don't know that Vito himself would have killed Carlo since he loved his daughter and he'd know what that would do to her, but at the same token, I'm not sure what action he would think was appropriate. Divorce, well, they're Catholic, so that wasn't something he'd approve of (Michael himself gives her shit for getting divorced in II). Stripping him of his participation in the family, definitely.

it's hard to think of Vito allowing Carlo to sit at family dinners knowing he helped kill his son, though. and I doubt Connie would ever believe he was guilty. I'm going to guess he probably died before he could figure it out and Michael decided to deal with it knowing he'd be hated by Connie forever for it.

Pacino's concentration is so complete and so masterful that I have trouble thinking this is the same actor in Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Dick Tracy, Heat, etc. I have trouble even thinking it's the same actor who played Michael a third time.

There's also that beautiful moment after the hospital face-off, where he lights a cigarette for Enzo and realizes that he's stayed steady and calm through the whole thing, where I think he discovers that he has a taste for this stuff

― jmm, Sunday, November 6, 2022 11:59 AM bookmarkflaglink

interesting you mention that! my dad and I were watching it for about the 10th time together back in 2010, and he drew the same conclusion, saying he'd never really noticed it before but that's where he makes the emotional move towards joining the family.

xpost I don't mind yelly Pacino by any means but it's kind of amazing that his voice never really creeps above a whisper until he yells "NO!" at Kay.

my dad used to always say "this is the moment the Michael Kay knew is completely gone".

it's hard to think of Vito allowing Carlo to sit at family dinners knowing he helped kill his son, though.

oh totally i mean it doesn't make much sense as something this character would "actually" do. just parsing the ~resonance~ of what-we-are-shown here.

btw, you've never seen rage in a movie theatre like the time they brought it back via TCM Cinema Classics, but they mistakenly played the wrong introduction prior to showing the movie, instead showing the intro for Bonnie and Clyde.

dude in front of me kept yelling "WHAT? no, this is Godfather! fix it!", people booing, guy in front of me saying "I believe in America" over and over again until the film started and to everyone's relief, it was the right movie.

otm re cigarette and pacino perf in general which despite its exquisite control is still full of very nuanced lil moments like that on its long way down to what kael called the "almost immobile" gargoyle of late-2.

xxpost yeah, and it is definitely a character transition for Michael. I hadn't read the book when I saw the movie the first time and I really thought Michael was going to spare him, until I saw the backseat of the car had two people in it (hello, garotte!)

guy in front of me saying "I believe in America" over and over again until the film started

looool

(xposts) With so many mob-related films and TV shows, there's always the idea--sometimes unspoken, sometimes verbalized--that the current generation doesn't adhere to the same moral code as earlier generations. Even though Vito was a ruthless killer when he needed to be, there's this central idea that Michael isn't the man his father was. When Hagen and Pentangeli meet for the final time, they wax nostalgically about the way things used to operate (all the way back to ancient Rome, I think). That never-measuring-up idea is all over The Sopranos. So I think we're often meant to view Michael's actions through a "Vito wouldn't have done that" prism. (Maybe this is obvious.)

only other quibble w neanderthal's exegesis is that of the two women in these movies (lol) connie is def not the naive one, but the other one. the one who says "read the papers. read the papers. that's your husband! that's your husband!" get her to a doctor.

(apologies to mama corleone.)

the two things that affect to extract mikey a little from the old-school family -- the first approved by vito, the second not -- are being "joe college" and joining up: it's been almost 50 yrs since i read the book so i don't know if this is even filled in there, but do we know if michael saw actual-real action overseas and if so where? bcz basically the first is vito's vison of achieving respectability (which i don't think is fully bogus even if i do think it's self-delusion) and the second is no, michael's not going to be the joe-college head of a respectable family, he's going to be an even more war-time don

i mean they say he's a war hero or something don't they?

Oh I only think Connie is naive that her dad wouldn't have blessed it (I think jury's out), Kay is sure as fuck naive about everything Michael does lol.

Didn't the Don say in the hospital bed that he had "big plans" for Michael? "Senator Corleone!" It seems like he was always going to play a part in family business but on the respectable side.

I think book said Michael had a Purple Heart?

There's also the scene where Sonny makes fun of him for wanting to kill Sollozzo and he's like "I was in the army yo I ain't afraid of no blood".

Being a politician and representing Italians would make Vito proud.

Going off to fight a war for a government that made life hard for Italian immigrants, on the other hand...

That's why Sonny was comfortable with letting him handle a gun. xpost

But yeah Vito never wanted Michael to be the Don. He wanted Sonny, but realized he was terrible at it, and Fredo was an idiot.

Guessing Sonny probably still would have been given the position if he hadn't died and Michael hadn't stepped up.

underrated lol: "i knew santino would have to go through all this. and fredo-- well. fredo was-- well."

[makes same philosophical face he makes during screaming crossfade from facade of hollywood mansion]

The other one being Tattaglia combing what's left of his hair

Fredo's not dumb, not like everyone says. He's smart, and he wants respect.

i guess what i'm getting at is (a) yes, when mike's at the hospital and it's gangster-action time he realises he can do it and he into it (bcz it's war stuff and he already knows war stuff) but (b) there's still gnna be a psychic cost if even he has superb skills hiding it (inc.from himself)

less pomo godfather more ptsd godfather

[makes same philosophical face he makes during screaming crossfade from facade of hollywood mansion]

― difficult listening hour

lol this is one of my favorite moments. Twenty years later the arc of his perf in The Freshman is Brando making that whaddya-gonna-do face for 104 minutes.

He's not an animal, despite what that undertaker says

and yah vito wants to insulate michael so that he can be a kind of jfk. the culmination of an immigrant project. "that's my family, kay-- it's not me" isn't a rebellion (whether michael thinks it is or not)-- to be him, and not his family, is precisely the role prepared for him. that's why the "where's michael?" moment, waking up in the hospital bed, is tragic. (later, michael will-- in some weird third-order-removed entirely allusive and metaphorical way!-- kill jfk.)

less pomo godfather more ptsd godfather

tomato tomahto!

Yes, the look on his face where he finds out Michael killed Sollozzo and is now firmly "in it" is heartbreaking, him dismissing everyone.

what if it was 1977 and Michael was engaged to Annie Halll

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, November 6, 2022 10:44 AM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Damn you all, now I want to rewatch these movies

Looking at the script - it's interesting how the term 'pezzonovante' ('big shot') gets used by Michael and Vito, mostly as a term of disparagement for the 'legitimate' big shots, but Michael also comes close to owning it at one point.

FABRIZIO
(in Italian) Somebody told us you were a real important...how do you say...a pezzonovante. A big shot.

MICHAEL
(in Italian) I'm the son of a pezzonovante.

refs of various kinds by other chars to michael's wartime exp (including churchillian clemenza helping to psych him up for the solozzo hit by invoking munich) run all thru the movie and mark s otm re: irony of this being both key symbol of michael's "legitimacy" and part of what has trained him to be the only capable leader of the family's illegitimacy. (same note's hit in the irishman, every time someone says "you know, it's like in the war" to him.)

(then michael turns his family into a national-security state within a national-security state)

while Donald Sutherland in a trenchcoat watches them from a park bench.

"Very, very few people know about this, okay?"

mike, it would be like trying to kill the president!

I don’t doubt their involvement Al but at a lowah level

had never noticed pezzonovante motif! because i never knew what they were saying. gambling is a harmless vice forbidden by the mumblemumble of the church. but yeah michael's response to "senator corleone... governor corleone..." is "another pezzonovante!" i wonder if he thinks vito is being naive.

he lights a cigarette for Enzo and realizes that he's stayed steady and calm through the whole thing

he does this again in cuba, for fredo, after watching the latter fumble for a match while pretending to try and remember whether he's met johnny ola

speaking of which--

I really believe he had no inclination Fredo was involved. His reaction when Fredo lets Johnny Ola's name slip strikes me as genuine shock and dismay.

unsure when he begins to suspect fredo but it's no later than the banana daquiri scene, where fredo actually begins to confess but is interrupted by a waiter. when johnny ola shows up michael makes a point of introducing them and asking again if they've met. certainly true that he's heavily affected when all doubt is removed tho! as we watch him react to fredo's self-incrimination we hear sen. geary (offscreen) saying (of superman's dick) "i've seen it and i still don't believe it!"

Interesting--I've seen it so many times, and I'd never really considered that. Watched the scene again, and the way Michael's smile drops at 2:57 suggests you're right. But he still shows a lot of affection for Fredo two or three times during their conversation, affection that might be hard to fake if he'd made up his mind. So...definitely suspecting, but not yet sure?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfpXRgQNDEA

i think he just really hopes it isn't true. breaks his heart iirc!

lmao btw @ cazale's lil jerry lewis routine w the $2mil suitcase at the beginning of that vid

do I have to watch this tonight

90 miles away, alfred. partnership with a friendly government.

Lots of people in the comment section of that clip claiming that the line is: "It's not easy to be his son."

I slowed it down and it still sounds like "a son" to me, unless Michael is really running the consonants together.

I think he says "to be a son"--"to be his son" wouldn't make sense.

Something I wrote on GFII 25 years ago. Haven't seen either in a decade--had to just swear off them at a certain point.

Cazale's stiff posture and expression as Michael is saying that Roth is the one tried to have him killed... perfect.

What does the way Fredo says "Oh--that's great" at the one-minute mark mean? That he wants to change the subject?

It's great how the sirens start up at that moment.

Nobody will ever be cooler than Willie Cicci getting a shave and a haircut before whacking Cuneo

Cuneos last words: "Who's your barb-"

Tattaglia was Deaths Very Much in Character

The demands on me were impossible. I had settled on a price and everybody else’s was settled upon mine. Coppola had me losing weight to play Clemenza as a young man. I was down to 194 pounds. When I received the script five minutes later, it had me rolling in at 300 pounds.’’

Pretty fucked. Pentangeli was definitely a risk because now all you had left from the old 'family' besides Corleones was Hagen, Cicci Al Neri, and Rocco, and you had to entrust a huge amount of the story to someone the audience was just meeting, but it worked out fine.

I agree with Castellano that Clemenza wouldn't have flipped, also

gazzo gave a thoroughly excellent performance fortunately, the right mix of pride and pathos and clearly a good character in how he would be an easy mark for the con pulled on him. I wonder if clemenza falling for it would have been as believable. HOWEVER we can also see it implied that Michael made a tactical error in telling Roth it was Pentangeli who tried to kill him, which led to Roth giving the go ahead on the hit, which led to the betrayal. Lots of layers there.

lol @ clem’s blog invoking meet the stupids, a movie i found extremely hilarious at the time

clip upthread reveals i was wrong sry re “interrupted by a waiter”— he loses his nerve and summons one himself. tragicer, obv.

scene where michael visits pentangeli on set of i believe in america scene (now lit, but still w the blank white paper outside the blinds) is richer for its not being clemenza— they are both standing in the place of ghosts.

"I want you to show them a good time in Havana."

"My specialty, right?"

What's great is, he's not wrong. Fredo can be funny and easygoing in ways Michael can't. He gets people like Senator Geary to drop their guard (and yeah, the Jerry Lewis bit... Fredo's a natural comedian). He actually could be smart, but he's in the wrong family entirely.

Two episodes into The Offer. Some of it seems right, some of it wrong. Judging by the prominence of Al Ruddy's name in the credits, it does seem like a work of self-glorification. (One of the wrongs, I'd say, is Giovanni Ribisi's hamminess.)

Fredo's not dumb, not like everyone says. He's smart, and he wants respect.

That's the way Pop wanted it.

The show is both terrible and reasonably watchable

At least up until the last episode and its utterly damp squib of a depiction of Oscar night, which I guess is because they had to dance around what a disappointment of a night it was for GODFATHER, compared to CABARET.

Pretty much exactly how I'd describe what I've seen so far.

yeah Eric otm that is a perfect description

it’s def Ruddy-aggrandizing & a lot of the time it is borderline like watching a stupid Lifetime movie … but the Coppola and Pacino of it is kinda worth it imo plus i find Godfather lore just kinda addictive yknow? … and Ribbisi is unintentional comic relief for his ott nonsense

The guy they had playing Pacino was kinda cute too, fwiw

My favourite performances so far--maybe I should recognize some of them; I don't--are Evans, Ruddy's wife, and Ruddy's secretary. I also like the guy from Gulf & Western who's the money man--not Bluhdorn, his underling. I recognized him but had to check; same guy who played Father Gill in Mad Men. (Bluhdorn was prominent in the whole Heaven's Gate debacle, I seem to recall...but that was a different studio, so maybe I'm misremembering.)

I also like the guy from Gulf & Western who's the money man--not Bluhdorn, his underling. I recognized him but had to check; same guy who played Father Gill in Mad Men.

That'd be Tom Hanks's not-embarrassing son

But, yes, Matthew Goode the clear MVP in this cast

Ha--had no idea he was Hanks' son. And that should be Ruddy's girlfriend, not wife. (Posting while working...or working while posting, maybe.)

One of the weirder things (obviously intentional) was when Ruddy goes to the New York politician in E2 and tries to secure permission to film in New York. The way he gets turned down is almost a paraphrase of something Vito says to the other family heads in their big meeting about Sollozzo.

i liked Burn Gohrman as Bluhdorn - it is very ott but anecdotally i get the impression Bluhdorn was even more ott IRL & that this is him toned down lol

Matthew Goode for sure the mvp as Evans, he’s great start fo finish, no notes as the kids say

And yeah, Pacino actor is super handsome! i hadn’t seen him before this. He does an ok job w the voice too

though re the voices w this show it’s hard not to seem like everyone’s doing a tight five of celebrity impressions at the Chuckle Hut, and it can very easily take you out of the story

i think Juno Temple’s Bettye character is great - there’s not a lot else for the women characters to do so in this bc it’s such a sausage fest & she really does a lot with her part to make herself indispensable & grab some of the spotlight when she can

There was a really good scene between Bettye and Francoise in E2, where Francoise is trying to figure things out but--supremely self-assured--knows that there's nothing sexual going on between Ruddy and Bettye, admires that Bettye doesn't betray Ruddy, and a mutual respect is established.

Great line: "Don't do Columbo--it makes my head hurt."

Five episodes finished, starting to warm to Teller, Ribisi, and the series. Bettye's the most interesting character, I think; don't know anything about her real-life counterpart. Eric Balfour as Dean Tavoularis--haven't seen him since Six Feet Under. Just by coincidence--started the book before the series--I'm reading a biography of Sue Mengers, who has turned up in a couple of scenes.

From his Facebook:

Paul Schrader
8h
I HAD A GREAT IDEA. David Shwartz asked me to intro The Godfather at the Paris under the rubric of directors pick best films. I said I would do it if the theater threw a Rocky Horror style cos play contest for best character wardrobe (a Francis signed script as the prix) and I could invite John Epperson and Charles Busch to join me on stage and overdub the memorable lines: "offer he can't refuse," "I will call upon you to do a service for me," "may their first child be a masculine child," "sleeps with the fishes, "that's my family, Kay. that's not me."Plus a confetti-filled sing/dance along for wedding song: "See'è 'na luna mezz'you mare Mamma mia m'a maritare Figlia mia a see you te dare Mamma mia pensace tu" and pass along the cannoli's and sound effects when Michael goes to the bathroom...you get the idea. Shwartz assured me that Paramount would in no manner allow the film to be screened under those conditions so we decided I would introduce Ozu's Tokyo Story instead.

That thing where they transpose a line (or something close) from the movie into the making-of story, I think I've counted six or seven instances thus far.

The account of Evans, Ali McGraw, and The Getaway presented here (McGraw really wants to do the film, Evans tries to dissuade her) is literally the exact opposite of what's given in the Mengers biography. No idea which, but either The Offer has it wrong or Brian Kellow's research is faulty. And in a couple of paragraphs on Evans and The Godfather in the Mengers book, Al Ruddy isn't mentioned once.

the incorporation of the lines us def thd eyerolliest part (among many)

One of the worst scenes for me so far was the first time they assembled the cast for a Corleone dinner, and you're supposed to believe that everyone started improvising in character, except the guy who plays Carlos, who apparently wasn't in on it and became a pin-cushion for everyone else. "Kiss the ring! Kiss the ring!"--ugh.

yeah that was p bad

Did Coppola ever comment on The Offer? I tried googling "coppola interview the offer" and got nothing. If you can point me in the direction of something, please do. Eight episodes in and I'm really starting to wonder how much of this is true and how much is Ruddy's self-serving revisionism. The whole thing with Carlo Rizzi slugging Talia Shire for real on set, and then Ruddy arranging to have Caan actually pummel Rizzi in the famous street beating--really? The series pays regular lip-service to Coppola, and some to Puzo and the actors, but basically the success of the film--its very existence--comes down to Ruddy swooping in to solve one crisis after another without hardly ever breaking his sagacious calm.

A couple of things that suggest it's mostly fiction:

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/movies-tv/wondering-how-accurate-the-offer-is-about-the-making-of-the-godfather-dont-ask-its-writer

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2022-04-27/the-offer-paramount-the-godfather-fact-fiction

my folks watched it, I had zero interest. will read the Wikipedia article on the making of the movie

If you're interested in a full-length book, I recommend Harlan Lebo's The Godfather Legacy--which I'm almost curious enough to re-read now (but won't, because I was already Godfathered-out even before I started The Offer).

yeah iirc from the credits the series is based on ruddy’s “remembrances” or “recollections” or whatever so it’s more like a fever dream of what happened than any kind of watertight factual dramatization

just let it wash over you like waves of bullshit dotted with random
actual events ie there WAS a movie called godfather & it WAS directed by coppola but everything else is up for grabs as far as ruddy seems ti be concerned

Don't think I've ever seen a credit quite like it:

"Based on Albert S. Ruddy's experience of making The Godfather."

Yeah, that'll hold up in court (actually, its very vagueness probably offers legal protection--"Well, that's how Albert S. Ruddy remembers it").

In legal circles, known as the "Uncle Leo defense": "He's a 90-year-old man--he gets confused!"

pretty much

When Bettye talks to Ruddy about wanting to break off and start her own agency, the words she uses could have come from Sue Mengers. But, going by the postscript, that's her story too.

I thought there was some subtlety in the way they brought Lapidus around. How credible you find his reconciliation with Evans will vary, but I like the low-key way they presented it: Lapidus looks up at all the clippings on Evans' wall and finally sees the rapport Evans has with creative people (you can even see him start to come around at the tail end of that meeting with Alvin Sargent that he crashes). And I liked how they balanced that with Evans coming around to Lapidus's keen sense of the traps to be aware of in how they opened The Godfather. They rescued each of them from caricature.

So: with the many problems noted above by everyone who's posted, worth the 10 hours I'd say. And I'm sure they got the basic reality correct: it was a project riddled with complications.

Now, someone give me the 10-episode prestige TV making of Cabaret please

I'd watch the Cabaret show

hell yes

And the entire last episode better be about all 8 of those Oscars

there's plenty of Cabaret content in Fosse/Verdon

I want a series on the making of Nashville, with a whole episode devoted to Kael's preemptive review.

Yeah, I assume Cabaret was already covered by that.

oh watched fosse/verdon but would be happy for more Cabaret

yeah, there was some Cabaret in the Halston series too, but I want it to be the sole focus

i never finished the Halston show - Cabaret being in there might make me revisit

weird bit of crossover content in The Irishman/The Offer (based on a cursory scan of storylines, haven't seen the latter)

What was it? I must have missed that.

By the end, I think the best, most natural performance might have been Jake Cannavale as Caesar. When I saw the name I assumed he was Bobby's son (he is); also Sidney Lumet's grandson.

Joe Colombo's attempted assassination was shown during The Irishman, as was the hit on Joe Gallo by the titular Irishman. different contexts, obv. the former was this dreamlike & grisly slo-mo shooting.

There's a clean-looking print of Crazy Joe (Peter Boyle) on YouTube; I've never seen it, will watch soon.

The Halson show was fine. I admired Ewan McGregor's commitment to it.

When I saw the name I assumed he was Bobby's son (he is)

didn't he also play Bobby's son in Nurse Jackie? I remember him being good in that

pic.twitter.com/10uaMqe5h3

— mouse (@punchedrunk) April 21, 2023

(Open tweet for the full joke)

why do I find it so funny when Tattaglia is seen meticulously grooming himself during the meeting of the 5 Families

Maybe that's what the Don meant when he said Tattaglia's a pimp

Lol I actually think it is

Watched this with mom tonight in honor of dad

It never gets old.

You're not a wartime consigliere, Tom

(masked and very very distanced of course)

It's gotten old. That was all decided last year.

CLEMENZA

Anyway watching this tonight was a blessing.

always a good call <3

Part II at Regal cinemas in the US for $5 this week

WAHT

Part II at Regal cinemas in the US for $5 this week.

lol

my offer is this:

nothing.

I had the odd experience of watching II before I watched I. Anyway, I prefer the second, particularly the denouement. And the Fredo/Michael dynamic. Cazale is just devastating.

"I am not resigning," Johnson said defiantly at a news conference Tuesday, calling the threat "absurd" as Republicans are "trying to do their job." "We need steady leadership. We need steady hands on the wheel," he said. "Look, I regard myself as a wartime speaker."

If he were a wartime speaker, a Sicilian, they wouldn't be in this shape.

“Barzini's dead. So is Philip Tattaglia. Moe Greene, Strachi, Cuneo.”

Not sure if your post is hooked into the news of the day, but if so, this is the one for today:

"I don't fell I have to wipe everyone out, Tom--just my enemies."

(Typo belongs to the Godfather transcript site, not me!)

“I know English! Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Sunday Saturday”

https://bsky.app/profile/jaredwade.bsky.social/post/3ltkosq4kjs2z

Rewatching II today

DeNiro/Young Vito’s brown coat w upturned collar & baggy cap outfit is so good

Also Michael should have checked NO on Anthony’s drawing & left it on his pillow with a note WHEN HAVE I WORN A FUCKING HAT

https://www.replicapropstore.com/cdn/shop/products/20210122153705858_1024x1024.png?v=1612278966

"Jesus, Anthony--you make me look like that guy from Breaking Bad."

am i some kind of clown to you?

Wait, but Michael totally does wear a hat like that

He does wear a fedora, doesn't he?

https://i.postimg.cc/FF2Lt8pm/hat.jpg

my joke works better if you all dont fact-check me

I was with you 100% at first; I glanced over to the spectator gallery and saw my long-lost brother from Sicily, at which point I folded like a cheap suit.

lol <3

clemenza five-angels

One by one, our old friends are gone--of the principals, just Pacino and Shire left, I think.

De Niro too

Duh--was focussed on the American family.

I've got CNN on in the other room, and whoever's on just drew the perfect analogy to Trump showing up at the Supreme Court today: Michael at the Senate hearing when Pentangeli testifies. Did he have one of the Justice's siblings sitting next to him by any chance?

https://i.postimg.cc/zfspVfFz/pentangeli.jpg