Rusalka's twenty-seventh film review: Not the film of a lifetime

Rating: Null/10 (5 July 2003)

Ok, The Godfather. For some, this is the film of a lifetime. But not for me. Now that I've seen the film twice in its entirity, I still am left to wondre just what the big deal is about this film. Granted the performances and the casting was quite powerful for its day, but still as much as this film has held itself up over time, on my top one hundred list, this one goes somewhere in the low 70's.
If there were any redeeming qualities about this film it would be the screenwriter's ability to create a script from an already existing body of work and turn it into a living breathing thing as Mario Puzo has done here. The script is so finely nuanced and fine-tuned that at times as the story unfolds it as if we are watching a great symphony orchestra play. The different plot-lines and instances just sweep over us.

The Godfather is not a film for children to see at all. Yes, it is a film about an Italian family in the mafia, but still it is a very "talky" picture. There is gratuitous violence that abounds within it but, it is so deftly plotted that it doesn't really stick itself out there like it was just put in the film just to be in it. The film goes from one end of the spectrum to the other. In one scene, these people are sitting over a nice dinner that's spread before them, in the next people are lying there with blood spilling out of their brains. In this film, there is no happy medium to be found at all. Marlon Brando gave the performance of the year in 1972 but, however I still think his best performance of his career was 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire.
The Godfather was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning three (Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay). Bob Fosse beat Francis Ford Coppola that year for his landmark direction of the film version of the musical Cabaret.
So, all in all, you either love this one or you hate it. My question is: What's the big deal? It's a film!
My rating: 2 stars