The Godfather Of Them All

Rating: 10/10 (5 July 2006)

It has been over three decades since its birth, yet *The Godfather* reigns as the yardstick by which all other gangster movies are brutally scrutinized.
Only twice has its proprietary mien been challenged - with Scorcese's gutshock *Goodfellas* in 1990 and David Chase's superlative *The Sopranos* in 1999. Everything else runs a far, far fourth behind these juggernauts.
From Mario Puzo's book of the same name, Francis Ford Coppolla directs the legendary story of an East Coast crime lord, Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando in the eponymous role), grooming his eldest son, Santino "Sonny" (James Caan) to take over the Family Business, that being, one arm of the Italian "Five Families" who run the Eastern seaboard's organized crime. When Sonny is brutally gunned down in an inter-familial dispute, Corleone's youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino), who sought a life removed from the Family's "business," ultimately discovers his familial and business instincts and steps into the breach to take the reins.
Like the movie itself, its characters have weathered the three decades to become icons by which all other movie gangsters are measured; most of the actors in these staggering roles never quite shaking off the specter of their characters  which will surely haunt them far past their own deaths.
These archetypes have become so ingrained in our culture that it is almost impossible to think back to a time when they did not exist; like trying to imagine a world before *Smoke On The Water*, or *Star Wars.* Very simply, if not for *The Godfather* these archetypes would not be archetypes. The movie actually influenced real crime families with its new street vernacular ("Make him an offer he can't refuse") and manner of conducting "business" (that of regarding any means to achieve an end as honorable  as long as the good of The Family was invoked).
The greatest gift *The Godfather* bequeathed the movie-going public was its unapologetic stance on anti-social behavior. Beyond "Man with No Name" protocol  where a lone stranger would operate by his own rules, disregarding anyone else's well-being for his own ends - here was a FAMILY, an organized para-militia of sociopaths who followed principles wildly at odds with "normal" society's. Yet Puzo, Coppolla and actors boldly offer no excuses as to their characters' existence, motives or actions. After our Gangster 101 schooling with James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and George Raft, here was a blood-driven, wealth-engined world only hinted at in those previous gangster genre movies, now fleshed out almost against our will; here was a world where our societal notions of right and wrong were utterly reversed, yet which made sense in the verisimilitude of its own universe.
Searing with grand irony, the first line of dialog in *The Godfather* is, "I believe in America."
And indeed, these characters are not mindless convenience store hijack artists  they are businessmen in the truest sense of the word. They are also imbued with a strong sense of loyalty and justice. Though *The Godfather* may seem apologist in its stance towards supposedly heartless criminals, telling the tale from *their* point of view allows us freedom from guilt when we realize that "crime" is a subjective term. As Don Corleone states, when opting not to murder molesters, but rather land them in hospital like their victim, "We're not murderers."
No matter they dabbled in gambling, prostitution, money-laundering and murder, they sought only to be self-sufficient, to keep their families well, and to live comfortably in peace - otherwise called The American Dream.
In setting the tale in the 1940s, Puzo and Coppolla removed us from everyday reality from the outset; in this insular universe we readily accepted The Family's version of morality. It was no stretch to dovetail the authorities' actions in the film with our suspected perception of them in our reality. Matter of fact, it seemed to vindicate our darkest suspicions that the people whom we place our unmitigated trust in for safety from society's savage shadow dwellers are in cahoots with those very shadow dwellers who are trying to subvert our safety.
There are scenes that will be burned forever into your mind's movie wall: the opening tableau of the Godfather presiding at his desk; the head of racehorse Khartoum in Jack Woltz's bed; Michael gunning down the police captain; Carlo Rizzo being bitch-whipped by Sonny; the slaying of Sonny; even seemingly-benign scenes like Moe Greene's meeting with Michael, where he claps his hands together and exclaims, "You goddam guineas really make me laugh!"  the subsequent bullet through his eye is another mind-burner; and the grand "cleansing"  scenes of the East Coast bosses being killed systematically juxtaposed over Michael renouncing Satan at his god-daughter's baptism
Through it all runs the unbreakable thread of Family. The opening wedding scene ends on a poignant note of a father dancing with his daughter. Harking back to the familial theme constantly, Coppolla reaffirms our deepest vicarious desires. We are all immigrants to some extent, the bonds of our heritages displaced, fragmented, growing weaker over every generation of X-Box and internet junkies; there seems nothing that can bind the strands of our familial threads. We find affinity in the blood bonds of *The Godfather*, on some level deeper than the span of oceans and the passage of time.
(Movie Maniacs, visit: poffysmoviemania.com)