If A Greek Philosopher Directed A Gangster Movie . . .

Rating: 10/10 (18 March 2010)

I secretly read Mario Puzo's The Godfather in 1974 when I was 12 after my mother prohibited me from seeing the movie. She was trying to shield me from the rough language and lurid violence. There sure was a lot of both but more so there were great characters. Vivid, real, flesh and blood souls that acted on well drawn impulses and ambitions. Consequences were openly inevitable but somehow jarring, devastating and poignant. Historical elements were stunningly precise yet grandly broad and vast. I was entirely, absolutely overwhelmed by the visceral sensations and sprawling imagery. So this is what "literature" is all about. This is what "reading", I now understood, could be. I had been something of a sci-fi junkie previously, but from then on I was a converted disciple of the Great American Fable. The story was truly great and I never could have imagined a better one until I finally saw the movies.
Astoundingly, Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptations surpass the novel in a few key details. The casting of Al Pacino as Michael Corleone is the single greatest improvement on the original story. Where in the novel, Michael is something of a strapping, virile, obviously competent man of action, Coppola introduces a crucial element of doubt by way of Pacino's diminutive stature. Though we are told Michael is a returning war hero, we are skeptical of his leadership abilities, especially in the company of such physically imposing figures as his father and oldest brother Sonny. Pacino's bodily disadvantage works to emphasize the complexities of his reluctance to join in the Family Enterprise, and makes his cerebral and emotional challenges that much more epic.
The other notable improvement on the book, of course is Marlon Brando, who created one of the most indelible characters for the big screen. There wasn't then, nor is there now, any other person in the industry who could so monumentally fulfill the herculean task with which that character is charged. Don Vito Corleone's function in the story is metaphorical, transcendent, mythological. He is the living embodiment of the ageless value of Heritage. Heritage which only endures through the tenuous bonds of family unity, but transported to a young, naive, unsympathetic land, is now being severely tested.
But since Godfather II begins after the Don is dead it is faced with the considerable challenge of how to maintain this crucial historical perspective. So, Gf 2 immediately whisks us back into time with a vignette of Vito's tragic childhood in turn-of-the-century Sicily. Later begins a series of flashbacks to his early manhood in New York City played by a sublimely low key Robert DeNiro. Oddly, he is not engaged in acts of wanton destruction, sociological delinquency or self indulgent pride. Rather, we are casually informed of Vito's entry into the underworld by way of seemingly reasonable acts. He is drawn as a man not just doing what is necessary to survive in the rough, often brutal New World, but driven by his familial responsibilities and a sense of duty to his community.
The period from which we are "flashing" is the late 1950s and early 1960s. By butting the "old" up against the "new" we are offered a sparkling view of the clash of cultures, of just how much had changed in those few decades. This dichotomy introduces a two fold historical perspective. By way of the contrasts between early and mid century life we are being informed of our present day (1972 and after) cultural afflictions. It's a subtle, almost invisible point, but one that is, I believe, extremely profound, the central theme of the story, and even more relevant today. Consider how, just one single decade after the time when the story ends to when the films were made, American life had so radically changed. Now consider how much things have changed since then.
While most fans of the film are impressed with the robust characters, compelling dialog and and terrific action produced with expert cinematic skill, I was even more fascinated by the film's more abstract qualities. Coppola, much more so than Puzo, is playing Socrates here, posing a dialectic query - How is it that primal cultural tenets might survive in a climate of overwhelming opposition? Francis is troubled, alarmed by the assault on vital culture that all humanity is experiencing today, and obviously very cynical that cherished and valuable, essential traditions can persist. This cynicism was a pervasive theme at the close of the sixties and it infused nearly all the great art of the time. Remember, the year of the book's publication, 1969, also saw the release of "Easy Rider." Not insignificantly, that too was a story of social outsiders, antiheroes colliding with an increasingly corrupt, immoral majority. This cynicism is the intellectual, psychological and emotional driving force of the The Godfather I & II, and it's the thing that kept me coming back to them, again and again.
So, what for many is simply a superb, if not the greatest, Gangster Movie, is for me one of the finest critical views of the American Way. It is, in fact, irrelevant that the Corleones are mobsters, because ultimately what destroyed them is what is destroying all Americans. The disintegration of the essential commitment to family and community - our succumbing to all the temptations that undermine our strengths - is our downfall. It's no coincidence that the tragedy ultimately concludes in Las Vegas, the spiritual center of America's true religion, the Capitol City of Temptation. Our cultural decline has progressed to where it is now terminally incurable. Great art in the service of a dying society. We have all become Fredo.