The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola. 1972. ⚄
I watched the second episode in this series a couple of months ago, and it was (to my great surprise) quite fun.
So I’m guessing this is gonna suck.
[five minutes pass]
I can’t stop staring at the huge wads of cotton they’ve stuffed into Brando’s face:
He can barely talk! There’s so much cotton in those cheeks!
Anyway! I mean, I’ve just seen a Scorsese movie, and Coppola’s interests here intersect with Scorsese’s single obsession, so it’s interesting to contrast these two. Coppola has made a huge variety of films, many of them really interesting. Scorsese has made a gazillion mafia/hard guy movies? Is that accurate? I’m just typing from memory without doing any research; whaddayawant. Getouttahere. Anyway, everything here is just like better than Scorsese, from the interesting editing, to the very unrealistic set design, to the Altmanesque dialogues.
OK, perhaps I should watch more than five minutes before I declare this movie a winner? Right?
[an hour passes]
This is a really fun movie. Sure, it’s pure escapist fantasy — the mobsters are really smart and cool and come up with really inventive ways to get what they want (e.g. the horsie) — but it makes for a really entertaining film. It’s like a 50s western in many ways. Cool showdowns.
The performances are spotty, but the framing makes it work.
[nine more hours pass]
I’m still entertained, but it does feel like they could have cut some stuff here. That is: There’s more than a few scenes in here that are less than compelling.
This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.