OTB#7: The Godfather

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.

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