DIRECTED BY: Francis Ford Coppola
STARRING: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Talia Shire, Lee Strasberg, Michael V. Gazzo, Morgana King, G. D Spradlin, Richard Bright, Marianna Hill, Fay Spain, Gastone Moschin, Troy Donahue, Dominic Chianese, Amerigo Tot, Joe Spinell, Bruno Kirby, Frank Sivero, Maria Carta, Francesca De Sapio, Giuseppe Sillato, Roman Coppola, John Megna, Julian Voloshin, Larry Guardino, Harry Dean Stanton, Salvatore Po, Leopoldo Trieste, John Aprea and Danny Aiello
BUDGET: $13m
EARNED (Domestic): $47.5m
AWARDS: 6 Oscars (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art-Set Direction and Best Original Score) and 1 BAFTA (Best Actor)
SYNOPSIS
The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York is portrayed while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on his crime syndicate stretching from Lake Tahoe, Nevada to pre-revolution 1958 Cuba.
The Godfather Part II picks up after the original, with Michael Corleone attempting to expand his empire to Las Vegas, Florida and pre-revolution Cuba, whilst facing problems with his marriage as well as well as trying to figure out who attempted to have him assassinated. Meanwhile we’re shown the early life and rise of Vito Corleone of getting into the criminal life ahead of him.
Often filed under the tag of ‘the sequel is better than the original’ category, The Godfather: Part II had pretty large shoes to fill in following up the acclaim of the first part of the Francis Ford Coppola trilogy and works on every technical and storytelling aspect. Beautifully crafted in it’s direction, particularly the scene in which a young Vito Corleone is stalking Don Fanucci through the neighbourhood, Coppola executes a crime film with a simple storyline, showing us the parallels between father and son, making this a truly terrific combination of prequel/sequel feature. We witness the rags to richness story of Vito and then Michael’s expanding the empire but at a cost of his moral compass being crippled by the films end, truly no scene feels out of place or could be left on the cutting room floor, though the films runtime might keep people away from repeated viewing within a short space of time. The cinematography from Gordon Willis is beautiful, the set decoration from George R. Nelson is superb production design from Dean Tavoularis is terrific, infact across the board of the cast and crew there’s nothing bad that can be said here which is a rarity in itself. The films key focus comes down to the brother dynamic between Michael and Fredo, an angle which has been played to death at this point but is well handled here due to its importance which comes to a head in a scene shared between the two of them where Fredo lets out his anguish of being overlooked and looked down at while being the bigger brother, a scene in which John Cazale owns the absolute hell out of, giving a great performance throughout as Fredo, while Al Pacino seamlessly underplays Michael Corleone throughout, becoming a merciless and evil Don, losing the personality we seen in the original disappear completely in Part II. The whole ensemble is great, particularly that of Robert De Niro filling the shoes of Marlon Brando portrayal of Vito by portraying him as a young adult and his rise to power, with great performances from Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall and Lee Strasberg. A true masterpiece with an argument of ‘Which is better? the original or sequel’ that still rages on today.
FAVOURITE SCENE: Michael is talking with Kay and learns that in fact that she didn’t have a miscarriage, but an abortion. Great scene between Diane Keaton and Al Pacino.
FAVOURITE QUOTE: ‘I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!’ – Michael Corleone
DID YOU KNOW?: Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro are the only two actors to ever win separate Oscars for playing the same character. Brando won Best Actor for The Godfather (1972) and De Niro won Best Supporting Actor for this movie, both in the role of Vito Corleone. The first sequel to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. In the scene in which young Vito negotiates with Signor Roberto on the street, a passerby interrupts to say hello to Vito. Carmelo Russo was an extra who was supposed to just walk by but he improvised speaking to Vito. Francis Ford Coppola did not like that Russo interrupted the scene. But Robert De Niro liked that it showed how much people in the neighborhood respected Vito and he convinced Coppola to keep Russo’s line. Marlon Brando was scheduled to return for a cameo in the flashback at the end of the film but, because of the way Paramount treated him during The Godfather (1972), he did not show up for shooting on the day the scene was filmed. Francis Ford Coppola re-wrote the scene without Vito and it was filmed the next day. A test screening of the film garnered negative reactions from the audience. They found cutting back and forth between Michael and young Vito confusing and bothersome. Francis Ford Coppola and his editors decided to decrease the frequency of the transitions in order to make the parallel stories easier to follow.
Irish Cinephile 