a minor quibble that I have wilt most mafia fiction like the 90s untouchables tv show the godfather ect
Why do they all swear Chicago and new york hate each other ? if I remember right Luciano and Capone and torio were long time friends and partners and the Chicago takeover was planed by lucky as part of the "5 points takeover " of the families ?
The nine nominations also included James Caan for Best Supporting Actor (I) and Lee Strasberg and Michael V. Gazzo (Frank Pentangeli) for Best Supporting Actor (II), as well as the “bad actress” Talia Shire, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (II). (Somewhat to my surprise Cazale wasn’t nominated for either, but that might have been because they didn’t want to have every Best Supporting Actor nominee come from the same movie.;))
Focusing on a supposed bad performance by someone in a very minor role (and who actually was nominated for an award in the sequel) when there were stellar performances by some of the best actors in screen history in almost all of the major roles is a strange reason to wonder why the movies were well regarded. How many other movies have received 4 (I) or 5 (II) acting nominations?
Breakfast.
I am of two minds about that scene. It’s very well acted and filmed but I don’t get how the family would find it absurd that he would kill people. He was awarded the second highest award for valor for his actions in the Pacific. His bravery was notable enough that his picture was on the cover of Life magazine (in the book). His bravery and ability to kill would be common knowledge in the family. And the jungle fighting of the Pacific was not “shooting from a mile away.”
It’s not the killing, it’s the context of the killing. Audie Murphy wouldn’t murder a corrupt cop to preserve his family’s criminal empire.
From the way WW2 was portrayed in the media, they might not know that.
But it was killing Japs, who weren’t really human beings at all. Not remotely the same as killing an Italian or an Irish cop. (My father served in the Pacific and I have the cruise record of his ship. The racism is blatant.)
“…a dishonest cop - a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him.”
But yes, the difference was between Michael fighting selflessly for his country (as Santino berates him for at the end of Part 2, and Michael fighting for his family, albeit destroying it in the process. His decision to kill Fredo once their mother dies cements the dissolution of the family. Poor, dumb, sloppy Fredo, the older brother who has to “bang cocktail waitresses two at a time” to try to prove himself a man, while Michael is a man in every way except spending time with his family.
Stranger
[Moderating]
madmonk28, why even open a thread if you don’t want to participate? I know it doesn’t take much effort to click on a thread, click “reply to post”, and then type three characters, but it takes even less to do nothing. Don’t threadshit.
I was just at my Sicilian grandmother’s funeral a few months ago and an elderly woman was bawling and throwing herself around the room. I’ve known my grandmother for 40+ years, and I’ve never seen this woman before in my life, so I have no idea how it’s possible she could have been that genuinely upset. I ask my mom who the hell this lady is, and she tells me that this is her form of social media. She shows up to funerals of people she knows and plays the part of the most sad person in the room to show respect.
A professional crying lady. I’ve seen those around Asia.
It’s an interesting question. I recently watched the first film with my daughter, and noticed how complex the storyline really is. We would pause it every few minutes as she peppered me with questions that did not have obvious answers in the film. With that said, the film is pretty amazing for when it was made, and I like the depth of the characters.
I wouldn’t have had a chance at understanding either film without having read the book first–not only do I have absolutely no ability to recognize faces, but there are dozens of scenes that were cut from the first movie that, IMHO, really make a difference.
For example, there is a scene where Sonny gets a phone call fingering the bodyguard as the traitor in his father’s shooting. Without that the viewer knows vaguely that they figured it out somehow, but it was such a short scene that it could have been included.
Likewise, there are two missing scenes in the Johnny Fontaine Hollywood situation that really help paint a picture of what a nasty guy Woltz was: as Tom walks in, they are holding a birthday party for a teenage girl, shown briefly in the released film, but shown for several more seconds, with her mother, in the cut scene. Then, as Tom arrives at the distant house (after a 4 hours drive), he glances upstairs and sees the girl, now in tears, at the rail, with her mother shouting for her to get back in the room.
To be fair, the movie was really really long, and they probably agonized about each and every second clipped out, but those little missing scenes take away from the film a bit.
If it wasn’t for 1 and 2, I think 3 would have been considered a good movie. Certainly not great, but I think underrated. The scene of Michael dying all alone and unnoticed was a great poignant ending. That being said, Sophia Coppola is better behind the camera than in front of it.
What makes 1 and 2 great are the actors, the cinematography, the director, and the story. All first rate. Some of the visuals are incredibly rich, the wedding procession in Sicily comes to mind. The initial wedding scene in 1 was a treat, from the old man singing to the women making what look like observations on penile sizes. The wedding was a brilliant introduction to the characters, and done in 1% of the time that the wedding scene from The Deer Hunter took. Sure, there were some flaws- the scene of Sonny beating up his brother in law was the worst fight scene ever. But hey, how often do you get to see a scene with a guy waking up to find a horse head in his bed?
What a man did in the war isn’t how you see him in civilian life. The idea that my grandfathers did incredibly dangerous things in Europe in 1944 was cool to me, but cool in the same way movies or TV shows are cool. It was an abstraction, a story from a misty past. If my kindly, gentle, quiet grandfather who lived down the street had so much as raised his voice in anger, I would have been as shocked as if he had grown a second head.
This was even more true in the past than it is today; now, American soldiers returning from way are venerated as “warriors” who are different from civilians. Then, when you got back from the war, the assumption was that you took the uniform off and were a civilian again; it was something you were expected to leave behind entirely (a concept that has cons as well as pros.)
I heard that Coppola didn’t want to include scenes implying Woltz was a pedo because it took away from the horse head scene and the audience’s understanding of how ruthless Vito could be. He didn’t want the audience to sympathize with Vito’s actions and instead know that Vito could be brutal for simply not getting his way. It also is more shocking when it is seen what Woltz wakes up to since his only transgression is not giving someone a movie part. I think it was a good choice leaving it out.
Fair enough.
Though, the movie doesn’t stand well enough on its own without the book for this (IMHO). Once you read the book you know this part about Woltz and can’t un-know it for the horse head scene.
Other parts were far more disposable–he thankfully dropped the who subplot about Sonny’s oversized willy, leaving the barest reference at the wedding scene, where you see Sonny’s wife doing a fisherman’s “it was this big” gesture.
Another thing I never “got” both in the book and the first film - Michael’s first, Sicilian wife. OK, he gets hit by “the thunderbolt”, woos her, marries her, and in the book there is a lot of stuff about the hot monkey sex they have. Then she gets blown up almost by accident when she drives the car that was booby-trapped to get Michael. Then, she is never mentioned again. Not by Michael, not by anyone. If family is so important, and women and children are so off-limits, I would think a bit more attention would be paid, but everyone just drops it. In the book, she is even pregnant with Michael’s first child.
At least the film left out Lucy Mancini and her Extremely Large Vagina, another episode with no connection to anything in particular.
Regards,
Shodan
She may not be specifically mentioned, but attention is paid to her being killed. In the book, Apollonia’s killer (Fabrizzio) moves to the US and runs a pizza shop in Buffalo. Michael has him taken care of.
Here is a deleted scene from the movie:
Note that the extra shots were included in The Godfather Saga version, which aired on prime time TV. Also more about Vito going on about Woltz’s infamia, IIRC.