In another thread we’re discussing a plot point in “The Godfather.” In still another there’s a discussion of how “Bill & Ted’ Excellent Adventure” is a pretty good movie.
Now, it’s generally agreed that “The Godfather” is a great movie, while “Bill & Ted” is funny and fun but not an Oscar-type movie. Going further down the list, most people would agree that, say, “Battlefield Earth” is atrocious. Everyone’s milage differs; some people don’t like “The Godfather” and we all have our opinions. But there’s general consensus “The Godfather” is great.
Why?
I thought about this for a couple of minutes, which is about as long as I can think about anything, and realized I was not sure, because there are many things that make a movie great. But then when I started to list them I realized there’s a LOT of factors. But do you need all of them, or just some of them?
I’ll give it a shot, RickJay, since I may have sounded a bit snide in my comments in the other thread.
I saw it when it first came out and have seen it at least five times since, including owning the 5-disc Godfather Collection on DVD.
First, there’s the color and the lighting. The amber tones, the darkness, the shadows, all summon up images of those faded sepia-toned photographs most families have in albums of the War Years. It conjures up the mood of the times with color, lighting and such.
Then there’s the blending of major themes: family, business, treachery, intrigue, crime, justice, name another dozen or so.
Then there’s the performances: Brando, Pacino, Duvall, Caan, and on down the list to Sterling Hayden, Al Lettieri, Abe Vigoda, Richard Castellano, and even Diane Keaton and Talia Shire, although (I hope I don’t sound too chauvinistic here) this is a guy movie in terms of the acting.
The story lines are puzzling, tantalizing and forever shifting and evolving.
What’s not to like? Lots of gunplay to boot. And knives!
What makes a movie great is if it creates a strong and lasting emotional response in its audience, and in audiences over many years. If it’s still as fresh today as when it was released, then it’s a great film. You really can’t judge greatness until at least a decade has elapsed.
The Godfather fits – epic story, great acting, memorable characters, and it’s just as fascinating today as it was when it was released.
They collected a great group of actors and got in most cases the best or nearly best performance out of most of them.
It is a very quotable movie, this seems to help a movie stay active in the public consciousness.
As **Zeldar **went into the actual shooting of the film was artistically great.
The use of the music was carefully chosen, well done and never overwhelming.
It is epic is scope and has what is generally considered the best sequel ever made. This greatly expanded the scope.
It has great action and great dialog without being driven by either so it has something for most viewers.
It has several iconic, incredibly memorable scenes. The Wedding from the start. The story that Michael tells Kay about Johnny getting released from his contract. Don Corleone being gunned down. Sonny being gunned down. The Italian Restaurant scene. The Horses head. The long sequence of scenes showing the revenge of Michael in the end of course. (For me the scene of them cooking Spagetti while preparing for war.)
While it won’t appeal to everyone, it has a lot to offer to a wide variety of viewers.
Memorable scenes will keep old movies alive for new generations. There is a good chance that a 20 year old would recognize a spoof or reference to several of those scenes. They would recognize to some degree the end of Casablanca or that a beloved object of an old man now deceased burning was a reference to Citizen Kane. There are scenes from many movies that stay in the public consciousness across generations and increase the likelihood that a new generation will seek out a movie. The Godfather has many of these scenes and lines.
In order to be great, as well as doing what it does well (which Bill and Ted does), it has to deal with a serious theme (which Bill and Ted is rather lacking in, but the Godfather series does have). So, typically, the finest comedies, such as Duck Soup, The Ladykillers (the 1955 film) and Blazing Saddles, won’t be regarded as “great movies” because they aren’t about anything really important.
(Of course, a great movie can have its comedic moments – Casablanca has some very funny lines – but it can’t be just a comedy).
I’d disagree. There are comedies like Duck Soup, Bringing Up Baby, City Lights, The General, Young Frankenstein, Airplane, Singin’ in the Rain, It Happened One Night and His Girl Friday which are great without any serious theme (other than, maybe “boy loves girl” or anything a deconstructionist wants to read into it). And The Importance of Being Earnest is a great play despite being about nothing.
These make many lists of greatest movies of all time, and deservedly so. There are also great dramatic films that don’t have a particularly serious theme, too (The Big Sleep, or North by Northwest, for example.
I actually liked the old Don. I couldn’t help it. The rest are pretty much unlikeable.
As to Shakespeare in Love I actually think it is a weakly acted piece of fluff and not comparable to any of the great or truly funny comedies.
Now Animal House did not have better acting but it did have more laughs. Marx Brothers, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Airplane and even a film like Ghost Busters or Better off Dead were better. A movie like Arsenic and Old Lace or the Philadelphia story had more humor and far better acting.
There’s a distinction I draw between Great Movies and Favorite Movies. One involves my tastes and the other involves what I perceive to be the tastes of people who love and appreciate the idea of movies as an art form.
I have no problem admitting that many of my favorites aren’t great nor in accepting that many Great Movies just don’t appeal to me, even if I can accept that there are aspects of those movies that make them great in the eyes of educated viewers.
I can list a few dozen favorite movies. They’re the ones I will watch again with no hesitation even if I know every line of dialogue and can tell you what’s going to happen in the next scene. Some of them are great.
I can list maybe 50 or 100 Great Movies based on polls and surveys and lists prepared by reviewers I trust and favor. A few of them qualify as my favorites.
The Godfather is both. Unforgiven is another. Cool Hand Luke is a third. Blade Runner is a fourth. I could go on for another dozen, maybe.
So many of the older (pre-1940) movies are ones I have never seen. And I’d be willing to bet that at least 60% of movies being produced today will never pass before my eyes – in any form. Movies are personal for me and I have a pretty good idea of what I’ll like. But my wife has opened my eyes to dozens of movies I would never have tried without her say-so. So I can easily see that my tastes and hunches are not set in stone. I am willing to experiment and to watch things on the recommendation of others. But once I have been burned the third time by someone else’s tastes just not jibing with my own, I just ignore those inputs. Life is too short.
For me, it comes down to one simple* element: rewatchability. A movie I can go back to time and time again and enjoy and even get something out of every time.
One of the reasons I love the Godfather films is that not everything is explained to the audience - we’re left to figure it out ourselves, using our own experiences and brains.
A perfect example of this is the “deal” between Michael and Hyman Roth in GF2. It’s never explained, really, how this deal is going to work or anything. It’s left to you to understand that there wasn’t really a deal, that Roth was trying to con Michael into giving him (Roth) $2 million for a bunch of casinos that will soon become completely worthless. Michael gets embarrassed because he shelled out $2 million for nationalized hotels, while Roth gets $2 million for a bunch of worthless hotels and gains cred for scamming the biggest Mafia kingpin in the country at the time.
[ol]
[li]If it’s capable of making me think something I’ve never thought before. Especially if it makes me think of an old idea in a new way. [/li][li]The ending. The goal of a great movie is to bring the viewer to a single moment in time, where all the ideas coalesce and leave you with a larger idea that becomes part of what you carry around with you. That’s the ending moment, the final scene. Most movies get this wrong. (The Godfather, to stick with the current example, gets it right.)[/li][li]Something else that is unique to every great movie. I’ll know it when I see it. Or maybe not; but I’ll at least feel it’s there.[/li][/ol]
Very well said, lissener. I was trying to find words like those.
When older Great Movies are remade for whatever reason, most of the time the surface details are recaptured, sometimes with greater flair and technical whizbangs, and prettier stars replace the older ones. Most of the time the guts of the older movie were either misunderstood or were unique to the time and weren’t capable of reproduction.
The best example of a bad remake of a Great Movie was the Psycho abortion with Vince Vaughn. Scene-for-scene remake. No guts.
A good example of a good remake of a Great Movie (IMHO) was the translation of Seven Samurai into The Magnificent Seven where cultures and languages and periods of history were exchanged but where principles were shown to relate regardless of those trappings. Trust me, I had to dig for a “good” remake since there are precious few.
But what lissener said above is why the Great Movies are so hard to redo.
[li]The ending. The goal of a great movie is to bring the viewer to a single moment in time, where all the ideas coalesce and leave you with a larger idea that becomes part of what you carry around with you. That’s the ending moment, the final scene. Most movies get this wrong. (The Godfather, to stick with the current example, gets it right.)[/li][/QUOTE]
That’s actually a very interesting point because The Godfather, Part II also sticks the ending. I can remember the final images of both films just as if they were in front of me right now.
The Godfather, Part III? I’m not 100% sure how it ends. It it with Sofia Coppola dead? I think so, but I don’t really remember what it looked like.
I think there is an element of consistency, or maybe more specifically a feeling that everything is an essential part of the whole that puts movies in the ‘great’ category. I would argue that this is possibly why, say, Godfather III isn’t considered great (too long a time between the first two and the third made for the impossibility of Coppolla getting into the same mindset he was back then).
I would also say comedies don’t normally fit this category because this consistency relies on a certain mood, not necessarily meaning having the same mood and tone throughout, but having a logical progression of mood. Comedy relies precisely on unexpectedness and breaking of moods to be effective.
Personally, some of the movies that I consider favourites in terms of themes, techniques, and acting, are not consistent, but instead have multiple different concurrent themes, progressive and unusual techniques, and usually a variety of different acting styles being promoted. These types of movies will never be considered ‘great’ (e.g. Any Given Sunday, Domino, Natural Born Killers, Twenty Bucks-- heck, I might declare Bondarchuk’s War and Peace to be the grandfather of this type of movie, and while it is well-regarded in some circles, I’ve never seen it listed as being ‘great’.)