That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, because I did. It’s also not to say it wasn’t well made, because it was. I just mean that Francis Ford Coppola didn’t have to spend 3 hours explaining to me why I should sympathize with a title character who comes across as kind of a dick in the original film. I don’t need to hear a tragedy filled back-story explaining why someone became a dirtbag. I kinda like dirtbags. From Tom Cruise to Michael Moore, Judas to LeBron James, I can find myself rooting for the bad guy more often than not, with or without a sob story.
Yet, here we are. In a sequel that is also a prequel we are given the stories of how two men rose to power. Vito Corleone (Robert DeNiro) and his son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) rose to power in the shady world of organized crime. The constant jumping back and forth between events that proceeded the original film to its immediate aftermath are not ingenious because of the jump edits themselves, but rather the way the movie transitions from one time period to the next. Often times you are watching a Vito segment thinking it is a Michael segment and vice-versa. Employing both a “like-father-like-son” kind of motif but also pointing out their differences in personality and character by showing how the respective characters react to the events in their lives.
The film opens with 9 year old Vito having his father, mother and brother wiped out all within the first 3 minutes. The mafia Don who has whacked all of them wants Vito dead too for fear that he will seek vengeance on him when he is old enough. Vito is practically mute and even implied to be mentally deficient. Despite the obvious hardships he will face, friends of his family harbor him long enough to put him on a ship to America. When he arrives at Ellis Island, the impatience of the in-processing officers as well as his silence leads him to be erroneously renamed after the town he is from rather than his true last name, and thus, Vito Corleone sticks.
At this point the movie transitions to a sequel, showing the communion of Vito’s grandson Anthony several years later after Vito has died and Michael has taken over (as depicted in the first film). As I mentioned earlier, the movie is quick to point out similarities and differences between Vito and Michael, all while homaging the first film. In the original, Vito conducts business during his daughter’s wedding in New York, Michael at his son’s communion in Lake Tahoe. Vito is only seen in his dark, shaded office, Michael is outside in the sunlight. Vito wears a black tux, Michael, a grey suit. The guests in the first film humbly ask Vito for favors while Michael talks to people who flagrantly disrespect him. Indicating how both the times as well as the family business have changed. The party scene also pays tribute to the first film by reintroducing us to the returning characters from the original movie; Honorary Corleone Tom (Robert Duvall), Michael’s siblings Connie (Talia Shire) and Fredo (John Cazale), Michael’s wife Kay (Diane Keaton) and several other thugs and bodyguards.
The various meetings Michael has all lead up to a particularly violent assassination attempt on Michael while his wife and son are in the house. Nobody is hurt and the assassins themselves end up dead, but the parade of people both close to and outside the family who have previously met with Michael that day all have the motivation to put a hit out on him, which creates a sort of mini-mystery that is kind of corny in its “whodunit?” kind of portrayal but also very crucial in terms of illustrating Michael’s state of mind and how real the possibility of betrayal is at every turn.
Meanwhile, back in Vito’s day, his life in New York as a young adult is rough. His wife and their firstborn (Sonny Corleone) and living in a cramped apartment in Little Italy. He works at a friend’s father’s grocery store but loses that job when the mafia syndicate who runs the neighborhood shakes his boss down. It is in these early scenes that Vito learns about such mob rituals as protection money, returning favors and keeping your mouth shut, as he is rewarded with a very expensive decorative carpet in exchange for stashing some guns for a friend.
The jumps become more frequent as only a few moments later we are back in sequel-times. Michael travels first to Florida to meet with Hyman Roth, a business partner with whom he plans to form a monopoly on Nevada hotels and casinos, then to his father’s old home in New York where he meets with Frank Pentangeli, who is running the East Coast portion of the Corleone family business. Michael confides to both men that he suspects the other is responsible for the attempt on his life. In a moment of almost too obvious foreshadowing, Michael declares that he will find out what member of his family has betrayed him, which is immediately followed by a cut to Fredo at home receiving a mysterious and shady phone call. The all around distrust becomes more and more apparent both with Fredo’s vague dealings and what is implied to be an attempt on his own man Pentangeli’s life orchestrated by Michael.
One of the more compelling characters from the first film, Tom, has very little onscreen time early in the film, however he is featured in two key scenes that seem like they are hastily dropped in. In the first, a corrupt Senator who attempts to extort Michael at the beginning of the movie, is shown with a dead prostitute at a brothel owned by Fredo. The Senator is clearly shell-shocked and claims to have no memory of the incident though he does acknowledge that the two had engaged in extreme, INXS-style sex in the past. Tom proceeds to lecture the Senator on how lucky he is that this happened on Corleone property where it can be covered up. The brilliance of this scene is how obviously it conveys the fact that the Senator is being blackmailed, but it is never actually confirmed.
The second, now back at Michael’s Tahoe home, shows Tom keeping Michael’s wife Kay and their children under lockdown, despite her protests. Similar circumstances are depicted in the first film and, though this scene does keep things consistent, it really feels disjointed and out of place. Almost as if Coppola became conscious of the fact that he hadn’t mentioned Kay in awhile so they’d better just sneak in a quick reference to remind us that she exists.
An extensive but symbolic section set in Havana, Cuba dominates the next several scenes. Set against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution, there is a clear allegory as it relates to power structure, rebellion and trust. Hyman Roth, who earlier appears as a warm and almost father-like mentor to Michael, quickly degenerates into a corrupt and cutthroat businessman. He back-references his friend Moe Greene’s murder as depicted at the end of “The Godfather” and makes it very clear that he knows Michael was the one who ordered the hit. Michel’s distrust of Roth is now well founded. While this is not good for Michael, it end up being REALLY not good for Fredo, as he lets slip that he has been dealing with Roth on the sly. At a crowded party for several corrupt politicians, VIPs and Mafioso, Michael climactically presents Fredo with the Sicilian Kiss of Death. The series of events happening at the party parallel what is going on in Michael’s family enterprise as Cuban President Batista resigns and Castro’s rebels move in; Roth has a stroke, Michael’s bodyguard is killed while trying to take out Roth and his men, another assassination attempt on Michael is in the works and Fredo has a major freakin’ fear meltdown. Batista and simultaneously, Michael, both narrowly escape with their lives.
Michael and Tom have a debriefing session shortly after Michael escapes Cuba where we learn that Hyman Roth is still alive and is back in the states, Fredo is in hiding in New York, all but confirming his guilt in the assassination attempt on Michael and Kay suffered a miscarriage in his absence. The continually dark transformation in Michael’s character escalates further when, rather than expressing any concern for his own wife’s well being, his only question is whether or not the lost baby was a son.
After having left the prequel part of the storyline alone for a very long time, the focus finally goes back to young Vito. Fanucci, the Mafia Don who had previously caused Vito to lose his job catches wind of the fact that Corleone and his friends have been committing some low-level crimes in what he perceives to be his turf and demands a cut. Vito’s friends are intimidated and are prepared to hand over their share no questions asked. However, due to both a lack of respect and the fact that he has never seen Fanucci back up his tough talk, Vito convinces them to let him “reason with” Fanuccci and pay him considerably less than what he is asking. If there are any questions as to how Vito plans to do this, they are eliminated when Vito ominously informs them that he will “Make him an offer he don’t refuse.” Of course not only is this line so effective because of its usage in the original film, but it is also the only line delivered in English at the conclusion of a subtitled conversation in Sicilian. In other words: “Pay attention, people with low mental bandwidth, shits about to get real.”
Vito stalks Fanucci from the rooftops of Little Italy where the entire Italian and Sicilian community is gathered for some sort of Catholic festival I won’t even pretend to understand. Once he has him cornered in a dimly lit hallway inside Fanucci’s apartment Vito violently kills Fanucci with a gun he has hidden inside a rolled up towel. The lighting in this sequence is intense, as the flickering hallway light exposes and conceals Vito from view. Equally intense is the editing, as the focus jumps from the party in the streets to the savage murder in the hallway. This style also indicates just how brilliant and calculated Fanucci’s assassination is as Vito is able to kill him essentially out in the open, knowing that everyone in the neighborhood will be at the parade and not witness it, as well as timing the actual shooting to coincide with the celebratory fireworks, thus suppressing the sound as well.
Fanucci’s death is also filled with graphic symbolism; employing what has since become one of the most clever tactics used by Hollywood to gauge the severity of a shooting death- dressing Fanucci in all white. From the drive-by that kills Ricky in “Boyz n the Hood” to Combo getting blown away by a little kid in “Breaking Bad,” nothing informs the viewer that the victim is not going to survive quite like the contrast of blood stains on crisp white garments. Also, as Vito calmly walks home after having rubbed out Fanucci, he sits on his front step with his wife and, despite the presence of Sonny and Fredo, Vito makes a point of holding Michael, his hands still stained with the black powder from the gun, almost as if to indicate he is figuratively staining Michael with his brutal nature.
“Fredo, you're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do.” (Michael Corleone, “The Godfather Part II)
The second act (?), Post intermission (?). Let’s just call it what it is, the part where I have to go to disc 2, begins with a very short but relevant scene that reflects the state of Michael’s home. It is snowy and dreary, rather than sunny and warm like before. Kay and Michael do not even acknowledge each other’s presence and the entire scene is shown with absolutely no dialogue. The pin-drop silence of Michael’s home transitions to audible chaos when a Senate Committee investigating the business practices of the Corleone family is shown grilling a witness. The Corleone family’s ace in the hole, however, is the presence of the Senator who owes them for what he still believes to be them covering for his David Carradine style sex accident.
Rewind to Vito times; he has now grown the signature mustache from the first film, indicating that he is now The Don. The first of his legendary favors we see him grant is for a friend of his wife’s, a single Italian mother who is being evicted for buying her son a puppy. When Vito first confronts the landlord, he is condescending and even refuses to accept a monetary bribe. Vito implores the landlord to ask around the neighborhood about him, under the guise of claiming that he has a good reputation for repaying favors. The landlord presumably learns about his badassness, because he is soon visiting Vito at his “store” (aka mafia front) very apologetically. Not only does he allow the woman to stay in her apartment, but lowers her rent and gives Vito back his bribe money.
The Senate hearings investigating the Corleone family resume, this time with Michael as the witness. In an attempt to steer the hearings in Michael’s favor, the recurring corrupt Senator gives an impassioned monologue on his love for the Italian people and their importance to the American public, despite having used derogatory racial slurs about them before he owed the Corleone syndicate his life-debt. Regardless, the chairman of the committee insists that he has a witness who can confirm Michael not only runs a mafia ring, but put out the hits against the heads of the Five Families (as shown at the end of Part 1) and plans to indict him after the third hearing, who turns out to be the very much alive Frank Pentangeli. Despite still falsely assuming Michael was the one who put the hit out on him, Pentangeli goes back on his original testimony, double crossing the FBI and the Senate Committee. It is heavily implied that, because Frank’s brother from Sicily arrives at the hearing with Michael, that there will be consequences for Frank’s family if he were to testify against the Corleones.
In strong contrast to his career successes, Michael’s personal life is depicted as being a catastrophic failure. Fredo reveals that he went behind Michael’s back because he resented the fact that he was passed up for the Godfather spot in the family despite being older and more involved in the family business than Michael. Though he denies that there was ever going to be a hit on Michael, he acknowledges that his plan was to get his own share of the family business. Conversely, Kay announces that she is leaving Michael, taking their children and that her supposed miscarriage was actually an abortion because she didn’t want to bring another Corleone into the world.
Naturally, when we see Michael on the downward spiral, it only makes sense for the film to cut back to Vito’s life on the upswing. He returns to his old country a successful Don in his own right. The mood of this sequence is upbeat and festive, with a large outdoor family gathering at an opulent villa. There is no English dialogue, but the extended sequences of chatter and playful interaction with children perfectly camouflages the true intentions of Vito’s visit. He is chauffeured to a very familiar setting- the home of the mafia boss who killed Vito’s family and attempted to kill him. Now an enfeebled old man, the elder Don is easy prey when Vito walks directly up to him and guts him with a butcher knife. Having carried out his revenge, Vito leaves Corleone, seemingly for the last time. Vito is never seen again in the film, implying that he has at last received satisfactory closure for his lost youth.
In a direct homage to the climax of the original film, Michael meets with Tom to discuss plans to have his remaining enemies killed, only this time instead of the Heads of the Five Families, it is Hyman Roth, Frank Pentangeli and Fredo. The largest amount of time is spent on Roth due to his inaccessibility since having gone on the run. He has unsuccessfully attempted to gain asylum in several other countries to no avail and is likely to be arrested well before any of Michael’s people can get to him, though Michael is unwavering in his determination.
One of the most beautiful scenes in the film is also one of the most understated. Tom visits Frank Pentangeli (in custody for changing his story to the Feds and refusing to rat Michael out) and reassures him that he has done the right thing. The two discuss the symbolic Roman act of treasonists committing suicide as a means of redeeming themselves and ensuring their families will be taken care of after their deaths. At first sight, the scene looks like a warm exchange between two longtime friends, but the implications are truly unsettling and a little heartbreaking when you consider Tom is essentially asking Frank to kill himself.
As artistically perfect as the Deaths of the Heads of the Five Families sequence was carried out in the first film, the Eliminating of the Enemies in this one is executed even better (no pun intended). Each death is teased, the action of each scenario cross cuts back and forth; Fredo is taken out on a boat to go fishing with one of Michael’s bodyguards, Hyman Roth arrives at the Miami Airport already in police custody and the agents guarding Frank Pentangeli call to him from another room to come play cards to pass the time. Roth is suddenly shot dead by one of Michael’s goons posing as a member of the media documenting Roth’s arrest- he is subsequently shot and killed by the officers taking Roth into custody. Pentangeli’s guards break into his bathroom to discover that he has slit his wrists in the bathtub and “redeemed” himself through suicide. Michael’s bodyguard quietly executes Fredo in the middle of Lake Tahoe against the backdrop of a gorgeous sunset- the clever juxtaposition being that the sun is setting on Fredo’s life.
Once all the dirty deeds are carried out, Michael sits quietly in his den, surrounded by the symbolically empty chairs of his associates who he has either driven from his life or has killed.
Michael then has a flashback that is particularly tragic. The entire Corleone family is gathered for Vito’s birthday in a scene that is set not long before the events of the first film. Characters from the original who were dead by the time the sequel begins are shown, particularly Sonny (James Caan) and Tessio (Abe Vigoda) discussing the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Michael reveals that he has dropped out of school and enlisted in the Marines to serve in World War II. Everyone in his family is furious and reacts badly, with the exception of Fredo, who congratulates him and shakes his hand with utmost sincerity. The only reprieve from the sheer heart-wrenchingness of this scene is the fact that Vito is supposedly in the next room as the family brings him his birthday cake but it is obvious by the way he isn’t shown that they had to work around not having Marlon Brando in the film- it’s kind of hokey but Coppola makes it work by suggesting that Michael is the loner, as everyone else leaves him to join Vito’s party.
For Michael to have chosen to relive this memory implies that even he knows that killing Fredo was a mistake. When the flashback scene is over, we see Michael sitting conspicuously alone in his garden. It is not unlike the way Vito is sitting in his garden in the first film right before he dies of a heart attack. In contrast though, Vito is surrounded by adoring grandchildren and dies quietly in the sun, while Michael is cold and alone. It is only at this point that it is truly evident that Michael is the true antagonist of the film while Vito is the hero. Also, there is an obvious irony in the realization that Michael, Vito’s “good son” ended up being the worst.
There are many element of this film that are superior to the original. The depth and development of the characters is far beyond what is explored in “The Godfather.” The pacing is also a little faster, and the constant jumps from prequel to sequel keep the plot consistently fresh. However, I will stop short of saying it is better than the original, as many have suggested. The transitions are sometimes not pronounced enough and you might not know which version of the film you are watching right away, and there is also a lot more subplot introduced in this film, which can be a lot of information to digest. Also, there is an understated subtlety to the first film that is not present at all in the sequel, which is much more in your face.
More artistic than its predecessor, yes; better made, probably also true. But I will limit the notion of sequels being better than the originals exclusively to “The Bride of Frankenstein.”
