MICHAEL
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer

I’ve started watching or re-watching the films in Roger Ebert’s The Great Movies book and blogging about them. I find myself now in the midst of The Godfather trilogy. So, I invited the guys back over and fired up The Godfather Part II. (Technically, The Godfather Part II is in the third volume of his Great Movies series, but who’s counting?).

The Godfather II is every bit as good as the first movie. Director Francis Ford Coppola knew what he wanted and, because of the first film’s success, the studio executives wisely got out of his way. Initially, he didn’t want to direct the sequel but was wooed back when the studio agreed to concessions on some of his other projects.
With the long-held idea to make a film about a father and son when they were the same age, Coppola uses a double structure in The Godfather Part II to tell the story of Vito Corleone as he immigrates to New York in the late 1910s and the Corleone family under the leadership of his son Michael in the late 1950s. It is both a prequel and a sequel to the original Godfather. Continuing the metaphor of the mafia for American capitalism, the movie shows both characters as young men, growing into their own styles of leadership and the consequences on the rest of the family.

What's the Big Deal about The Godfather Part II?

  • It is a rare sequel that many contend is even better than the original
  • It was the first sequel to win an Oscar for Best Picture
  • Ranked 32nd Greatest Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute
  • The cast includes four Oscar winners: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, and Robert Duvall
  • Star Robert DeNiro won an Oscar for his portrayal of Vito Corleone. He was the first actor to win an Oscar for playing the same character as another Oscar winner, Marlon Brando.
  • Renowned acting instructor (and Pacino’s former instructor) Lee Strassberg came out of retirement to play the role of Hyman Roth
  • The evocative musical score by Nino Rota evokes feelings of longing and melancholy, quite unexpected for a story whose foundation is violence and atypical of most scores of crime movies
  • The film took home six Oscars in 1975, including Best Picture

Click the images to enlarge and read the captions. All photographs © Paramount Pictures.

Al Pacino, as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II, is recognized as the new Godfather by the respectufl kissing of his hand.

Over to you: Have you seen The Godfather Part II? What are your thoughts on this movie?