The Godfather: A Retrospect

In no uncertain terms, I can confidently say that Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 mafia epic The Godfather is the single greatest film I have ever watched. It's a simultaneously grand yet personal epic about the battle for a man's soul, and it's a film I will never grow tired of revisiting. No movie is ever truly perfect, but I think The Godfather is frankly the closest we've ever come to it. Everything about this movie is absolutely outstanding, from the story to the characters to the cinematography to the production design to just about everything else you could possibly think of. Coppola went all-out for this movie, and it shows (although the making of this film will never compare to the downright cursed production of another Coppola film, Apocalypse Now). The Godfather is maybe two decades ahead of its time in a technical sense and is timeless in a narrative one. It spawned an almost-as-great sequel with The Godfather: Part II and ended the series with an, uh, not-as-great The Godfather: Part III, but on its own, it's still an absolute powerhouse of cinema. But why? What exactly made The Godfather so great, and why is it virtually impossible to match?

Well, on a purely aesthetic scale, this film's production quality is absolutely spectacular. Not once does the movie ever feel like a movie. Everything we see looks right, and more importantly, everything we see feels right. The cinematographer of the film, Gordon Willis, made the smart decision to use a lot of close-ups in this movie, as it personalizes the scope of the film and is sure to hide any production design shortcomings, given that the budget for the film was only around $6 million to $7.2 million, adjusted for inflation. To supplement this cinematography choice was a happy accident on the part of Coppola that led to the color orange becoming a symbol of danger throughout the film, signifying that something bad was about to happen. By the time the third film rolled around, I had been conditioned to be on my toes whenever anything orange appeared in the frame. Of course, the film was working with some older cameras, so the image doesn't exactly look as clear as if it were shot in the modern day, and I'm not going to be one of those guys who is going to pretend that it does, but for what the crew was working with, The Godfather's one-two punch of cinematography and production design is simply otherworldly.

As for the plot of the film, it keeps what's important in the story, namely the characters, front and center, but as for the storytelling merits of this film, they're remarkable. While the plot may not be as tight as, say, The Dark Knight, trying to write a completely stripped-down story is not exactly what this film is trying to do. The Godfather has a lot of world-building it accomplishes throughout it's runtime, and so naturally, this film's scale is going to be large. However, what I appreciate about this film is its commitment to keeping the scope tightly fixated on exactly what matters: Michael Corleone, the son of a Mafia Don named Vito, and the battle for Michael's soul as difficult good and necessary evil pull him in two different directions, either closer to or away from his wife, Kay (and yes, I remember Appolonia. She didn't last too long, though....) Every event that changes Michael is also meant to push the wider plot of the film forward toward an inevitably fateful conclusion. Michael's murder of Sollozo and McClusky at the restaurant, which sparks a war between the five crime families, is the most notable of these, and the infamous baptism scene, where Michael's men assassinate the heads of the five families under his orders, which ends the war and also, in the eyes of many critics and audience members, was a literal deal with the devil for Michael, given the holy imagery and backdrop of the scene, and the conclusion of his character arc in this film. It's powerful and potent stuff, the writing of this movie, but it's also precise, understanding how to keep a lid on its power until it's absolutely necessary to take the lid off and let things go sideways while also balancing character and spectacle, the latter of which is incredibly hard to do. This is all right and good, but what makes all of this even more impressive is the fact that Francis Ford Coppola fought Hollywood every step of the way while making The Godfather.

Paramount Pictures, the studio that produced The Godfather, didn't want this film to focus on Italians. They didn't want Marlon Brando cast as Vito, who has now become one of the most recognizable characters in cinema history. They didn't want the runtime to exceed two hours. They didn't want it to be set in the 1940's. They didn't want the movie to be dark and brooding. They didn't even like the logo of the film. They wanted to sell tickets and were worried that The Godfather wouldn't have enough mass appeal to do so. Well, were they ever wrong. Not only was The Godfather incredibly successful upon release, becoming the most financially successful film of 1972, but it has also become a respected household name among cinephiles and will probably rightfully hold that position until the end of time. I understand that studio intervention can be beneficial from time to time, but being an artist, I never really love to see it. Film is an art form, and I don't appreciate vendors telling an artist how to paint a picture, even if his picture may not necessarily be perfect. What I do appreciate is an artist standing up for his or her art, and while I'm not exactly saying that every movie that was ruined by studio interference could have been another Godfather, I'm an advocate for artistic freedom, and regardless of the quality of the end result, it's always nice to see a movie unburdened by shallow studio demands.

I don't want to say that we'll never see a movie this great again, but frankly, The Godfather is the closest we've ever come to cinematic perfection, and I'd be very surprised if another film ever matched it. It's elegant, brutal, beautiful, dark, introspective, and hits all the right notes at exactly the right times. Now, I'm going to put a content warning on this film for moments of shocking violence as well as some sporadic and brief sexual content, but I would consider this film to be at the very pinnacle of my "must-watch" list. It's a timeless cautionary tale about a man's tragic fall into a horrible lifestyle at the hands of necessity, and I, as well as many others, would consider it to be the greatest film ever made. Just be aware of what you're walking into.

The Godfather - 10/10

Matthew 16:26