Well this is it, the big one. This is one of the most-praised films in history, so I’ll just hit the highlights. It won Oscars for best picture, actor (Marlon Brando), and adapted screenplay, and was also nominated for THREE best supporting actor awards (James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Al Pacino), as well as director, editing, costume design, sound, and musical score. It rivals Citizen Kane for the most frequent appearances on “best movies of all time” lists. When the American Film Institute compiled its list in 1998, The Godfather ranked third, after Citizen Kane and Casablanca; on the 2007 revised list, it moved up to second place. Entertainment Weekly and Empire magazine both declared it the greatest film of all time.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the head of a powerful New York crime syndicate (Marlon Brando) sees one of his sons (Al Pacino) gradually rise to the challenge of taking over the family business — a destiny in which the son is not initially interested. Also: gunshots, dead fish, horse heads, cannoli, etc.
What did this influence you may ask? Well first of all, a thousand hack comedians whose impression of Marlon Brando is really an impression of Vito Corleone. Along those same superficial lines, we have bits of dialogue that have been referenced countless times: “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.” “Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family.” And who can forget the unequivocal message sent by a severed horse’s head?
The film’s enormous box-office success had the usual effect, i.e., suddenly everybody wanted to make a movie about organized crime. Coppola got to write his own ticket; Brando was cool again; Pacino’s career took off. Real-life gangsters reportedly loved the movie, and by some accounts altered their speech and mannerisms to imitate it. What had been intended as an imitation of a real subculture wound up influencing that subculture.
Every movie about organized crime made since The Godfather has been compared to it, and with good reason: it’s impossible to believe that any director working in the genre since 1972 hasn’t seen The Godfather. The smart films have acknowledged the inspiration rather than try to fight against it. HBO’s seminal series The Sopranos is an obvious descendant, and its characters openly declare their affection for the Godfather films.
The Mafia is a common element in pop culture now, but that wasn’t the case in 1972. Most of what we “know” about the Mafia comes from The Godfather, the same way most of our Santa Claus lore comes from “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
You must think I love this movie. However, I have a secret shame as a film enthusiast and writer: I’ve never been able to get into The Godfather as much as everyone else. I just can’t do it. I just start watching it and I immediately feel an overwhelming sense of total apathy for what is going on. There’s a wedding and some guys in suits and Marlon Brando’s mumbling and Al Pacino is brooding and everyone is breaking the law and there’s a horse head and people kill each other and eventually Diane Keaton’s character becomes interesting and they go to the mattresses and Marlon Brando has a cat and then in the third movie there are flashbacks to when the family immigrated to America and Sofia Coppola ruins everything. I don’t know. Did I miss anything?
Obviously, I’m missing something major because The Godfather is the cornerstone of American cinema. It’s constantly referenced in film, TV, books, and in everyday life. I know that the first one is great, the second one is just as good, and the third one is just there. And I’ve seen enough of the films and know enough pop culture references to stay afloat in most conversations. I also understand how beautifully the film is shot and how exquisite the performances are. This is a great film. However, there is still always an awkward moment when people who are my peers bring up one of the Godfather and I have to say, “Ugh, I’ve never been able to get into The Godfather.” And then everyone hates me.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying The Godfather suck. Rather, I am admitting on the Internet that I suck because I’ve never found a way in to The Godfather.
I think my biggest issue with The Godfather was that I was too into other movies when I first tried to watch it. I was a precocious young adult who loved to watch Sci-Fi films, novel adaptations, and Marvel Movies. So, when my Dad showed me The Godfather, I decided that this would be my big chance to see what all the fuss was about. Let me remind you that I was just starting Sixth Form at school. Think of the teen girls in your life — would they go crazy for The Godfather? Naturally, I found the film tedious to watch and I didn’t think of putting closed captions on so I could decipher what was going on. So, after about 30 minutes, I began to lose interest.
The next time I tried to watch The Godfather, I was in Sixth Form. I assumed that now I would be able to understand the nuance. I wasn’t. Every time I’ve tried to watch the film since then, I’ve been wary because I remembered how bored I was the first two times I tried. And I have not liked it. I’ve developed an emotional callus against these films.
In Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail — a film that I like a lot even though I know it’s nowhere close to being the critical achievement of The Godfather— Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) suggests that men are obsessed with The Godfather and that its appeal is a mystery to women:
It’s an amusing idea, and one that offers me some sort of excuse, but I reject Nora Ephron’s theory that it’s a gendered thing. I know a lot of women who love The Godfather, so it’s not about men versus women. I would instead argue that it’s a matter of sheer taste.
We have to acknowledge that there is a gap between what is empirically excellent and what tugs on our heartstrings. This is why people go bananas for poorly written drivel like Fifty Shades of Grey but will avoid delving into James Joyce. And there comes a moment in one’s life when you realize that just because you like something, it doesn’t mean it’s good, and just because something’s good, that doesn’t mean that you will like it. For me, this can be boiled down to my disconnection with The Godfather. It’s my Godfather gap. And I think we all have our own Godfather gap. There’s that one work of art in which you can recognize greatness, but you still want nothing to do with it.
That said, I will once more try to watch The Godfather in its entirety and I will try my best to like it. If nothing else, I’m tired of having to account for taste.
Grade - B
This may well be controversial, but in my eyes The Godfather eats it for breakfast. The Godfather falls in to the good rather than great category for me, despite me having seen it from start to finish three or four times.
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