The Godfather Part II (1974)

Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola

Written by: Coppola and Mario Puzo

Based on the novel The Godfather by Puzo

My experience of watching The Godfather was inevitably shaped by its reputation. What made it, not simply, an entertaining adaptation of a novel, but one of the greatest films of all time? Part II is haunted by a similar spectre: but the stakes are even higher. When one thinks of all-time great cinema, one thinks of stand alone works, not sequels. How could a Part II possibly be as good as its predecessor, let alone one of the best films of all time?

As I watched Part II, therefore, I tried to ask myself, what makes it qualitatively different than most sequels. The film, on the one hand, successfully brings backs much of the appeal of its predecessor: beautiful, yet uniquely dark cinematography, and a weird moral rendering in which criminals are the heroes. Sticking to a tried and true formula may make a film entertaining, but does it make it great? I enjoyed watching Incredibles 2, for instance, but in the hours following my viewing, I gradually accepted that its resonance paled in comparison to that of its predecessor.

Incredibles 2 and The Godfather Part II start with the same disadvantage: the most memorable character of their predecessor films having been written out of their stories. In the case of The Godfather that character is the Godfather, Vito Corleone, himself. Part II adresses that problem in an interesting fashion. The film starts in Italy in 1901 following the assassination of Vito’s father at the hands of a local mafia Don. When the nine-year old Vito (Oreste Baldini) becomes a target shortly thereafter, he flees to America, setting up a sequence of recurring scenes in which Vito (Robert de Niro) grows from being an ordinary, working class New Yorker, to the famed Godfather. Coppola used these scenes to build on what made The Godfather great: its depiction of an historic Italian-American universe. Narrative wise, however, these flashbacks suffer from the same problem as all prequels do: we know how things are going to end up, and therefore the story lacks suspense.

Part II’s primary plot, meanwhile, revolves around the Godfather’s successor, his once non-criminal son Michael (Al Pacino). Michael is involved in a series of convoluted business and power dealings, involving a Nevada politician (G.D. Spradlin), an elderly Jewish mobster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), and Corleone-family associate Frank Pentangelli (Michael V. Gazzo). Roth and Pentangelli’s interests are at loggerheads, and while viewers looking to make sense of their conflict will be disappointed, the film nonetheless entertain thanks to the charisma of its personalities. Pentangelli’s buffoonery and loyalty to the Corleones renders him somewhat sympathetic, but his anti-semitic remarks about Roth work against that. Roth, meanwhile, was a long time associate of Vito’s, and despite not being an Italian, his stoic, businesslike approach to crime, makes him feel far more like the Godfather than his rival.

In addition to the Pentangelli-Roth divide, the film is also characterized by an intra-Corleone opposition: that of Michael and Fredo (John Cazale). Whereas The Godfather Part I contrasted the innocent Michael with his bad-boy brother Sonny, in Part II, Michael is the hardened criminal. This conflict is also bogged down in some narrative ambiguity, but it nonetheless compels due to the emotional weight that comes from seeing family members pitted against each other.

So is Part II an all-time great film, and not a mere seat-filling sequel? The answer isn’t straightforward. The Godfather is unique in its portrayal of proprietous, yet brutal criminality. In the moments leading up to its infamous horse-head scene, for instance, one genuinely has no idea what to expect. By the time Part II is underway that mystery has faded, and every time a brutal murder takes place it’s hard not to feel underwhelmed.

That said, Part II’s  thematic uniqueness can be attributed to the way in which it desensitizes viewers to its predecessor’s spectacular violence. In part I, Vito is selective in exercising his brutality. He memorably chastises a client for the vulgarity of “asking [him] to do murder for money,” despite never having shown him familial love. This logic follows through to the end of the movie, where the supposed execution of one character is seen as so contrary to the film’s spirit, that he is taken off in a car and his death is never directly acknowledged on screen. Part II, by contrast, depicts a Mafia that seems to regularly kill, and often does so for revenge and not as part of “necessary” “business” calculations. That this mafia is lead by the first film’s good boy, is even more telling.

Early in Part II, Michael’s wife Kay (Diane Keaton), reminds him of his past promise to turn the Corleone family legitimate. One could extrapolate from this that while part I simply seeks to explore the concept of the crime family, Part II seeks to de-emphasize the positive (family) element and emphasize the “crime” element. Mafia life proves a constant cycle of betrayal and violence, and while it may have redeeming characteristics (ie loyalty to one’s family), these only further build the consciousness that hold Michael back from ever becoming legitimate. 

Perhaps Part II is the story of Michael becoming worse than his father. Perhaps it is the story of him becoming just like his father. Both are plausible interpretations. With a runtime over three hours, the film is not for everyone. But its development of Michael, Kay and Fredo makes it a satisfying and always-exciting sequel for those attached to the first film. At very least, this non-stagnancy of its protagonists makes it a stronger sequel than Incredibles 2.

Who’s that Knocking at My Door (1967)

Written and directed by: Martin Scorsese

In recent months Martin Scorsese has gotten back into the film headlines, both for his new film, The Irishman, and for his comments on the Marvel cinematic universe, and film watching in the age of Netflix. Scorsese is admittedly a director I’ve had little exposure to (outside of his voice acting in Sharktail), so I decided to start where he started: 1967’s Who’s that Knocking at My Door.

Who’s that Knocking at My Door is very much a first film. Much like Damien Chazelle’s debut Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, it is a simple story shot in black and white to capture the poetry in everything the characters do. The film opens with a depiction of an Italian grandmother cooking for her grandchildren, with porcelain Virgin Mary’s looking on in the background. It goes on to follow J.R. (Harvey Keitel) as he pursues a relationship with a young woman (Zina Bethune), and hangs out with his reckless and aimless friends. There’s a mundane pointlessness to the friend segments, but to the film’s credit, this is turned into a mediation on the emptiness of life. In one scene, J.R. and one of his friends debate whether it is worth going  out to drink in Greenwich Village. J.R.’s friend insists that he already has free access to alcohol at the bar where he works, whereas J.R. is insistent that its better that they go to Greenwich Village so they can at least be doing something.

In a surprising turn, Who’s that Knocking at My Door also engages in social commentary on violence against women. Were the film released today it would be obvious what its message was, and it would come across as a bit unsubtle. Because it is a product of the 60s, however, the film’s commentary instead functions as a compelling historical text. The slogan “believe women” becomes all the more resonant when one considers the various forms disbelief has taken over the years.

Who’s that Knocking at My Door will probably not be everyone’s favorite film, but it is an interesting watch, especially from the perspective of those interested in owning their own filmmaking craft. The film is rife with “stylistic choices,” some that seem appealing (eg repeatedly playing soundtrack songs such as “Jenny Take a Ride”), and others more questionable (long, art-sex scenes). A meditation on Catholic guilt, Who’s that Knocking on My Door, is an introduction to theme-driven film. And just as it launched Scorsese’s career, it can launch its viewers own imaginations on how to tell stories that are visually beautiful, contemplative and uniquely delivered. 

Green Book (2018)

Directed by: Peter Farrelly Written by: Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie and Farrelly

Following my viewing of Green Book one of my fellow attendees pointed out that it felt like the kind of work rarely made today. While admittedly my relationship to film is slanted towards the contemporary, I had a sense of what this allusion to historic Hollywood was getting at. We live in a world where most film falls into roughly three categories: subtle indie works, unsubtle Oscar-bait-films and big-budget explosion movies. Green Book, however, struck a nice balance between categories one and two. It was undoubtedly a story with Oscar-esque themes (overt race and class dynamics), but it also didn’t aspire to tell an over-the-top tale of how one man changed the world, or whatever.

Green Book refers to a guide used by black drivers to navigate American racism: a list of places they could stay, drive, etc. While the book itself does not factor hugely into the film’s plot, it serves as a rough place holder for what the story is about. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a black classical/jazz pianist plans a tour of the south, but needs a bodyguard-esque driver to take him. That driver is Tony “Lip” Vallelonga (Viggo Mortenson), who is unemployed, tempermental and somewhat racist.

The film varies in its tone along the way and is successful in its various modes. It opens with Tony’s story, depicting various elements of 1960s New York life while accenting his larger than life personality. Once Don is in the picture the film takes on an oscillating motion, rotating between depictions of Don’s struggles in the south and Tony and Don’s buddy-comedy dynamic. Don is well mannered, verbose, and cultured (this being the guy who wrote music based on James Joyce), Tony ceaselessly crass and more versed in popular culture. The overall result is a film that entertains through its characters while not forgetting to draw attention to injustice.

Where the film seems to have drawn ire, however, is not for its script per se, but for its politics, with A.A. Dowd arguing “Intentionally or not, it flatters the delusion that racism, in its ugliest form, is more of a past-tense problem.” Dowd’s view is that essentially in contrasting Tony, who says politically incorrect things but still sees the humanity in a black man, with the south’s outright segregationists, the film downplays the problem of contemporary “I don’t see race” racism. 

There is needless to say some truth to this criticism. People will interpret media based on their pre-existing biases, and those already conditioned to see America as a post-racial society will probably derive such an interpretation from Tony and Don’s feel good relationship. That said, the ability of the narrow-minded to interpret a text should not be the be all and end all of how it’s judged and I think Green Book takes a more nuanced view on race than Dowd gives it credit for.

In writing  off Green Book as a white-feel-good movie, critics make the mistake of viewing whiteness as an identity, more so than a source of privilege. Tony Vallelonga is white: he can navigate the American south largely free from discrimination due to his appearance; but he is also a working class, northeastern, Italian-American in the 1960s. When critics suggest Tony’s redemption arc exists to make white people feel good, it treats his relationship to race as more broadly representative of whiteness than it is. Tony’s social-location and world view are about as different from those of college-educated present day white-Jewish-Americans as they are from the middle class and aristocratic white southerners he encounters in the movie. To be clear this is not a variant of the “not all white people” argument. Whites from all walks of life, with all manners of education maintain white supremacist society. This does not mean, however, that these whites all identify with each other, and see each other as a community. For me, therefore, Tony was not some sort of everyman figure, but one representation of how racial attitudes manifest in specific American communities. His bonding with Don did not provide a general platitude on black-and-white harmony, but rather provided one example of a middle-of-the-road racist improving his perspective.

This nuance is important. Tony grew up in a society where stereotypes and prejudiced attitudes were enabled. Yet even he isn’t prepared for the outright and violent bigotry of the south. Coastal-urban racism and southern-rural racism both need to be smashed, but the very different mindsets of Tony and his southern counterparts shows its a job that may require two very different hammers.

I write this, it should be said, as a white reviewer. And convinced as I am that it’s relevant to the understanding of racism to split whiteness into sub-political and cultural identities, I realize that this approach can partially be the product of white liberal anxiety. Green Book, however, is not ignorant of this dilemma. Don, at one point, justifies his decision to tour the south by asking Tony whether he thinks he would have been treated any differently elsewhere. It’s a provocative question because of course, superficially speaking, the answer is that the south was (and is) uniquely racist dues to its having state sanctioned segregation policies. On the other hand, racist (and fatal) police roadstops can clearly occur independent of blatantly segregationist law (and furthermore, in the 1960s when the film set, official segregation in non-southern states was not as distant a memory).

The question of whether America has uniquely racist pockets is a complicated one. On the one hand racism and racist police brutality occurs across America from Ferguson to New York City. On the other hand, Donald Trump’s election had little to do with the residents, white or not, of New York, Chicago or San Francisco. Green Book may not solve or provide a way forward on thinking about this question, but at very least it gives voice to multiple relevant perspectives on the matter. And while Tony and Don are presented as having different viewpoints on the question, it’s clear that neither is confident in their worldview. 

If Green Book does have a race problem it’s attributable to something far more subtle. The film’s poster bills Mortenson/Tony and Ali/Don as equal players. In practice, the film is Tony’s story, with Don serving as the serious foil to Tony’s buffoonery. One consequence of this disjunct, is that viewers may be conditioned to view the story as more representative of Don Shirley’s life than it is. There’s a scene in which Tony, amused by the degree to which Don is not a black stereotype, insists on Don’s trying fried chicken. To Dowd this scene is evidence that Tony plays a role in changing Don’s life, which problematically implies that bigots and people-of-color can learn equally from one another. I knew about this criticism going into the film, and have since concluded it was misplaced. Don admits that the fried-chicken is ok: that’s the extent of his transformation. And in fact, when the fried chicken motif is re-used a few scenes later, it is in a way that makes a far less ideologically flimsy point about racism.

If Don “changes” over the course of the film, it’s in a far subtler way than Tony does. Don is presented as someone whose reaction to racism is, in part, to avoid any-behavior that could have him typecast as stereotypically black, specifically a stereotypical-black musician. In a scene near the end of the film Don is given the chance to confront this anxiety, but he does so completely on his own terms (a moment with a whisky glass shows that Don is committed to not compromising the man he was all along). Does Tony change Don? In so far as he befriends him, giving Don one more person he can be comfortable with, I suppose. But contrary to what viewers may be preconditioned to think, that’s the extent of the transformation. Don and Tony are not equally prominent characters in the film’s plot arc. If one is going to critique Don’s portrayal, focus on his underdevelopment, not his mis-development.  

Green Book should probably not be remembered as an analysis of race in America. It only has one black character and even he is less prominent in the story than he superficially appears to be. What the film is, however, is the story of an unlikely friendship, one in which racial issues were inevitably exposed. Well scripted and with a nice balance of humor and seriousness Green Book is a work that can be broadly enjoyed. Yes there’s criticism out there that’s worth reading, but it’s criticism of the nature that should provoke how one thinks about the film’s themes rather than criticism that should incline you not to see it.