Speaking, as I was in the previous posting, of DVDs, I'm two thirds of the way through the Godfather triology (no links – you know the one I mean), on DVD.
The second one had a really strong "deleted scenes from the real movie" feeling about it. I don't share the widespread opinion that Godfather 2 is the greatest movie in general and sequel in particular ever made. I thought half of it was those deleted scenes, and the other half was a rather slight anti-capitalist Americans Being Evil in Central America movie, that every star seemed to want to do one of in those days, usually starring a journalist or a photojournalist. The Godfather is, in short, one movie, not three. There is The Movie. There are the extra bits. There is the Al Pacino versus the Jewish Guy bit, which is as small and mundane and stitched on as the Real Movie is big and remarkable and of itself. And there is 3, which everyone says is nonsense, and which I'll let you know about when I've sat through it.
What is remarkable about Godfather, I think, is that it is a European Art Movie and an American Gangster Movie, all in one. There is no dramatic tension. You know from the very start what is going to happen, even if you've never been told (which is most unlikely). What there is is superb cinematography and production design. It's just one amazing oil painting after another. And the cars …
I mean it about the dramatic tension, and the oil paintings. The remarkable thing about this movie is that time and again, you are not shown how whatever just happened was actually arranged. The horse's head just shows up in the guy's bed. Rival mafiosi just get shot. Only the bit where Michael gets the gun from the toilet is gone into in any detail, and even then, we learn nothing of how exactly the gun got there in the first place.
In the normal mafia movie, the James Caan character would be the central figure. But the whole point of Godfather is that the James Caan figure is not the central figure. Too impulsive. Too eager to do something. Not willing enough simply to let nature take its course. So the James Caan guy does not get the top job when Marlon Brando retires. The passive Al Pacino character, the one who just sits in the corner quietly, and later at his desk quietly, and allows most things to just happen, gets the job. And the active, impulsive, James Caan guy gets killed, because of his desire to act. He gets lured into the open and gunned down. The one action that Michael takes being the decision to kill the cop. "Where does it say you can't kill a cop?" Like the perfect poker player, Micheal Corleone sits and waits, and then plays his ace, himself.
The eldest brother, on the other hand, is so inactive that he never does anything. He lets things happen to him and nothing else. Which eventually does for him as well.
Great movie.
Some time ago, I seem to recall them showing on British TV a re-edit of the first two parts of Godfather with everything in chronological order, with those deleted scenes reinserted in their correct place in other words. That I would like to have. Failing that, a bit of paper with all the scenes itemised, starting with a de-Hyman-Rothised G2, then the Real Movie, but with Michael's first marriage from G2 interpolated, then (if you want it) Hyman Roth. Next time, that may be how I do it.
