The Godfather Part 2

They said it couldn't be done. I don't know who "they" is exactly, perhaps there is not "they", whoever they may be, "they" are the ones who said you couldn't improve on perfection. Yet if there was a time, it actually happened, it was in 1974 when "The Godfather Part 2" premiered. Was it better than the first? This has been asked by scholars of film throughout the world, was it indeed better? There must be one, a definitive greatest "Godfather" film. Surely it couldn't be part three, that mess of a movie about redemption and the Vatican with Sophia Coppola showing why she's best behind the camera.

Alas I cannot choose, for I deem them to be both masterpieces of film art, they stand above other mafia movies, for, dare I say, they are each a piece of a large story, perhaps the most ambitious of 70s cinema. It is all a story of America, a story about power, attaining that power, and becoming corrupt by it, so much so that you lose your soul.

One thing "The Godfather Part 2" has as an advantage to part one is Francis Ford Coppola gives space to explore the Corleone family and its power struggle from two different points of view. We see the humble beginnings of the original Godfather Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) as he escapes from his native village after his family is wiped out from a local Don, and he comes to America. We also see his son Michael (Al Pacino) now head of the family after the events of part one.

Michael is a changed man since the events of "The Godfather", he has been thrust into the family business in order to protect his father. His new ventures with the family include the Casino business where he forms an alliance with a Jewish gangster Hymon Roth (Lee Strasberg). Roth is someone not to be trusted, he tries to assassinate Michael, and turns his own brother Fredo (John Cazale) against him.

Michael's entourage is also different from his father's. His adopted brother Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) is more or less sent in the background. The family home is now in Lake Tahoe Nevada, while people from the olden days seem to stay in New York. One of these is Frank Pantangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), who is having problems with his family and resents Michael's alliance with Hymon Roth. Unlike his father, Michael seems to be more paranoid with whom he can trust, for awhile he seems to be in control, yet it comes a shock when he finds out his it was his own brother Fredo who betrayed him.

This is Michael Corleone becoming unglued, as he tries to keep his power he is alienating his family. Kay his wife (Diane Keaton again the one ounce of goodness in the film) is drifting further and further away. Like in the first film, the last time we see Kay is when a door shuts in her face, only this time by Michael, and even more colder than before, because it is done so matter of fact.

In contrast, Coppola takes us to the youth of Vito as he makes his fortune. Vito was always the more sympathetic Don because you can see what he did, he did for his family. Perhaps he was just smarter than Michael, or perhaps less selfish. We see Vito gain his power by killing a local Don in New York thus gaining respect by the people. However he is never seen as a corrupt individual. Vito is more like a Robin Hood to the people who does favors to the poor and small business owners. He is unlike the Don who he kills or like the one who killed his family.

The scenes of young Vito are gorgeous to look at in their reproduction of old New York, and Coppola's tracking shot of De Niro stalking the Don that he kills is a tour de force of dramatic effect.

There is a difference of power when it comes to the time of Vito and the time of Michael. Coppola shows us perhaps the noble venture of Vito to create a better life for his family, but Michael becomes a shadow of who his father was as he doesn't know when to quit until there is no turning back for him. By the end of the film, we can only imagine where Michael can go from here.

Coppola leaves the film on the right note of dread, there is no operatic music when the family does away with their enemies as it was in the first one, Nino Rota's score is more melancholy and bleak, Gordon Willis' cinematography also seems less stylistic and more hard. Pacino's Michael is more dangerous, more dazed, more unsettled. Michael looks more tired, and there seems to be little feeling in his eyes, when he slams the door on Kay for the last time, it's as if he's sleep walking.

One of the final scenes in the film is a flashback which incorporates Sonny (James Caan) and Tessio (Abe Vigoda) back from the dead. In this scene you can see many things happening, it's when Vito was still in power, it's when the family was all together, you can see all four Corleone brothers talking near the end. You can see Michael, a misfit who decides to enlist in the marines and fight in the war instead of doing what his father wanted. It's heartbreaking to see and I think it gives Michael a little bit of grace before the last shot where we see him alone with only the shadows of his past to haunt him.

So which film is the greatest? I watched "The Godfather" just recently, it was a beautiful film, highly stylized, it's so iconic, a film I fall in love with. However I would argue "The Godfather part 2" is more tragic, more ironic in its idea of the American dream and the corruptibility of power, it puts the period on a fascinating saga. If "The Godfather" was a poem about a certain way of life, then part two was its eulogy.