Evan D. As a project this year we are taking a trip through time to revisit all of the Best Picture winners in history, Wings to Anora. The Godfather Part II is the forty-seventh film in that series, to see all the other Best Picture reviews, click here. When you look at the long shadow cast over cinema by the mafia movies, you begin to notice that they share a singular point of illumination. With all due respect to Howard Hawks 1932 classic Scarface, it was Francis Ford Coppola who turned in the template for just about every successful depiction of the mob we have seen since. Thanks to Coppola, these movies are defined by their anti-hero’s thrilling rise to power and inevitable fall from grace. If The Godfather charts Michael Corleone’s (Al Pacino) rise to the top of his family’s illicit empire, The Godfather Part II brings him back down to earth. More than any other sequel to a wildly successful film, The Godfather Part II is a true extension of its predecessor. Michael’s ascent to the helm of the Corleone family was only half of the story. Even with his father gone, Michael still finds himself viewed more as Vito’s son than his family’s Don. He efforts to rule over his empire with an iron fist and expand its Vegas footprint in a push for legitimacy that seems more futile by the day. An attempt on his life sends Michael into a paranoid quest to snuff out the traitor from his inner circle. Interestingly, it is not just Michael’s story that gets extended in this sequel. The film simultaneously serves as a prequel, showing us a young Vito Corleone’s (a chameleonic Robert De Niro) rise from a Sicilian orphan to the infamous mafioso we met in Part I. Interwoven with the crumbling walls of his empire at the hands of his son are scintillating scenes of Vito building that very foundation. It is not worth spilling much ink on which film is better, as with most sequels I find The Godfather Part II falls short of its predecessor, if only narrowly. Unlike with most sequels though, both parts of The Godfather story — Part III wouldn’t release for another 16 years — feel like one story told over two films. Part I is Michael’s rise and Vito’s fall, it’s a son inevitably becoming his father no matter how much they both try to prevent it. Part II is the nearly the same thing in reverse. Micheal has ascended to his father’s role but not the gravitas that Vito earned on the way up. Its that rare follow up that adds richness to the original even if, on its own, it fails to live up to those lofty heights. In that same theme of expansion, Coppola does a lot of clever things with The Godfather Part II and its visual storytelling. The structure of the story, cross cutting between Micheal and his father at a similar age lend an immediacy to their familial bond and a tremendous contrast to their temperaments. Smartly, he darkens and backlights the sequel scenes to amplify Micheal’s descent. Vito’s scenes, on the other hand, bask in a warm glow of possibility. Those visual cues deepen the events unfolding, although it also leaves you wanting more time in 1920’s New York. De Niro so deftly captures the spirit of Marlon Brando’s older Vito that transforms into the character despite only passing resemblance. He’s every bit as soft spoken, yet intimidating, as Pacino’s Michael is bombastic and flailing. It’s a tremendous performance placed in a brilliant rendering of New York at the turn of the century. As Michael’s world narrows as a noose around his throat, Vito’s is this vast, bright environment, brimming with opportunity. Ultimately it is difficult to take The Godfather Part II on its own terms. Undeniably great, much of its greatness comes from what it adds to its predecessor. A perfect compliment to a near perfect film, but slightly less than that on its own. It makes sense that this would win the same Academy Awards as the first — Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay and an Acting Oscar for the part of Vito — along with 3 more. It is a continuation of the first in such a way that it feels wrong to separate the two. 8/10
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