The Godfather ***
Francis Ford Coppola, 1972
US
@ Cinerama
The pacing and lighting are masterful. An absolute success at what it sets out to do, but just what is that exactly? It seems to me the violence has a fatalistic edge to it, as if there is no other way possible. There are a lot of different ways to portray violence on-screen, and I'm okay with many of them. Pulp Fiction uses it as one of the profound elements of cinematic art. Shotgun Stories suggested that violence was closer, more likely than we might think. A History of Violence suggests that violence lives under the skin, never quite going away no matter how hard we try. Clint Eastwood seems to suggest that violence will bring us down in the end, "live by the sword, die by the sword" kind of thing. No Country for Old Men: violence is performed by the deranged, but it may not in the end be a deranged act. A Thin Red Line takes a calm, dualistic view. The Godfather is sort of like a tragedy, but there are so many things I can't figure out exactly about free will, is this positive/negative/inevitable. It's tough to process because almost no one alien to this world of violence ever appears in the film. It's hard to get enough distance from the characters to discover any perspective in the writing or directing. In that way it's an incredibly dark and kind of dispiriting movie.
See also: IMDb
Francis Ford Coppola, 1972
US
@ Cinerama
The pacing and lighting are masterful. An absolute success at what it sets out to do, but just what is that exactly? It seems to me the violence has a fatalistic edge to it, as if there is no other way possible. There are a lot of different ways to portray violence on-screen, and I'm okay with many of them. Pulp Fiction uses it as one of the profound elements of cinematic art. Shotgun Stories suggested that violence was closer, more likely than we might think. A History of Violence suggests that violence lives under the skin, never quite going away no matter how hard we try. Clint Eastwood seems to suggest that violence will bring us down in the end, "live by the sword, die by the sword" kind of thing. No Country for Old Men: violence is performed by the deranged, but it may not in the end be a deranged act. A Thin Red Line takes a calm, dualistic view. The Godfather is sort of like a tragedy, but there are so many things I can't figure out exactly about free will, is this positive/negative/inevitable. It's tough to process because almost no one alien to this world of violence ever appears in the film. It's hard to get enough distance from the characters to discover any perspective in the writing or directing. In that way it's an incredibly dark and kind of dispiriting movie.
See also: IMDb
Labels: 1970s, 3 Stars, Francis Ford Coppola, US
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