BFI Top 50: The Godfather Part II, Released in 1974, Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

What I know going in

I watched the first half of the film four years ago. I never got around to watching the second half. I will use this marathon as an opportunity to remedy that mistake.

Immediate Reaction

The Godfather: Part II’s inclusion on the Sight and Sound list may be the first time I disagree with the BFI. The film continues to follow Michael’s descent into the murky morality of being crime overlord. By the end of the film, he has cut ties to anyone he was loyal to in New York, has murdered his brother, has watched his mother die, and has completely separated himself, and his children, from his wife. To put an even finer point on it, the final shot of the film is of Michael sitting literally alone on the edge of his compound. This slow, downward spiral is portrayed with the same care, skill, and style as the first film, but I just don’t think it reaches any new conclusions. I imagine most people could extrapolate the Michael portion of the storyline just from seeing the ending of the first Godfather film. Therefore, I am bit baffled by the film’s inclusion on the list. As I mentioned previously, the list tends to reward films that are stylistically daring, an exemplar of a particular genre, or an evolution of film technique. Part II is a great film by most measures, but the inclusion of the first film would seem to cover the series deserved place on this most prestigious of lists.

Perhaps the reason Part II was included was the parallel stories of Michael’s moral fall and the rise of Vito’s empire. If the first film was epic, the second manages to become even bigger. Due to the inclusion of Vito’s storyline, we see that the violence perpetrated in the first film is part of some awful, decades (maybe even centuries) old cycle. Vito’s story is started when his entire family is killed by a Sicilian crime boss. Vito later returns to Italy just to get revenge on this man, who is now decrepit probably would have been dead from natural causes in a few years anyway. Due to his parentage, is it any wonder that Michael seems similarly obsessed with offing everyone even tangentially involved with the failed attempt on his life? Similar to Vito, Michael even goes to extreme lengths to rid himself of the ailing Hyman Roth. Placing these two stories together definitely gives the film a sense of tragic fate.

In addition, Vito’s story further advances an idea posited by the first film, that the only way for an immigrant, or someone of meager means, to advance in American society is to participate in crime. At the beginning of the film, Vito tries to fly right and just work steadily at his job as an assistant baker, but the forces of crime intervene. Another Mafia boss interrupts Vito’s somewhat stable life, by insisting that his nephew get a job at the same bakery. This action forces Vito into the orbit of a young Peter Clemenza and on his path to being the overlord we see in the first film.

 Further Thoughts

Perhaps I was a bit too quick to judge Michael’s arc in Part II. At the end of The Godfather, he enters a life of a crime that he had previously hoped to avoid, but he does ascend (emphasis on that word) to the role his father had previously occupied. Michael initiates a string of violent killings, and even goes as far as to kill his brother in law, but he does manage to keep his family together. In contrast, Part II ends with Michael having forsaken what this universe has established as the most important thing, FAMILY! I doubt Vito would have approved of Michael’s slaying of his brother, even under the same circumstances. Michael even tellingly waits for his mother, the last tie to his father’s regime, to die. In addition, he forces Connie to kiss his ring, in a scene that mimics the opening sequence in part one. He subjugates his last blood relative into servile position. Kay finds herself shut out, literally and figuratively, from Michael and her children. Surely Vito would have found some way to reconcile business and family in this situation. Michael’s journey in Part II reveals how is unfortunately similar to and tragically different from his late father.

Why is the film on this list?

While I did find enough of a difference between the two films, I still think part one’s inclusion would have been enough.