Leave the Pacino, Take the Duvall

   The Godfather is an excellent example of American Cinema at its best. The story focuses on the ideology of family and the mob underworld. The film is about the Corleone family during the 1940s. Based on the Mario Puzo novel of the same title, Francis Coppola allows audience to be a part of the Corleone family, and helps the audience create a relationship with characters in the film. The film has memorable lines (“Leave the gun, take the cannoli” and scenes, (the film director discovering the horse head in his bed). I would argue however, that this film has not lived up to the title of greatest film ever for three reasons: the second half of the film, Michael Corleone, and Robert Duvall.

     The Godfather part one can be broken into two parts. The beginning portion of the film is amazing to me. The story creates an atmosphere of the importance of family and the separation of family and business. I will go into more detail about how this is achieved in my next blog entry that will focus on mise-en-scene. The second part of The Godfather does not live up to the intensity of the first section. After the murders in the restaurant, the film begins to tell two stories: the home front of the Corleone family and the sub plot of Michael Corleone away from home. To me this section tends to drag on and is filled with loop holes (Does the family know anything about his Sicilian wife? Why has his jaw taken forever to heal?). But overall, I just don’t like the character of Michael Corleone.

     While I do enjoy this film, I am reluctant to one aspect of the film that ruins the movie for me: Al Pacino. I personally don’t like his acting style at all but I think that he received a lot of credit in the film industry after he portrayed this role. I must confess that I have not seen The Godfather two and three. One of the reasons why I didn’t like his performance is that the character of Michael Corleone is in the first half of the film,and thus his character should have developed more at that time. I felt that he was too much of a stranger to really care what happen to him later on in the film. I do understand the the first section of the movie is to establish an understanding of the family but I felt that Michael Corleone standing back and not joining the family’s work should have been presented more, rather than the audience just learning where he lives and his military uniform. I don’t know what order these scenes were shot in, but I feel Pacino’s understanding of the character seems stronger later on in the film. The change his character undergoes to present more through other aspects of mise-in-scene.

    I think what upsets me the most about this film is that Robert Duvall is the underdog, or unsung hero, of the film. I feel that he should receive much more credit for his role in this film because the aspects of the story that he presents makes the movie enjoyable for me. It is his performance that helps propel Marlon Brando’s character. I see Duvall’s character as the sturdy foundation that allows the others characters to change around him throughout the film. I want to type so much more but I will save that for my next blog…