The Godfather (1972): Shira's Take

Gosh, this movie sucks.

But seriously, I feel like I did when I was forced to write about Casablanca. What can you possibly say about such a cinematic masterpiece that hasn't been said? Absolutely nothing. So I'll say the things that have been said by others but that come to my mind right now. I think that about 90% of the shots in this movie are completely iconic. If you'd never seen it before, you would still recognize it from almost any still image. Part of this is the use of color and light. No other movie looks like the Godfather (though I haven't seen parts 2 or 3 yet, so maybe they do as well).

Though I've never read Mario Puzo's book upon which this movie is based, I have heard pretty awful things. But Puzo collaborated with Coppola on the screenplay, and it turned out pretty amazing, so I think maybe this story just needed the medium of film. This was my second time watching the Godfather, and it was actually better this time. I am very much looking forward to seeing part 2 now and recognizing all the classic lines I know so well (especially, "I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart.") You can tell I'm scrounging for things to say.

Oh, one stupid little note. I remember the first time I saw Boogie Nights, which was a few months after the first time I saw the Godfather. In the scene in Boogie Nights where Floyd Gondoli came to Jack Horner to ask him to switch to video, I was reminded of the scene in the Godfather where Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo asks Don Corleone to join the narcotics industry. Boogie Nights has since become one of my favorite movies, but this is the first time I've had the privilege to watch the Godfather since. Honestly, there are a number of Jack Horner/Don Corleone parallelisms, and I'm excited to watch Boogie Nights soon (as I probably watch it every other month or so) in this context. Obviously, the Godfather gets a 10/10

The Godfather (1972): Eitan's Take

Whenever characters in a movie or TV show go out to the movies -- and this happens in Seinfeld quite a bit -- they always end up seeing some vaguely anonymous, obviously fake popcorn flick. I watch these scenes and wonder: do they have all the same movies we have in real life? Or in this parallel universe, do they have a completely different history of cinema and thousands of movies that don't exist in our universe? What I'm getting at is this: we should consider ourselves privileged, maybe even humbled, that we live in a world where a film like The Godfather exists. Like Casablanca, this film is ingrained in our consciousness regardless of whether or not we've seen it; it's just who we are. We were all born to love this film, and watching it for the first or second, or in my case the fifth or sixth time, one gets the sense that the film satisfies some crazy, innate Platonic ideal -- we all have to discover it on our own, but it waits for us and reveals itself slowly, poetically, elegantly, until we can do nothing but acquiesce to its awesome power.

It's basically pointless to try to write something breezy and clever about The Godfather. So much ink has been spilled over it already, and by much more talented and insightful people -- not to mention the fact that every human who takes him or herself seriously has seen this film by now and has their own approach. Someone once said that batting against Sandy Koufax was like eating soup with a fork, and that's pretty much how I feel about tackling The Godfather in a critical way. Like any great art -- Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Mozart -- The Godfather is too epic, too perfect, too unassailably well-constructed to comment on and then feel good about myself in the morning. Maybe this is a cop-out, but I honestly can't start breaking this film apart into its constituent units and letting you know how much I love it. My admiration for and fear of this movie should be self-evident.

Most American films live in the shadow of this behemoth, and for good reasons. From the first lines -- a paean to immigrant values -- to the last -- a powerful passing of the torch to a first-generation American -- it is truly our nation's finest film. It's not my favorite, not by a long shot, but if there has ever been a better rendering of the 20th century American story on film, I definitely don't know about it.

10/10.