The Godfather Part II (1974): Eitan's Take

"Seeing you reminds me of New York... the old days."

I've been waiting for almost two years to have this chance to rewatch The Godfather Part II and fully articulate my numerous problems with it. I had seen it at the beginning of my college career and felt truly disappointed, but before watching it tonight, my father implored me to give this film a second chance. Sorry, Dad.

Imagine you're Francis Ford Coppola for a second. You've just made your sprawling yet intimate masterpiece, and everyone wants more. You have a three-plus hour palette on which to flesh out the brilliant tragedies of the first installment. But instead, you opt for a cumbersome, jarring sketch of a handful of tiny, trivial moments in the lives of previously fascinating film characters. This Frankenstein of a film -- culled from a grab bag of decent parts and stitched together awkwardly and obtusely -- serves little purpose but to remind us of what an organic, warm, intelligent treat the first film is. For the entire running time of Part II, as ideas get stretched thin and the plot aggressively overstays its welcome, we can't help but recall the tremendous pleasures of its predecessor -- the funny and subtle performance of Marlon Brando, the rise (or is it fall?) of Michael Corleone and the intimate time we spend watching his descent into the crime underworld, the rich subplots in Italy and elsewhere. I could go on. The Michael segments of Part II are a bleak death march. The rich emotional tones of the first film are replaced here by one single sustained note: Michael is cruel, ruthless, vindictive, etc., and there is no way to approach this other than overdone pathos. Soul-crushingly banal plotlines, such as Michael's various business dealings in Vegas/Cuba, the Senate hearings, the shocking revelation about Kay's abortion, keep the Michael parts trudging along in a constant state of morose self-possession. In widening the scope of the Corleone drama, Coppola and Puzo completely lose themselves. It's like C-SPAN and CNBC rolled into one.

There is still quite a bit of good in this film, and I should state emphatically that I don't dislike this film the way I dislike American Pie: Band Camp. I dislike it partially because the Michael segments are such an insult to the first film, and partially because they're such an insult to the flawless -- yes, absolutely flawless -- handling of the "young Vito" narrative. I don't have a broad enough vocabulary to express my deep admiration for the artistry in this third (or so) of the film. First of all, it may contain some of the most beautiful, iconic moments in cinematography history: the festa, the train leaving Corleone, nearly every scene on the busy and beautiful streets of tenement-era New York City. DeNiro's performance matches Brando's note for note, in humor, physical presence, and hypnotic fascination. Is Michael simply an uninteresting character? This film would suggest that Vito's life arc is really the only interesting one, but we know from the first film that Michael is a brilliant character, and that the weak and joyless turns his life takes in the late 50's are really just an embarrassing mishandling of a potentially great epic life story.

The ultimate shame of The Godfather Part II is that in overemphasizing the unbearably bleak and tepid Vegas/Cuba Michael story, Coppola and Puzo miss out on giving young Vito his full due. This dark, haunting, gorgeous, and highly atmospheric section deserves a full, proper film of its own. Instead, it's gracelessly glued to a lumbering 2-hour slog, full of soulless ghosts wandering around their tacky homes. It's sort of like watching Padma Lakshmi tie the knot with Salman Rushdie, or Carla Bruni with Nicolas Sarkozy, or Marilyn Monroe with Arthur Miller. Why do beautiful things always pair up with such ugly ones?

Vito's 1/3 of the film gets a 10. Michael's 2/3 gets a 5. The film overall, however, is a muddled mess that clearly needed some more work, some more love, and clearly some more Brando. 6/10.

West Side Story (1961): Eitan's Take

West Side Story is a movie that inspires near-blasphemous ambivalence in me. Like the pop art movement that was emerging at the time Jerome Robbins and Stephen Sondheim cooked it up, the film is colorful, strange, gritty, explosive, and ultimately very, very empty. Like its pathetically weak source material, Shakespeare's overrated Romeo and Juliet, it has barely enough plot points to sustain its 150-minute running time, and it blows its artistic load on three or four mind-bogglingly brilliant song and dance numbers, leaving the rest to drag. And drag. And drag. One cup Zeferelli's "Romeo and Juliet," one heaping teaspoon of "The Warriors," and a bit of Bob Fosse leaves us with a very colorful and very bland stew.

I'll focus on the positives of this iconic film first. The dance routines are, perhaps, the best ever captured on camera. Jerome Robbins' vision of a violent gangland ballet comes to life in ways that still inspire awe 47 years later. The high kicks, the spins, the snaps, the explosive arm gestures, the leapfrogs, and even the more subtle motions like scurrying up fences and racing through the street... it's all phenomenal eye candy, and it all definitely captures the simmering inner drama of young gang members. The attitude and bravado of these thugs comes through, and for a few moments we can even see the appeal of living like they do. Likewise, the cinematography is breathtaking; bright 60's yellows and blues and greens mix with the dark grit of Manhattan to great effect. The interplay of light and shadow adds to the general feeling of despair hanging over the movie. It's New York at a completely different angle from the melancholy sweetness of Billy Wilder's imaginary Manhattan. It's really quite akin to On the Waterfront, if the shipping yards were painted in glorious pastels. These two elements alone almost make the movie worth watching, and I have no doubt that along with Leonard Bernstein's epic score, these are the reasons why people return time and time again to West Side Story.

But there are so many elements of this movie -- again, this iconic movie -- are too overcooked to take seriously. At times, the singing is downright atrocious, even in some of my favorite tunes ("America," "Cool," "Gee Officer Krupke"). The love story is too hammy for its own good, and the changes from Romeo and Juliet actually weaken the overall thrust of the story. These two "star-crossed lovers" are supposed to die TOGETHER; seriously, one dies and the other is led away by a police as the camera cranes upwards?

While recontextualizing the violence and romance in the guise of an immigrant story is, of course, an interesting twist, it's hard to a) get past the feeling that these are just a bunch of really stupid and short-sighted kids and b) get past the fact that half of them don't even look like the ethnicity they're supposed to be portraying. By this point in the history of Western art, this story had been hashed and rehashed until all but a gloppy goo was left, and the tired storyline (which Shakespeare himself cribbed from several writers before him) really shows its age. Maybe "high-concept" reinterpretations of Shakespeare were new then, but by now they're old hat -- I've personally seen WWII-era "Much Ado," silent-film-era "Midsummer Night's Dream," a junkyard "Midsummer," an all-black "Othello," and pretty much every mushy Shakespeare-lite movie that Hollywood has cooked up ("Ten Things I Hate About You," et al). So while I can imagine the early-60's fervor over these hot kids doing Shakespeare in an alleyway (remember, this was even before Zeferelli's version), I'm viewing this from a 21st century lens, and I always find myself unimpressed with this movie, which everyone else seems to love.

Call me a grump, but I give this a 6/10. And once again, Natalie Wood does not LOOK, SOUND, or ACT Puerto Rican!

The Life of Emile Zola (1937): Eitan's Take

The Life of Emile Zola, a film too long even at its running time of under 2 hours, is a rather flaccid and disappointing entry in our Best Picture lineup, especially after the innovative, impressive fun of the last three. While I feel it was appropriate to create a cinematic memorial to one of the great journalists, authors, and truth-seekers of all time, it's unfortunate that the memorial was crafted so clumsily and without purpose. An eloquent fifteen minute coda does not a movie make, and I found myself frustrated with how long it took for the film to get its footing. The first hour and a half might as well have been called "Various Unimportant, Hammy Montages of Emile Zola 'Struggling' to Become an Artist, Interspersed With The Blandly Evil Machinations of Some Indistinguishable and Stuffy Men With Capes." It's no wonder Joseph Schildkraut (Alfred Dreyfus) won an Academy Award for this film -- he's pretty much the only compelling, truly sympathetic character we meet, subtly and heartbreakingly portrayed.

Paul Muni, star of other biopics such as "The Story of Louis Pasteur," "Dr. Socrates," and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," does an admirable job, but overall, his performance is just a bit too hammy. Zola is an interesting figure, and we really don't get to see him composing his thoughts and truly struggling to achieve what he did. Instead, we get longwinded speeches that give us an impression of what he stood for, but nothing about his motivations and mental process. For a movie supposedly about his "LIFE," it gives us much better scenes after his death, when his greatest admirers gather at his funeral, than when he was alive and working.

Also, after the crisp extravagance of The Great Ziegfeld, I was mildly put off by the rather poor print quality and the shortsightedness of the director's vision. This muddled, mostly ineffective, albeit relevant film gets a 6/10.

Also, seriously, the guy on the poster looks NOTHING LIKE EMILE ZOLA.

The Broadway Melody (1929): Eitan's Take

Sigh. Apparently this is "the grandfather of all movie musicals." In which case, it reminded me of a) why I pretty much disdain all movie musicals and b) why the ones that ARE good are so incredible at overcoming their lame musical identity that they pretty much have to win Best Picture (see West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and Chicago). This was a decent movie about a pair of whip-smart, button-cute Broadway revue performers who share a tiny apartment in Manhattan and take small roles, sleep with songwriters and financiers, and wear a lot of one-pieces and peacock hats on their way to the top. I guess by now we've heard it all before -- ambitious upstarts start at the bottom and Make It Big In New York -- but I'm content with judging this by the standards of the time. This was undoubtedly a fun Hollywood extravaganza, featuring razzle-dazzle stage productions and some slam-bang Ain't-Showbiz-Great writing, so I'm not surprised they went ahead and gave it the Oscar. Some aspects of it really gave me the creeps, though... especially the love triangle that was supposed to be funny but seems out of place here in its awkwardness and tragic implications.

Also, the songs are pretty much terrible. Considering the fact that I watched this film 10 minutes ago and can't for the life of me remember the tune of the title song reflects pretty poorly on this movie's claim to fame as the first great musical. Oh well. Anita Page and Bessie Love play their sister act singing team with a nice mix of sweetness and toughness, and they're blessed with spunk and that gorgeous flapper look, so I can't complain too much.

A decent film that highlights the awkwardness of Hollywood's transition into sound. I give it a 6/10.