LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Godfather

I've watched the three Godfather films in the last few weeks.

Godfather II felt brilliant, particularly with the intersecting backstory of Vito Coreleone with his son, Michael's 'present,' as Godfather himself, with so much filming in Sicily.

Godfather III I loved, again for being filmed so much in Sicily and Rome, and the wild reach of the opera within an 'opera' of a gangster film.  I also enjoyed so much recognizing all these actors from The Sopranos, in younger incarnations of themselves, playing the same parts they play in the latter era made television series' Sopranos, sometimes even with the same names.  It's one of those meta kicks, I guess, that one either enjoys, or, as so often in my case, perceive as really annoying cheap tricks.

But the first, The Godfather -- it knocked the film world's sox off. And I can't get why.  Now the following films wouldn't be meaningful without The first Godfather.  But why this film was so adulated that not just one but two, very successful and highly regarded sequels were made because of it, I don't get.

Also, these films differ a great deal from Puzzo's potboiler novels.  Puzzo's ability as a novelist is minimal by my standards of writing.  But his skill at choosing one colorful detail after another, which substitute for narrative drive, was superb.  The films are far superior as films than the novels are as novels.  But it took both the novels and the films, the novelist and the film director, to create this incredible mythology for Italian Americans, so successful that they spawned endless, well spawn, even down to 7 seasons of the Soprano family business 'thing,' which is always comparing itself and their 'thing' with the 'old days,' and how different it is now, or, as in the case of the women speaking to each other of their men, how it isn't different -- that they are still living in the last century when it comes to women and sex and marriage.  For the men, they sometimes think the old times were better, with higher loyalties and honor.  The last century they refer to isn't the 20th, either, but the 19th.  But what they are all comparing their times to, whether in approving nostalgia or in future asperation, is fiction, mythology, not reality, at least not mostly.

The only other history I can think of this same process happening via fiction and films crossing is the Western. Which then, with The Godfather, the Western was officially displaced by the mafia as our great national myth.  Which is explained, then by Season 2 of The Wire, with the great epitaph of the U.S., as spoken by Frank Sobotnik, the dockworkers union boss: "Once this was a country that made things. Now it's about putting your hand in the other guy's pocket."  Sobotnik goes down to an international crime syndicate.
But I still don't know what it was, as a film, that so deeply impressed everyone from professionals in the film world to the novo gangsters which crossed themselves with the music biz in hiphop and rap (though that pop music genre didn't begin with gangsterism), to the average movie consumer.

Do you think it was the constant scenes of eating such delicious food?  The Sopranos emulates this.  Shoot, I emulate this.  While these have been my dinner time watching this winter, I have been making a lot more Italian dishes than usual.  I also am spending a lot more money in Raffetos, and their home-made fresh pastas, pestos, mozzarellas, parmeseanos and reggianos, olive oil and other products.

2 comments:

Abecedarian said...

Hi there,
Just happened to stop by and, since THE GODFATHER is one of my favorite films, I had to put in a good word for it.

What makes the film brilliant, from my point of view, is their seemingly effortless, but actually tightly controlled art direction and production design.

Even incidental touches, like the casually displayed Oscar next to the horse in the bed, give us clear ideas of who the characters are.

Are the characters more historical, more legendary than real? Yes, absolutely. But that's Copola's schtick, the first 2 GODFATHER films are masterpieces because of this ability to get at the myth, rather than the reality, of the godfather.

The use of lighting and cinematography, while perfected in the second film, is extremely strong in the first film as well.I'm guessing you were watching these films on DVD, which reduces the subtlety and warmth of Gordon Willis' lighting and camerawork. Blacks, and varying shades of black are crucial, but DVD flattens these completely.

I also think that the story, an inversion of the hackneyed American dream of immigrant success, came at the right moment for audiences. It's dark, but not "too" dark, ethnic, but not "too" ethnic. (Not for my tastes, but for broad audience tastes at the time.) It's operatic verging on hysteria, but also quite controlled; a perfect little pop opera, a visual equivalent of Phil Spector's "symphonies for the kids," in my humble opinion.

Foxessa said...

Well, thank you! Hai!

The decor of all three Godfather films is spectacular, which, again, upped my appreciation for the opera within opera staging, for that opera within was also impeccably staged in terms of decor.

As I commented further down at some point, another of these grand differences between this mythological Family and the television fiction families of The Sopranos, is this decor. In the Godfather mythos, even the house on Long Island is filled with heavy, expensive wood and marble, gold and silks and satins, set within vast grounds and making a compound unto itself, whereas the New Jersey mansions are prefab McMansions. Again too, difference between movies and television.

In the meantime I've watched Once Upon a Time in the West, which seems almost the lynchpin of turning our national mythos as the United States from the cowboy to the gangster. If Once Upon A Time in the West isn't a western with an Italian sense of decor I don't know what is. This is a western about gangsters.

Love, C.