THE GODFATHER PART II (1974)

Evil lurks in dark, sealed rooms as people celebrate in the Lake Tahoe sun. From the streets of New York City, corruption has spread out across the country and slowly infected society at every level. In 1958, under the gaze of the blue Nevada skies, an insidious new evil is coiling around America, suffocating the life out of it, like a python smothering a wild boar. It won’t stop until it has everything: all the wealth and no competition. Yet, like a roving, conquering emperor, not even everything will be quite enough.

Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), the dispassionate face behind organised crime in this young nation, watches as his son celebrates after his holy communion. As the party rages on, he meets in his office with drawn curtains, where men from all over the country discuss their business matters with him. For Michael, the family has never been bigger. He’s on the verge of making a deal with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), who’s the head of the Jewish Mob in Miami, that will give him unrivalled power and control. However, when he’s almost assassinated, Michael realises his enemies may be closer than he thinks…

The Godfather Part II is cinematic perfection. Few sequels ably continue the legacy of an original masterpiece, let alone improve upon it. However, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 masterwork arguably does precisely this. In revealing the steep moral decline of the Corleone family, which is deftly juxtaposed against Michael’s swift ascent through the nascent crime world of America, Coppola paints a stunning portrait of sin and iniquity. In a story that depicts one country’s spiritual degradation, The Godfather Part II remains a startling piece of storytelling: we watch our hero embrace evil more and more, until his acquisitiveness, his malice, and his lust for power consume him completely.

Why has this story fascinated us for so many years? Much like how children are drawn to the lurid and ghastly fairytales of The Brothers Grimm, we are drawn into this expertly woven tapestry of real-world evil. Coppola’s first two outings are exquisite meditations on the presence of turpitude and corruption in our modern society, with both becoming gorgeous fairytales of violence, greed, and Machiavellian strategy. However, what still frightens us in these stories is that, though they possess the same narrative structure and archetypes, they’re not quite mythical. They feel disturbingly true to life, yet there isn’t a single hero in sight.

Here, evil devours evil, villains supplant villains, and justice is nowhere to be found. Those who are supposed to enforce the law only use their position to circumvent it. Be it police officers or senators, authority figures are shown to be as wicked as the Mafia. As Mario Puzo’s original novel peels back the layers of organised crime in America, there’s such a texture to the world-building that one can’t help but feel entirely engrossed. We learn of divergent codes of conduct between cultures and families, different tactics to obtain a goal, and of the various positions and powers one person may have.

We’re invited to understand the workings of an entire civilisation, the mechanisations of a nefarious system: the family. Of course, you can’t have a crime family without family. It’s for this reason that Michael treats his wife and children as something sacrosanct: they are a holy, unblemished entity (if not one cohesive organism) in a corrupted world. When Senator Pat Geary (G.D Spradlin) insults Michael, referring to his family as a group of immoral deviants, as dishonest creatures putting on a masquerade of decency, the Don remains equable as a cold rage bubbles: “Senator, we’re both part of the same hypocrisy—but never think it applies to my family.”

Michael is capable, at least, of appreciating the hypocrisy of his external persona: he’s more than aware that he puts on a front for the outer world. However, he’s still a victim of cognitive dissonance: he strives to protect his family from the evil in the world by becoming the greatest evil of all. Soon, the person that everyone in the family fears most is its patriarch; Michael Corleone is no longer a brother, a husband, or a father to anyone. Instead, he’s chairman: the family is a business, one requiring management that’s both rigid and ruthless. The family is not just a traditional institution, but a system. And the goal of all power systems, according to the great Noam Chomsky, is control and domination.

The same is true of Michael’s management of his family: he desires to control them all, even views it as part of his identity as the new Don. It’s for this reason that, when he expresses his disapproval towards his wife’s fiancé, his words are quietly horrifying: “If you don’t listen to me, and marry this man… you’ll disappoint me.” And while he promises his wife, Kay (Diane Keaton), that the Corleone family will become a legitimate institution, it’s clear he has no intention of the sort: Michael wants to remain criminal, to behave ruthlessly and dominate everything from the shadows. He wants to be beyond reproach and above the law. By no means does he want to be subsumed by the system—he wants to be his own system.

Considering this is how Michael treats his family, you’d be wise to tread lightly if you were his competitor: “I don’t feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies.” Moreover, there are very few people who the Don doesn’t view as a potential enemy. Michael wants it all, to consume everything around him. Bit by bit, he’ll devour, vanquish, and digest, like a colossal blue whale swallowing up krill. And he’s determined to give nothing back: “My offer is this: nothing.” Whether it’s crematomania or just pure psychopathy, Michael has more in common with a warring invader than the ideological boy he once was.

Along with the setting that’s brimming with detail and nuance, it’s this vast array of vivid personalities and complex characterisation that make the first two Godfather films so engrossing. Each individual experiences internal conflicts, or juggles multifaceted problems as they try to align their personal desires within their familial context. Yet, despite the power he enjoys, no character suffers greater emotional torment than Michael. While his exterior appearance presents a tranquil, measured businessman, it belies the frustration of a man who reluctantly became one of the most powerful men in the country, and the keen savagery that was required to preserve this status.

Al Pacino’s performance as Michael Corleone, particularly in this sequel, is probably the best performance of his entire career. He wears a thick mask of equanimity, but it’s clear how an icy fury exists beneath. Once the unwilling scion of a titan of crime, Michael’s unremittingly bleak descent into darkness provides the thematic bedrock for this film: his self-doubt, coupled with his pitiless judgement of others, reveal him to be a deeply conflicted individual. We watch Michael sink deeper and deeper into his clinical, yet animalistic ambition, held fast in Satan’s clutches, and witness his mounting concern that he’s sacrificed the one thing he truly cares about (his family) for some nebulous entity: absolutely everything.

Coppola deftly juxtaposes the excavation of Michael’s soul and beliefs against a look at Vito Corleone’s (Robert De Niro) humble beginnings. From 1901, we watch as a boy steals away in the middle of the night, narrowly avoiding certain death, and escape to America. The dual narrative achieves such terrific balance that neither story ever feels rushed, nor lacking. Much like in Once Upon a Time in America (1984), which features an ensemble cast that De Niro would helm just a decade later, Vito’s decision to lead a life of crime is immoral, yet is shown to be vaguely justified as he’s toppling pre-existing systems of evil.

Additionally, Vito always frames his actions as being the manifestation of familial values. After he executes the mob boss that presides over Little Italy, Vito holds the baby Michael in his arms, bringing him close to his face: “Michael… your father loves you very much. Very much…” It’s quite a powerful scene, as Vito’s detached killer instinct and criminal enterprise are juxtaposed against the warm affection of paternal love: he has done everything to provide a better, safer life for his family. And this is how evil starts—with good intentions.

There are a slew of other interesting personalities in The Godfather Part II. Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), Kay, Connie (Talia Shire), Hyman Roth, and Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo). However, of all the supporting characters that reinforce the film’s theme of spiritual decline, it’s in Fredo greatest resonance. A quietly tragic character, who’s full of shame at his own incompetence, Fredo’s hopeless ineptitude is bitterly contrasted against Michael’s savvy at every turn. Seen as sweet and helpless by everyone around him, Fredo’s indignation at being passed over by Michael sheds light on the Shakespearean elements of the Corleone family: “Taken care of me?! Mike, you’re my kid brother, and you take care of me! Mike, I’m your older brother; I was stepped over!”

As mesmerising as the performances are, the cinematography that captures them is what indelibly imprints them onto your subconscious. In only the opening shot, anonymous figures walk up and down, kissing Michael’s hand. Meanwhile, an empty chair drinks up the light of the room, and the titles slowly appear: The Godfather Part II. With an image as simple as an unoccupied seat—a vacant throne—it’s imparted with much foreboding that this story is far from over: how will Michael follow in his father’s footsteps?

Gordon Willis—who would later serve as director of photography for classics such as All the President’s Men (1976) and Manhattan (1979)—was truly only in the infancy of his career, yet his work here is celebrated as some of his finest. The cinematography feels discomfiting: the chiaroscuro lighting is so harsh, with shadows feeling so omnipresent and so pervasive, that the eye desperately searches for any light to dispel the gloom.

As if that were not enough, the music will give you goosebumps—there’s just something about those trumpets. Perhaps it’s the funereal tone that they convey, or the audible promise of violence that hides in those solemn notes. With Nino Rota’s superb score, coupled with Carmine Coppola’s plaintive conducting, the accompanying music perfectly fits an odyssey of crime and existential suffering in 20th-century America.

Easily the best sequel ever made (I certainly struggle to think of a film that advances its predecessor’s themes and ideas so sublimely), there’s truly no end to the superlatives one must use to describe The Godfather Part II. While critical opinion usually places the original above its successor, I may just prefer the sequel: it’s cerebrally layered, the storylines from past and present are fantastically intertwined to provide a balanced analysis of the family’s social ascent and spiritual decline, and the entire story feels cohesive and as a single entity. As a result, The Godfather Part II is a film that practically breathes.

Everyone wants to escape Michael’s sphere of influence at one point or another. They see him as a new form of evil, one that billows forth like smoke: it diffuses through an entire nation, so prevalent that it’s impossible to know the extent of its injurious effects. Instead of discovering too late that they are riddled with cancers just from being near to him, Michael’s family all try to flee.

Connie absconds with arbitrary men around the world, abandoning her children, simply to avoid her brother. Kay has an abortion, because she cannot stand to contribute soldiers into Michael’s ministry of evil. She knows that it’s only in betraying Michael like this, committing what Michael views as the ultimate theft, that she will ever be free of him. And Fredo sprints into a tumultuous crowd in Cuba, fearful a garrotte will be wrapped underneath his chin if he gets into a car with his younger brother.

All this incites a great panic in Michael: the fear that he has caused his family to break down, to disintegrate. When he seeks reassurance from his mother, it’s the closest we see Michael to returning to the boy he once was. However, there is no going back to that—Michael knows that all too well. He seems to believe that the only way out is through; perhaps after all are conquered, when he’s the indisputable and unchallenged king, then he can rest.

Still, it’s clear it will never be enough. He has surrounded himself with evil for so long that it’s all he knows. He never wanted to become like his father, yet here he is. And it all feels tragically reminiscent of Nietzsche’s old adage: “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Michael has stared into black oblivion for so long that its darkness has filled him up.

Technically, he has everything: money, power, status. He’s a man of his own making—the master of his fate, the captain of his soul. Yet his fate, though overflowing with riches, is utterly ruinous. What has he done to accrue all his achievements? What has he sacrificed? And even he knows he forfeited his soul a long time ago. Because when you look at his eyes, there is absolutely nothing behind them. In the final sequence, when all of his best-laid plans are dutifully executed and his security is assured, he never once looks pleased, nor relieved. Instead, his eyes look dead, unfeeling, and eternally vacant.

USA | 1974 | 202 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • ITALIAN • SPANISH • LATIN • SICILIAN

Cast & Crew

director: Francis Ford Coppola.
writers: Francis Ford Coppola & Mario Puzo (based on the novel ‘The Godfather’ by Mario Puzo).
starring: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Oreste Baldini, John Cazale, Talia Shire, Lee Strasberg, Michael V. Gazzo, G.D Spradlin, Richard Bright & Gastone Moschin.