Broken & Saved

This is Part II of our journey through nine decades of film, choosing one movie from each that any student of film should see; Part I is here.

70’s

You know which one this is going to be, it’s the one that sparked this conversation. The Godfather was Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of a bestselling pulp novel. The backstory on the making of the movie is almost as interesting as the movie itself.

But only “almost,” because the movie itself, as I wrote elsewhere, rivals Kane as the peak of American filmmaking. There had been “gangster” movies before, but Godfather changed everything – it portrayed people with depth, with emotion and families and idiosyncrasies, and it did so in a story that was almost operatic.

A friend of mine, Dan, is a movie critic, with his own web site and everything. Imagine my surprise (and consternation) when last week he posted that he had just watched The Godfather for the first time. At least one person told him that was un-American (if McCarthy were alive he’d have been arrested), and while that is slightly (but only slightly) hyperbolic, it’s certainly a situation far less than ideal.

Dan’s reply was that they don’t ask what you’ve seen or haven’t seen before they give you a press pass. Yes, and that and the lack of Bluebell and the clown car that is Trump for President are a huge part of what’s wrong with this country.