Shockingly I have never seen any of the Godfather movies, Scarface etc. My first jaunt into the classic 70's Mafia films is the iconic "The Godfather directed by Francis Ford Coppola and staring Marlon Brando and a very young Al Pacino. I now totally understand why this movie has held such a respected place in the history of American movies.
There was not a single aspect of the movie I can really find fault with. The acting was superb by all the main characters and even by most of the support characters. Brando did a great job playing an aging man in the waning days of his life. Pacino's character grew and changed as the movie progressed. The progression was told not only with the plot and dialog but with Pacino's emotions and expressions as well. After the attempted assassination of his father, he progresses from being the war hero son who wants nothing to do with the family business, to being the head, the Don. The transition is evident in his political vision of a retaliation strike. It becomes even more so when he negotiates with a man to court his daughter. At the end of the movie when the transition is complete you see that deep down he still wants to be seen, at least by his wife, as the innocent war hero he was. It seems that his wife, naively and despite all evidence to the contrary, wishes to believe it too.
The cinematography is well done, for the time, and the lighting worked beautifully to set the mood for each scene. The movie is a whopping three hours long and moves as a moderate pace. However everything works together to make it feel right. The pace and length just work for this movie.
If you haven't seen The Godfather before, I highly recommend you do. It is one of the few movies I have seen that truly lives up to its hype. I give it a 9.5 / 10.
There was not a single aspect of the movie I can really find fault with. The acting was superb by all the main characters and even by most of the support characters. Brando did a great job playing an aging man in the waning days of his life. Pacino's character grew and changed as the movie progressed. The progression was told not only with the plot and dialog but with Pacino's emotions and expressions as well. After the attempted assassination of his father, he progresses from being the war hero son who wants nothing to do with the family business, to being the head, the Don. The transition is evident in his political vision of a retaliation strike. It becomes even more so when he negotiates with a man to court his daughter. At the end of the movie when the transition is complete you see that deep down he still wants to be seen, at least by his wife, as the innocent war hero he was. It seems that his wife, naively and despite all evidence to the contrary, wishes to believe it too.
The cinematography is well done, for the time, and the lighting worked beautifully to set the mood for each scene. The movie is a whopping three hours long and moves as a moderate pace. However everything works together to make it feel right. The pace and length just work for this movie.
If you haven't seen The Godfather before, I highly recommend you do. It is one of the few movies I have seen that truly lives up to its hype. I give it a 9.5 / 10.
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