The Godfather

(Francis Ford Coppola; 1972)

The Godfather is told entirely within a closed world. That’s why we sympathize with characters that are essentially evil. The story by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola is a brilliant conjuring act, inciting us to consider the Mafia entirely on its own terms. Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) emerges as a sympathetic and even admirable character; during the entire film, this lifelong professional criminal does nothing that, in context, we can really disapprove of. We see not a single actual civilian victim of organized crime. No woman trapped into prostitution. No lives wrecked by gambling. No victims of theft, fraud, or protection rackets. The only police officer with a significant speaking role is corrupt.

The story views the Mafia from the inside. That is its secret, its charm, its spell; in a way it has shaped the public perception of the Mafia ever since. The real world is replaced by an authoritarian patriarchy where power and justice flow from the Godfather, and the only villains are traitors. There is one commandment, spoken by Michael (Al Pacino): “Don’t ever take sides against the family.”

What is important is loyalty to the family. Much is said in the movie about trusting a man’s world, but honesty is nothing compared to loyalty. Michael doesn’t even trust Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) with the secret that he plans to murder the heads of the other families. The famous “baptism massacre” is tough, virtuoso filmmaking. The baptism provides him with an airtight alibi, and he becomes a godfather in both senses at the same time.

Vito Corleone is the moral center of the film. He is old, wise, an opposed to dealing in drugs. He understands that society is not alarmed by “liquor, gambling…..even women.” But drugs are a dirty business to Don Vito, and one of the movie’s best scenes is the Mafia summit in which he argues his point. The implication is that in the Godfather’s world there would be no drugs, only “victimless crimes,” and justice would be dispatched evenly and swiftly.

I want to point out how cleverly Coppola structures his film to create sympathy for his heroes. The Mafia is not a benevolent and protective organization, and the Corleone family is only marginally better than the others. Yet when the old man falls dead, we feel that a giant has passed. Gordon’s Willis’s cinematography is celebrated for its atmospheric, expressive shadows; his style earned him the nickname “the Prince of Darkness.” Coppola populates his dark interior spaces with remarkable faces. Those in the front line – Brando, Pacino, Caan, Duvall – are attractive in one way or another, but he actors who play their associates are chosen for their fleshy, thickly lined face – for huge jaws and deeply set eyes.

The Brando performance is justly famous and often imitated. We know all about his puffy cheeks and his use of props like the kitten in the opening scene. Those are actors’ devices. Brando uses them but does not depend on them. He embodies the character so convincingly that at the end, when he warns his on two or three times that “the man that comes to you to set up a meeting – that’s the traitor,” we are not thinking of acting at all. We are thinking that the don is growing old and repeating himself, but we are also thinking that he is probably absolutely right.

The screenplay of The Godfather follows no formulas except for the classic structure in which power passes between the generations. The writing is subtly constructed to set up events later on in the film. Coppola went to Italy to find Nino Rota, composer of many Fellini films, to score the picture. Hearing the sadness and nostalgia of the movie’s main theme, I realized what the movie was telling us: Things would have turned out better if we had only listened to the Godfather.

Staley Kubrick Reflection:

Relfect on the stylistic signature of director, Stanley Kubrick. Your reflection should comment on the following attributes of his work:

- Framing/Shots

- Camera Angles/Movement

- Sound

- Lighting

- Editing Technique

What films stood out to you the most? What did you like/dislike?

Due: 10/16

Full Metal Jacket

(1987)

This film takes a look at the effect of the military mindset and war itself on Vietnam era Marines.A two-segment story that follows young men from the start of recruit training in the Marine Corps to the lethal cauldron known as Vietnam.....The first segment follows Joker, Pyle and others as they progress through the hell of USMC boot-camp at the hands of the foul-mouthed Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The second begins in Vietnam, near Hue, at the time of the Tet Offensive. The men face threats such as ambush, booby traps, and Viet Cong snipers as they move through the city.

The Shining

(1980)

A man, his son and wife become the winter caretakers of an isolated hotel where Danny, the son, sees disturbing visions of the hotel's past using a telepathic gift known as "The Shining." Along with writer's block and the demons of the hotel haunting him Jack has a complete mental breakdown and the situation takes a sinister turn for the worse......

2001: A Space Odyssey

(1968)

2001 is a story of evolution. At the dawn of man, a primitive tribe lives by hunting and gathering in a desert. The tribe discovers a black monolith, which they approach and examine. The implication is that the monolith is of extraterrestrial origin, and it imparts the knowledge of tools on members of the tribe. Monoliths are fictional advanced machines built by an unseen extraterrestrial species that appear in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series of novels and films. After the discovery, one of the tribe members scavenges a bone from a pile and uses it as a club, discovering the first tool. This tool is used to hunt, and eventually as a weapon to kill a member of a rival tribe.

Eighteen months later, a spaceship is headed to Jupiter. Five scientists are aboard, none of whom know the exact purpose of their mission. The ship is controlled by an artificially intelligent supercomputer, HAL, which is treated as a sixth member of the crew by the other five. During the trip, HAL claims to detect an impending hardware failure in the ship's communications system. Two scientists, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, replace the component, but find no fault in it. They are concerned about HAL's reliability, so they meet in secret and agree that if the component does not fail, they will disconnect HAL. HAL is faulty, and is endangering their lives and their mission. However, because HAL is an essential member of the team, this eventuality is problematic. Unknown to the astronauts, HAL reads their lips and discovers their plot to disconnect him. In his state of insanity, he conspires against the astronauts........

A Clockwork Orange

(1971)

Protogonist Alex is an "ultraviolent" youth in futuristic Britianwhose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven. In the world of the novel and film, youth violence is a major social problem, and Alex represents a typical—though highly successful—teenager. He dresses in the “heighth of fashion,” frequents all of the popular hangouts, and is the undisputed leader of his gang. Ultimately Alex's luck eventually runs out and he's arrested and convicted of murder and rape. While in prison, he agrees to try "aversion therapy" to shorten his jail sentence, and is thus brainwashed to be proper citizen of society. "Cured," he has become adverse to violence and is eventually let out of jail only to find a world of rejection.....

Unforgettable images, startling musical counterpoints, the fascinating language used by Alex and his pals - Kubrick shapes them into a shattering whole. Hugely controversial when first released, A Clockwork Orange won the New York Film Critics Best Picture and Director honors and earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The power of its art is such that it still entices, shocks, and holds us in its grasp.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964):

U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely and utterly mad, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He suspects that the communists are conspiring to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people. The U.S. president meets with his advisors, where the Soviet ambassador tells him that if the U.S.S.R. is hit by nuclear weapons, it will trigger a "Doomsday Machine" which will destroy all plant and animal life on Earth. Peter Sellers portrays the three men who might avert this tragedy: British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access to the demented Gen. Ripper; U.S. President Merkin Muffley, whose best attempts to divert disaster depend on placating a drunken Soviet Premier and the former Nazi genius Dr. Strangelove, who concludes that "such a device would not be a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious." Will the bombers be stopped in time, or will General Jack Ripper succeed in destroying the world ?

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)

Stanley Kubrick was born in New York, and was considered intelligent despite poor grades at school. oping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as a tool for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.

Jack Kubrick's decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would develop in a friend's darkroom. After selling an unsolicited photograph to Look Magazine, Kubrick began to associate with their staff photographers, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer. In the next few years, Kubrick had regular assignments for "Look", and would become a voracious movie-goer.

Kubrick was noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism and his reclusiveness about his fims and personal life. He worked far beyond the confines of the Hollywood system, maintaining almost complete artistic control and making movies according to the whims and time constraints of no one but himself, but with the rare advantage of big- studio financial support for all his endeavours. Nominated several times for Oscars for both writing and directing, his only personal win was for the special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey, though his films have won many Oscars and other awards in other departments.

Known for such film titles as "Dr. Stranglove," "Spartacus," "The Shining," "A Clockwork Orange," "Lolita," "Full Metal Jacket," "Eyes Wide Shut."

More about the director: http://kubrickfilms.warnerbros.com/