The Godfather Review + Wants

The first time I ever saw The Godfather, I was 23 years old and going through my Jack Nicholson phase. I was fresh off of a stint with Chinatown and The Shining, and I was determined to catch up on all of the other great films from the 70’s and 80’s that I had missed; either because I was too young to see them, or I was too preoccupied to care. Now that I was becoming a more refined film connoisseur (after all, hadn’t I just traded up Ghostbusters Bill Murray for Lost in Translation Bill Murray?) I was ready to tackle some heavy hitters and Coppola seemed a good place to start. Perhaps it was my youth or my high expectations, but The Godfather left me wanting more.

This was a masterpiece? This was a film that had been dissected, analyzed, glorified, worshipped, parodied, and canonized into the annals of film history and revered as great cinema? I didn’t get it. I thought the movie was too long and too slow. Where was the action? Marlon Brando mumbled so badly I almost turned on the captions just so I could understand what he was saying. The setting was dark and heavy. I had a hard time differentiating between characters and plotlines, and much of the story went right over my head. The Godfather didn’t feel like great cinema; it felt like outdated, low-budget fodder for gangster rappers to proudly display in their rec rooms during an episode of MTV’s Cribs.

Needless to say, my taste in movies (and MTV shows) has changed a lot since then. Now that I have some years and experience under my belt, I am wisely paying more attention. The drama! The intrigue! The romance! The subtle humor. “Leave the gun, take the cannoli” (Coppola). The nuanced characters. The brilliant and understated performances. More importantly, how could I have forgotten how sexy baby Al Pacino was? Through its setting, story, characters, themes, and juxtaposition against other contemporary works, I finally experienced what everyone else had already figured out: The Godfather is a modern American masterpiece of storytelling and spectacle.

Set during the 1940’s and 50’s in New York, The Godfather tells the story of the Corleones, an Italian-American mafia family living in New York. Patriarch Don Vito is aging and concerned about the legacy he will leave behind for his three sons Fredo, Sonny, and Michael. Vito (Marlon Brando) relishes his role as the proverbial father, grandfather, and Godfather to a who’s who of Strasbergian alumni. Newcomer Pacino shines as the level-headed favorite son, Michael, a newly returned war hero and the perfect foil to his brother, the brash and hot-headed Sonny (James Caan). Another of my favorite performances is the understated Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall).   

The film opens with the lavish wedding celebration of Vito’s daughter, Connie (Talia Shire). The brightly lit, outdoor wedding festivities are juxtaposed against the dark sanctuary of Vito’s study, where even on this important family day business is being conducted. It is this contrast of light and dark that is seen throughout the film: the symbolic dual nature of man, the good and evil that resides within all of us. Michael, the angel, is cast in full sunlight, aware of - and yet apart from his family. With Michael is his non-Italian girlfriend Kay (Dianne Keaton), who is meeting the Corleone’s friends, family, and enforcers for the first time. Kay, clearly sheltered, young, and very vanilla, is dazzled by the wealth and celebrity of Michael’s family.

The celebrations don’t last long, however, as Michael becomes further entrenched in his father’s dangerous criminal underworld. When Vito is gunned down in the street in broad daylight, Michael realizes he can no longer be a bystander in his family’s affairs. The climactic restaurant scene is further proof that Coppola is a master of storytelling and suspense. Yet despite the brilliance of this contemporary Shakespearean world Coppola has created, it still reflects and glamorizes a rigidly patriarchal society.

Compare Godfather’s overt masculinity to that found in Grace Paley’s short story “Wants.” In “Wants,” we open to a woman sitting on the steps of the public library. When she sees her ex-husband in the street they begin an intermittent discussion of their 27 year marriage and a few of the mundane reasons why it ended. “I wanted a sailboat,” the husband seems to whine, “But you didn’t want anything” (Paley,1). The interplay between the two is funny and tense, a parry and thrust of words slashing between them. The wife is valiantly trying to defuse the husband’s bitterness, while at the same time attempting to carry on with her life by returning her overdue books.

This scene could easily take place within The Godfather; in fact it almost does. Simply replace the library with a schoolyard and the husband/wife with Michael/Kay. It’s easy to match the tone of Michael’s ambitions for his family to that of the husband in “Wants.” There is an underlying yearning to feel gratification in their respective unfulfilled desires. It’s a constant, consuming need to make more money, amass more power, and accumulate more things (women and sailboats included).

On the surface, “Wants” and The Godfather don’t have a lot in common. “Wants” is a study in brevity, while The Godfather continues its slow burn for a solid three hours. “Wants” is a glimpse into a failed marriage, while Godfather is a violent mafia saga. While I’m inexplicably intrigued by both worlds, as a woman, I must admit, living in the realm of The Godfather’s brutally masculine universe for too long, I’m drawn to the quiet dignity of the wife in “Wants.” Her kind of strength, especially when contrasted against Kay, is far more admirable. It’s a lesson in self-preservation; if you’re not careful, it’s easy to find yourself drowning in someone else’s ambition.

One of my favorite scenes of dialogue in The Godfather happens between Michael and Kay. After returning from a lengthy absence, our fallen angel Michael is attempting to lure Persephone to his kingdom. He justifies, “My father is no different than any other powerful man, any man who’s responsible for other people. Like a senator or a president.”

“Do you know how naïve you sound Michael? Senators and presidents don’t have men killed.”

“Oh. Who’s being naïve Kay?” (Coppola).

Looking into young Al Pacino’s eyes, it’s easy to see how a woman could forget to return her library books.

Works Cited

Godfather, The. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Paramount Pictures, 1972.

Paley, Grace. “Wants.” Biblioklept, Biblioklept, 8 Mar. 2014, biblioklept.org/2014/03/08/wants-grace-paley/ accessed 2/2/19.