There's so many ways this film just works so well the first is that Coppola always had a way of making the cinematography and direction style look both extravagant, but also bleak at the same time, partially through sun-faded cinematography (I'm just guessing) and also partially through the way the film itself was shot.

I've always tried to keep a foot in both camps for the most part, but if a film like this doesn't make you at least sit there as the credits role, musing in thought like Indiana Jones after being given a clue by a recently-killed shaman or anti-Nazi spy the first time you watch it, then I'm not sure you really know how to appreciate films and movies as art and not just entertainment. It begins in celebration and ends as the first part of the trilogy in bitter-sweet victory and tragedy for the Corleones with Michael having slowly morphed into a totally different character by the end and the Corleone family itself having endured tragedy after tragedy.ĭepending on if you're selective to certain genres of movies - particularly crime and heist thrillers - the 1970s were either a fantastic time with the New Hollywood group of directors, or a pitiful time where the Anti-Hero was all the rage. Francis Ford Coppola went out of his way not to make the film one that glorifies the Mafia in anyway, but still realized what a magnificent project it was. The Godfather works so well because it isn't a film that kisses it's own ass on a variety of sub-levels.

I first watched it back close to ten years ago as a 12 year old, never fully getting the story with the film falling into the 'great film that I didn't appreciate' category until a month or so back when I got the Coppola restoration Blu-Ray and realized as an adult how fantastic of a film it truly was. Growing up as a film nut, I often heard of The Godfather as possessing a sort of mythic status which few films made after 1955 possess. I was roughly twenty years away from even being conceived when The Godfather came out.

The godfather 2 review