1. For the final lecture we discussed the Hollywood Renaissance and the movie “The Godfather”. The Hollywood Renaissance was from 1964 to 1976. Films were characterized by anti-heros, explicit violence, explicit sex, raw social themes, and expressionistic filmmaking. Basically, Hollywood wanted movies that had real life issues and problems and treated them more realistically and with less escapism. "The Godfather" was directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1972. Coppola was an auteur. "The Godfather was his first hit and his seventh film. Some of the actors that were in the movie were Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and James Caan. "The Godfather" had 11 nominations and 3 wins. The movie won Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay. "The Godfather" had an insulated point of view and the story was told from within the family rather than society examining the Mafia. The movie showed what an Anti-Hero was. An Anti-Hero is when the bad guys are really good guys. The audience is on their side even if they are criminals and murderers. In the movie Al Pacino plays an anti-hero when he takes the role of "Mike". Mike is a war veteran who tries not to deal with the family business but is forced into it after his father (The Don) gets shot and after his father dies. Mike becomes a criminal and a murderer in order to protect his family from getting hurt. The things that Mike does in the movie is wrong but the audience is on his side because he is doing it for the protection of his family. "The Godfather" was a very violent movie and had 23 on screen deaths. Even Mike's brother Sonny(James Caan) was an anti-hero. Sonny set up the way Mike would kill two people that were trying to hurt the family and made it where he could disappear so that no one would kill him. After their father(The Don) dies Mike becomes The Don because his older brother Sonny dies. When Mike becomes The Don he sets up and kills everyone that betrayed them or that was planning to hurt them. "The Godfather" was one of the highest grossing films of all time. And in 1972 it made $82 Million with a total of $134 million in the USA and a total of $244 million in the World. One of the movie's famous lines are “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”.
2. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1739E464BC4E52DFB5668389669EDE
This article is a review that was written by Vincent Canby on March 16, 1972. In the review Canby gives a brief summary of the movie. Canby states that "It's the gangster melodrama come of age, truly sorrowful and truly exciting, without the false piety of the films that flourished forty years ago, scaring the delighted hell out of us while cautioning that crime doesn't (or, at least, shouldn't) pay." He says this because in the film the Corleones don't want to result to killing but in certain situations for them that is the only option. It is either kill or be killed. Canby also states that "The Godfather plays havoc with the emotions as the sweet things of life—marriages, baptisms, family feasts—become an inextricable part of the background for explicitly depicted murders by shotgun, garrote, machine gun, and booby-trapped automobile". What Canby means is that even though the family does illegal things at the end of the day they are still a family.
3. In the article Canby says "It is also more than a little disturbing to realize that characters, who are so moving one minute, are likely, in the next scene, to be blowing out the brains of a competitor over a white tablecloth". I agreed with this because in the scene where Mike is with his Godson getting baptized it shows a softer side of Mike and symbolizes him getting his sins washed away. This is all happening while Mike's family members are killing off everyone who is trying to kill the Corleone family. Also, I had no idea that before "The Godfather" became a movie it was a novel that was written by Mario Puzo.
4. "The Godfather" was a very good film. I immediately saw the characters who were anti-heros. Also, I was impressed as to how the writter and the director made the murder scenes. For example, in the scene where Mike was casually talking to his sister Connie's husband Carlo. He made Carlo so comfortable that Carlo did not think he was going to get killed. But, when Carlo got into the car he was strangled to death. A good description of the Corleones would be that they are "classy killers". I was interested in the fact that no matter how many people they killed they still acted like a normal Italian family. Another thing that I was impressed with was the scene where Mike was protecting his father in the hospital from the people who wanted him dead. The scene was very dark and gave the audience a sense that something bad was going to happen. It made the audience ask the question "What will Mike do now?". Overall, this movie was an excellent movie. It was my first time watching because I always thought that "The Godfather" was going to be a bad movie. I was pleasantly surprised and I look forward to seeing the rest of the trilogy.
