Francis
Ford Coppola's twin masterpieces The Godfather and The Godfather Part II have almost innumerable qualities
to recommend them and stand up to repeat viewing like few other movies. But
nobody would watch them for story alone. The scripts, co-written by Coppola and Godfather
novelist Mario Puzo (with some pinch-hitting by Robert Towne), feature
clever-to-Byzantine plotting as they work through the secret history of the
American underworld, from its turn-of-the-century origins through the films'
equivalent of the Kefauver hearings. But it's the doomed inhabitants of that
world that bring us back. Whether it's Barzini or Tattaglia who orders the hit
on Marlon Brando's Don Corleone matters much less than the role that moment
plays in the slow disintegration of the Don's tight-knit family.
There's a
story working above mere plot here, one that creates a seductive, fatalistic
vision of how the reckless pursuit of the American Dream erodes innocence and
frays family ties. Consider one scene from Part II: Young Vito Corleone (Robert De
Niro) has just tiptoed into a life of crime at the urging of new friend and
future capo Clemenza (played as a young man by Bruno Kirby). His first spoil is
an expensive red rug stolen from the house of a wealthy family. After carrying
it home with Kirby, De Niro gingerly places his toddler son Santino—whom,
played by James Caan, we've already seen die violently in the first
movie—at its center. "Look how pretty it is," his mother insists, but the
boy won't stop crying. It's as if he senses what we already know: This is the
moment that seals his fate.