The Birth of a Godfather

"Johnny Fontane never gets that movie. That part is perfect for him. It'll make him a big star. And I'm gonna run him out of the business, and let me tell you why.

Johnny Fontane ruined one of Woltz International's most valuable proteges. For five years we had her under training. Singing lessons, acting lessons, dancing lessons. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on her. I was gonna make her a big star.

And let me be even more frank...

Just to show you that I'm not a hard-hearted man, and it's not all dollars and cents…SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL! She was young. She was innocent. SHE WAS THE GREATEST PIECE OF ASS I EVER HAD…AND I HAD'EM ALL OVER THE WORLD! And then Johnny Fontane comes along with his olive-oil voice, and guinea charm. And she runs off.

SHE THREW IT ALL AWAY JUST TO MAKE ME LOOK RIDICULOUS! A MAN IN MY POSITION CAN NOT AFFORD TO BE MADE TO LOOK RIDICULOUS! NOW YOU GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!"

Of course, the above dialogue was from the 1972 Academy Award winning film "The Godfather." The printed words do not do it justice but I can say, in my humble opinion, that this 2 minute scene involving studio chief Jack Woltz (John Marley) annunciating his dislike of a certain singer-actor to mob lawyer Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) was one of the best casting jobs in American Cinematic history. Marley (pictured above) was a solid character actor who had been around for years. I remember him from a Twilight Zone episode and other such TV type things. I don't remember him doing anything remarkable, usually walk-on parts and such.

But as Woltz, he really knocked it out of the park. The whole image he creates, with his mannerism and tone, is a perfect stereotype of a monarch of the old studio system. He portrays the ability, certain men with power have, of being able to schmooze and charm one moment and then be brutally viscous and mean at the drop of a hat. It truly is a great performance and one of my favorite moments in modern film.

But to describe an epic film such as "The Godfather" by praising a segment that, in reality, is only a part of a sub-sub-plot of the whole, would be like the blind man describing an elephant.

No. I mention this scene in detail because I wanted to show how much I loved this film. There was a period in the late 1980s when I could easily say it was my favorite film of all time. Back then, I saw it in it's entirety at least 15 times not to mention the times I just watched extended clips of it because it happened to be on. I knew whole dialogue passages by heart. We would have discussions about the meanings of camera angles, facial expressions and lighting choices. I really dug this picture.

Hell, in 1988 and 1989 if someone mentioned the name Luca Brazzi…especially in an Italian accent…I would crack up in an uncontrollable giggle.

But that was 17 years ago and I don't think I have seen it since then. I could be wrong on that, but the point is I do not think of it the same way I used to. Don't get me wrong, I would never knock it, but I just didn't praise it as I use to.

Well, the other day Bravo Network was playing what they called "The Godfather Novel for Television." Basically, they combined both Godfather and Godfather II, a total running time of six hours, and edited it to make the whole thing chronological. (In the original Part Two, there were many flashbacks interspersed in the "present day" narrative. These scenes were of the young Don coming to America as a boy and then played as a young man by Robert De Niro who won an Oscar for the role.) I tuned in right in the middle, just as the real Part I was starting. I decided to stay on the channel for awhile. Next thing I knew it was four hours later and I watched the whole thing!

This is truly great film.

It all started coming back to me:

"Leave the gun…take the Cannolis"

"On Tessio's ground…where I'll be safe."

"If you touch her again…I'll kill ya."

"Who's being naïve Kay?"

"You know my father? Men are coming here to kill him. Now help me, please."

"I'm Moe Green!!! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!"

"You could act like a man!!!"

"You gotta get up close and…Bada-Bing…You blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit."

"…then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room."

"I'll take care of you now Pop. I'm with you now. I'm with you..."

The list goes on and on.

If you never seen the movie or, and this is a rare group, you've seen it and hated it, then these quotes mean very little or nothing to you. But if you were like me, completely enamored from the very first time they ever saw it, then these lines bring back very vivid, very immediate imagery and emotion. I am not ashamed to say some of these scenes actually brought tears to my eyes.

But enough of my emotional rambling. Let's look at some cold hard facts.

This movie had an all star cast with some actors who could be considered some of the best of their respective generations. Talented (future) stars who work mostly in character parts. Guys like Al Pacino, Robert Duvall and James Caan. Solid character actors like the above mentioned John Marley, John Cazale and Alex Rocco. Old time studio players like Sterling Hayden, Richard Conte and Abe Vigoda. And The Godfather himself, the Granddaddy of all modern American acting, Marlon Brando. And let us not forget Diane Keaton. I count on that short list, 4 Oscar winners and 3 others nominated. There is a lot of high caliber talent in this film. And this isn't one of those bullshit "Earthquake/Towering Inferno" type all-star casts either. These guys are really acting. That is because at the time this movie was made they were not over the hill celebrities looking to cash a check. Most of them were young(ish) talent that the director, 3 time Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola who was still in his prime and not in the abyss he called the 1980s and 1990s, wanted to hire. Amazingly, this was Al Pacino's third movie! The studio, especially Bob Evans, wanted to hire "stars," Coppola fought for the talent. And Marlon Brando, who HAD been "mailing it in" for the previous ten years, had something to prove. All of this commitment to quality shows on screen.

The music is a true Score. There are no pop songs filling up minutes of ridiculous montages. The instrumentals all are original and haunting. It has a traditional sound that echoes "the old country." They compliment the imagery, punctuate the action and set the tone for a majestic sadness. The main character's ultimate rise to power is shown as a triumph but the music never lets the audience forget that it is actually a defeat.

The story arc is grand in scale. The actual time that elapses during the film is only about ten years but the character growth and the transformational events depicted are so profound that the viewer feels a lifetime has been observed.

The opening scene, which involves the wedding of The Don's daughter, is one of the best expositional sequences ever made. After the wedding is over, you know every character. You know how they think, what they feel, what is their position in the order of things. As the movie continues, motivations and attitudes are expounded upon, creating "people" who we feel we know and understand. The script is a textbook for screenwriting story structure and character development.

Now with all that being said, an interesting thing happened halfway through my viewing: I started getting mad.

I started to think of the reality of "The Mob," their business practices and lifestyle, and one notion kept hitting me over the head. That thought was that this movie reflects absolutely nothing in the real world. Where are the hijackings? Where are the innocent merchants intimidated, maimed or even killed to surrender percentages of their hard-earned money? One of the characters is referred to as a "pimp." Where are the strung out prostitutes, beaten to an inch of their lives because they don't want to suck cock any more for the financial benefit of the man?

The central conflict at the beginning of the film is one involving narcotics. A drug dealer, known as "The Turk," comes to New York and wants the The Godfather's help to set up his business. Before they meet, The Don asks for opinions from his two "children" about what to do. Tom Hagen, at that point, says:

"Now we have the unions. We have the gambling and they're the best things to have. But narcotics is the thing of the future."

Sonny (James Caan), his other son, feels the same way. But Marlon Brando, who is wise, decides not to go into the drug business and it is definitely implied that he is noble for not doing so. But what of these other things he controls? The gambling, in my mind, is fine because it is artificially ugly due to its false illegality but do you know what "having the unions" means? It means that goons control who works in the construction, trucking and longshoreman industry…to name a few. It means that if an honest man doesn't pay The Don, he doesn't work. It means if The Don doesn't get his cut, this honest man's wife and kids don't eat. And if this honest man makes a stink about it, he gets is ass kicked.

Ironically, Brando himself won an Oscar playing the victim of these noble practices in "On the Waterfront."

There is a total absence of victims in this movie. The gangsters are portrayed as dynasties, and they all live in opulence, but not once do you see where the source of their revenue comes from.

And maybe that is why I was having a problem with the movie now. In the intervening years since the late 1980s, there have been several, somewhat realistic portrayals of life in organized crime. Most notably "Donnie Brasco," "The Sopranos" and the Martin Scorsese film "Goodfellas." All three of these projects give the viewer a taste of the decidedly unglamorous life of a gangster. There is no romantic ideal of honor or diplomatic intrigue. These people are primarily consumed with their need to EARN. If that means stealing a spit of power drills or hijacking a truck full of pants or "juicing" the local stripper for the "vig" or even cracking open a parking meter for the dimes, then that is what they're going to do. Because if they don't, they will be killed. That is a far cry from "putting a hundred button-men in the street."

I remembered an interview with Henry Hill (The real life character from "Goodfellas.") on one of those thousands of Mafia shows on either A&E or The History Channel when he mentioned going to see "The Godfather" when it first came out. This movie served as a complete justification for the way he lived. He remembered that it elevated his low level professional thieving and violence to a noble code of existence. He remembered thinking of himself as part of something great. He remembered leaving the theatre feeling good about himself.

Of course within ten years he found himself sleeping on the floor in the corner of his apartment with a shotgun wrapped in his arms waiting for his fellow knights to eliminate him. But that didn't matter to that young man in 1972, already a seasoned gang-banger. He received validation.

I started to view "The Godfather" in that way. I started to make an interesting analogy. This movie, of course to a much lesser extent, is somewhat like "A Birth of a Nation." If you are unfamiliar with that gem, it was the silent 1915 racist firebomb movie that caused riots in the streets when it first premiered.

The story takes place during and after the Civil War, the period known as Reconstruction. The movie, based on a book called The Clansman written in 1905, takes the view that the South was the victim of northern aggression. According to this paradigm, after the war Northern white "carpetbaggers" with their aggressive black allies conspired and successfully controlled the South. These two groups, the evil greed of the Northern White mixed with the animal nature of his Black Ally, were so ruthless that white southerners were virtual prisoners in their own land. This was a very popular view at the turn of the century. (This view is still prevalent if you think about the Trent Lotts, Strom Thurmonds and Jesse Helms of the world.)

To depict this flat out racist point of view, the film employs actors in blackface and show scenes of jaw dropping negative stereotyping. Here is an excerpt from Leon Litwick's essay on the film that appeared in the excellent book "Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies":

Through its vivid and unforgettable images, the film impressed on Americans a certain version of reality. Reconstruction, proclaimed one of the intertitles, was "The agony which the South endured that a nation might be born." The camera graphically captures the lurid details of that "agony": Impudent, ungrateful, venal black men, their ambitions bloated by emancipation and civil rights, terrorize helpless whites, shoving them off the sidewalks, blocking their access to the ballot boxes and leering at their women. Blacks brandish signs reading, "Equal Rights, Equal Politics, Equal Marriage." They ridicule and chain their old masters. They abuse those "faithful souls," servants who still take pride in their white folks. They make a mockery of democratic government, sitting shoeless in legislative chambers, drinking whiskey from bottles and eating chicken off the bone while enacting a statute legitimizing interracial marriage. Finally and inevitably, maddened by power and lust, Blacks strike out at the most valued possession of White men - their women. Gus, a depraved "renegade Negro" and former slave, forces a White girl to leap to her death in order to preserve her purity. And Silas Lynch (A Bi-Racial "Mulatto" - The great villain of the piece.), whose election as Lieutenant-Governor only heightens his lust, seeks to force marriage on a virginal, limp, gagged and helpless young White woman. He tells her, "I will build a Black Empire…and you as my Queen shall rule by my side."

At the end of the film, the Ku Klux Klan ride to the rescue of white people trapped in a log cabin surrounded by maniacal Blacks...all with Jesus Christ overseeing the whole expedition from above.

Believe it or not, these are the good guys!

It has to be seen to be believed...and it about as realistic as The Godfather which also "impressed on Americans a certain version of reality."

Even with it's ridiculous racist content...and I mean ridiculous..."The Birth of a Nation" is still a great film. The techniques DW Griffith used for the first time back in 1915 would become the blueprint for all films to follow. It was the birth of what we now know as cinema. To not accept that fact might be politically correct, but a tad disingenuous. Simply put, we can not deny that our own past existed.

But that is purely on a technical level. I feel no love for that movie and I would only recommend that you watch it if you have a strong stomach and a true fetish for film history. The Godfather, on the other hand, I love and would suggest it to anyone who likes a good story.

But in the end, they're both kind of evil, aren't they?

Larry