Watching The Godfather again for the first time in ages, the performances stood out the most, and headed by the inimitable Marlon Brando the quality of acting is undoubtedly one of the film's greatest assets.Before this, the moments I remembered most are the most popular ones: the severed horse head in Jack Woltz's (John Marley) bed sheets; the scattered, jubilant pedestrians in the opening wedding sequence--a scene of sun-bleached color, a dingy happiness that transitions us effortlessly into the shadowy enclave of Don Corleone; and the wide, shiny whites of Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) preying eyes. These were moments taken out of time that don't convey that certain emotional intensity The Godfather embodies.
This time I was enraptured by the out-right fearlessness of the newly-weds Connie (Talia Shire) and Carlo (Gianni Russo) in their veritable crime scene of abuse; she, beaten emotionally by his vindictive neglect, tears through the apartment smashing china and glass in a stream of hysterical tears. The scene continues, and we watch them matter-of-factly like a fly on the wall, through the circular path of long shots around the room. Suddenly in a state of disquietude we're alone in the room, on the other side of the door where Connie is beat by her husband's belt. The sound of her shrieks made me physically shake.
Yet none of this holds a light to Brando. Labeled box office poison by the 1970s, I heard a rumor that Brando's lines in the garden sequence were written in big block letters across a billboard. The story goes that he refused to learn his part and insisted on cue cards, apparently of a larger sort in this instance. So I had that in mind, and admittedly looked for his wandering eyes as I watched the scene, but I didn't know the difference. I couldn't be bothered as he sat in conversation with Michael and his grandson, for with so little self-consciousness, and so steeped in obliviousness, Marlon simply was Vito; an ephemeral moment of a man.
The Godfather just doesn't get old. My sister gave me the 3-disk DVD set for Christmas last year, and it's only now that I took time out to rewatch the series. It had been years since I last watched, and though I hadn't forgotten the story, the alternately serene and gory images, the warm, gristly hum of Brando's voice--despite all of that, it was like watching it for the first time. I've always said in casual debates that The Godfather: Part II is my favorite and the best of the series, due in prime to the frightening effect of anti-hero Michael Corleone's downfall. The intensity of his cruelty and unwieldy power always seemed more intriguing than his tiptoe to the top in Part I. But after seeing Brando, especially in that final garden scene, the quiet last moments before his death, I can hardly make an argument for Part II.
(Stay tuned: I anticipate contradicting myself in my notes on Part II after I see it this week!)
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