Cereal Monogamist

Reviews: Epic Wednesday: Mob Rule

I started with Scarface, figuring that I wouldn’t want to watch it after six hours of Godfathering. All I really knew about it was that it was a remake (but not really) of a crime film from the 30s, and that at the end Al Pacino says, “Say hello to my leetle friend.” And shoots people. Also, you can buy the poster at any college bookstore.

More about Scarface, as well as The Godfather(s) after the jump.

I actually found it sort of compelling at first, the character’s slow, calculated rise to power. Tony Montana comes to America with nothing, and just starts making connections and doing jobs—and not just doing what he’s asked, but doing more. The first scene where he meets with the drug-running middleman-type guy played by F. Murray Abraham (who, like most of the actors in this movie, including Pacino, plays Hispanic but isn’t), Montana scoffs at the job he’s offered. He wants to do something big. For the whole first half of the movie, he struts around making these ballsy moves and he is rewarded with money and power. America, land of opportunity!

What was less interesting was the next part, when so much of the movie was shock value, like, wow, that’s a lot of cocaine! I also wish there had been fewer nightclub scenes; the music dates this movie so, so pitifully. The synthesizer was being used to its full capacity, that’s for sure. Plus no one here can dance worth a damn. Even Michelle Pfeiffer, who had just done Grease 2, does this weird gorilla-arm thing. Finally, I have no problem with anti-heroes in general, but the way Montana went off the rails at the end made it hard to watch. Like, dude? You just killed your right hand man. That guy’s been with you since the beginning. Maybe take a moment of zen and think about what you’re doing. He was so crazed that he couldn’t have done anything but crash and burn—which is classic 80s, because the only thing people liked more in the 80s than excessive consumption was stories about the pitfalls of excessive consumption.

I like that both Coppola’s films (The Godfather and The Godfather Part II) also used the rise to power in a criminal empire as a metaphor for the achievement of the American Dream. (Achievement of the dream by immigrants fresh off the boat, in the cases of Scarface, and Vito Corleone’s story in Part II.)

Again, I was more interested in seeing the rise to power than seeing the perils of being in power. The first movie is about Michael Corleone, coming from improbable beginnings to take the reins of the Corleone crime family. My two favorite scenes—the hospital sequence and the restaurant sequence—involved Michael taking tentative but ambitious steps to secure his position. He showed that he had an instinct for the business (like telling Enzo, the kindly baker he roped into standing next to him as backup, “put your hand in your pocket like you have a gun”). He exhibited this particular type of mental dexterity that I think is the sign of a natural leader—and he applied it effectively to the culture of the mob world. He was born to head the family, it was just that no one knew it.

In the second, Michael is fully ensconced in the role of crime boss, so he doesn’t really have to prove himself anymore. We see some negotiations and decision-making involved in being on top, which is compelling—it’s a precarious position, you have to keep your balance every second. I’m realy into business-themed drama now, thanks to the second season of Mad Men, which I just finished. (I’ll probably write that up eventually.) But the best parts of the sequel I think belonged to Robert De Niro, playing the young Vito Corleone (Michael’s father), rising to power himself in flashback.

Another reason I preferred the De Niro sections is because the Michael Corleone sections were built mostly out of familial conflict: the problems he was having running “the family” as well as his family (wife, kids, siblings). I was less interested in that—especially because having Diane Keaton play so far against type sort of destroys what’s likeable about her. Of course, thematically, EVERYTHING is in the conflict of the two conceptions of family. Michael has to choose between them at the end, and he does, twice, when he shuts his wife out of the house and when he has Fredo killed. (Spoiler.)

What’s definitely been the most interesting thing for me, not just in watching these movies, but in watching all the ones I’ve seen so far this summer, is realizing how much there is to them that I didn’t know. I’m always spoiled for the iconic moments—the horse’s head in the bed—and for very general plot points, but when I find out that, to give another example, the Marlon Brando character is shot and effectively out of the picture within the first half hour of The Godfather, that’s a surprise. Scenes like the one in the hospital and the restaurant (again, my two favorites) are fascinating because I have no idea how they’ll transpire. I found them both incredibly suspenseful.

Of course, I had my share of distractions on Wednesday, and by the end of The Godfather Part II my brain was so fried I was barely conscious. So I’m quite sure there’s plenty left to discover in the Godfather movies. What’s good about having seen them now in their most complete forms, is that I can watch them when they show up on Spike TV on a Saturday afternoon (or whatever) and be confident that I can watch the movie without wondering what incidences of profanity and/or gunshots to the face I am missing. And I will definitely watch these again.