The Godfather Part II

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The Godfather Part II is a 1974 motion picture directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a script he co-wrote with Mario Puzo. The film is both a sequel and a prequel to The Godfather; the story chronicles the continuing saga of the Corleone family following the events of the first film while also giving viewers a more in-depth look at Vito Corleone's life as a young man and his rise to power.

Plot

The plot consists of two parallel storylines, and the film switches back and forth between them. One involves Michael Corleone in 1958/1959; the other is a flashback sequence following his father, Vito, from his youth in Sicily through the founding of the Corleone crime family in New York and the births of Michael and his siblings. This version of Vito is played by different actors at different ages, but the adult Vito is played by Robert De Niro, who won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for a role that, interestingly, consists almost entirely of non-English dialogue.

Vito's story begins in Sicily with the funeral of his father, Antonio Andolini, who was murdered because he refused to pay the local mafia lord Don Ciccio. During the procession, a woman yells out that Vito's older brother, Paolo, has been murdered because he swore revenge on the Don. As a result, Vito's mother takes him to Don Ciccio to beg for mercy. After Ciccio refuses, she takes Ciccio hostage at knifepoint, allowing Vito to escape. Ciccio's men then kill Vito's mother before his eyes, but he is able to escape to America.

Vito finds life in Little Italy in New York not very different from Sicily. The neighborhood is controlled by "The Black Hand" Don Fanucci, who exploits the local businesses into paying him for protection. When Fanucci attempts to exploit Vito for cash, Vito murders the Don. Vito then works his way to becoming the new Don.

The "modern day" portion of the film takes place several years after Vito Corleone's death, and his son Michael Corleone's ascension to the role of Don. Michael is cold and calculating, and in his attempts to strengthen the Corleone's business interests and hold off the other Mafia Families, he loses sight of his own personal family, which he is attempting to protect. Despite his growing power and the Corleone Family's moving its base of operation from New York to Nevada, the Family is being investigated by a U.S. Senate committee, there is internal dissension from Frankie "Five Angels" Pentangeli (Gazzo) (who now runs Pete Clemenza's family in Brooklyn), and Michael is nervous about a planned investment in Cuba in partnership with Jewish hood Hyman Roth (Strasberg), a character partly modelled on Meyer Lansky.

In a parallel to the opening of the first film, Michael deals with various business and family problems during the course of a elaborate party thrown on his Lake Tahoe compound to celebrate his son Anthony's First Communion in the Roman Catholic Church. He meets with a corrupt U.S. senator, Pat Geary, to set the price of a bribe to get gaming licenses for the hotel/casinos the Family is buying, gives a young relative his blessing to get married, deals with his out-of-control sister, makes arrangements with Hyman Roth's right hand man, and, belatedly, deals with Frankie Pentangeli's complaints -- although Pentageli is not mollified to be told not to take action against Roth's allies, the Rosato brothers, who continue to muscle into his operations in Brooklyn. Pentangeli leaves the meeting rudely and abruptly.

Later that same night, as his family lies in their beds, an assassination attempt is made against Michael, which he survives only due to a quick reaction to a bedroom window that is open but should not be. Afterwards, Michael tells Tom Hagen that the hit was ordered by Roth, with the help of someone close to Michael, and that he must leave to find out who the traitor is, and to deal with Roth. Tom is to be in charge of the Family while Michael is away.

Michael calls on Roth in Florida and tells him that he believes that Pentangeli was responsible for the hit, and that Pentangeli will pay for it. Going then to Brooklyn, Michael lets Pentangeli know that he's aware that Roth was behind it, and he has a plan to get Roth, but he needs Frankie to cooperate with the Rosato brothers to relax Roth and leave him vulnerable.

Michael visits Roth in Havana -- on the eve of Fidel Castro's revolution. Their intent is to celebrate the dividing up of Roth's criminal empire, but Michael balks at delivering the money to Roth to form the partnership, and sends his enforcer to kill Roth, who instead has a stroke. While there, Michael learns that the traitor is his brother Fredo (Cazale), who was passed over as head of the Family at the time that Michael took over the business.

Upon returning to the United States, Michael is brought before a US Senate committee investigating the Mafia, which finds co-operation from disaffected Corleone soldier Willie Cicci and capo Frank Pentangeli, who mistakenly believe that Michael set Pentangeli up for assassination at the hands of the Rosatos. However, before Pentangeli's damning testimony can be heard, Tom and Michael organise for Vincenzo Pentangeli, Frank's brother, to be flown over from his native Sicily. His presence causes Frank to entirely recant his statement in front of the assembled committee, press, and public, and Michael escapes indictment.

Again mirroring the first film, the sequel reaches its climax in a montage of death. After a talk with Tom Hagen, Frank Pentangeli commits suicide while under the protection of the FBI, while Hyman Roth is murdered at an airport after returning from his failed bid to seek citizenship in Israel as a returning Jew and in this way evade justice back in the USA. Finally, Fredo is executed on a fishing boat at the Corleone compound on Lake Tahoe as Michael watches from a distance.

Critical acclaim

The Godfather Part II is one of only two sequels ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (the other being ). The Godfather series remains the only film series to win two Academy Awards for Best Picture.

In between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Coppola directed The Conversation, a story of a paranoid wiretapping and surveillance expert (played by Gene Hackman) who finds himself caught up in a possible murder plot. The Conversation was released to theaters in 1974 and was also nominated for Best Picture, resulting in Coppola being the second director in Hollywood history to have two films released in the same year nominated for Best Picture and competing for the same prize at the Academy Awards. (The first was Sir Alfred Hitchcock, with Foreign Correspondent and Rebecca. Rebecca went on to win the 1941 Best Picture Oscar. This achievement was matched by Steven Soderbergh in 2000, when the films Erin Brockovich and Traffic were nominated for Best Picture. Ridley Scott's Gladiator won the statue.)

In addition to Best Picture, The Godfather Part II won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Robert De Niro), Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Director (Francis Ford Coppola), Best Music, Original Dramatic Score (Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola) and Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material. It was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Al Pacino), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Michael V. Gazzo), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Lee Strasberg), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Talia Shire) and Best Costume Design. The film has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Critically, The Godfather Part II can be considered the most successful sequel in movie history. Many critics praise it as equal, or even superior, to the original film. The Internet Movie Database consistently ranks this movie in the top five of its "Top 250 movies of all time", as voted by its users. The film also regularly ranks independently on many "greatest movies" lists. The Godfather Part II was featured on Sight and Sound's list of the ten greatest films of all time in 1992 and 2002.

Academy Awards

Award	Person
Best Supporting Actor	Robert De Niro
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration	Dean Tavoularis Angelo P. Graham George R. Nelson
Best Director	Francis Ford Coppola
Best Score	Nino Rota Carmine Coppola
Best Picture	Francis Ford Coppola Gray Frederickson Fred Roos
Best Adapted Screenplay	Francis Ford Coppola Mario Puzo
Nominated:
Best Actor	Al Pacino
Best Supporting Actor	Michael V. Gazzo
Best Supporting Actor	Lee Strasberg
Best Supporting Actress	Talia Shire
Best Costume Design	Theadora Van Runkle

Sequels

In the director's commentary on the DVD edition of the film (released in 2002), Coppola states that this film was the first major motion picture to use "Part II" as the title. Paramount was initially opposed to his decision to name the movie The Godfather Part II. According to Coppola, the studio's objection stemmed from the belief that audiences would be reluctant to see a film with such a title, as the audience would supposedly believe that, having already seen The Godfather, there was little reason to see an addition to the original story. The success of The Godfather Part II began the Hollywood tradition of numbered sequels.

Its own sequel, The Godfather Part III, was released in 1990. For that film, Coppola wished to break the precedent by naming it "The Death of Michael Corleone," but because of his reduced clout after a string of box office failures in the 1980s, the studio vetoed this decision.

Trivia

• The Godfather Part II was shot between October 1, 1973 and June 19, 1974.
• Robert De Niro's performance as Don Corleone (a role originated by Best Actor winner Marlon Brando) won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Brando and De Niro remain the only two actors to win Oscars for playing the same character.
• De Niro had originally auditioned for the role of Michael in the first film, but Coppola wanted Al Pacino to play the part, because he looked more Sicilian. Coppola kept De Niro in mind, however, and when he saw the actor in Mean Streets, he knew he was perfect for the part of Young Vito.
• In one early draft of the script, Tom Hagen had an affair with Sonny's widow, causing some friction amongst the Corleone family. This sub-plot was soon cut from the script, but Coppola included something like this in The Godfather Part III.
• Originally, Marlon Brando was asked to come back for the film's flashback sequences, as Coppola knew that Brando could play any age of a character. Brando felt mistreated by the board at Paramount, and he refused to appear for a single day's shooting. Coppola tried to get him to appear at the birthday flashback, when Sonny Corleone complains about the Japanese "dropping bombs on Papa's birthday," but Brando flatly refused to reprise his role.
• James Caan was asked to return to the role of Sonny in the flashback sequences, and he demanded that he would do so, on condition he be paid the same amount he received on the last film. He got his wish.
• The Godfather Part II was the last major American motion picture to be filmed in Technicolor.
• Bruno Kirby plays Pete Clemenza, a younger version of a character originally played by Richard S. Castellano. In the television series The Super, Kirby played Castellano's son.
• Vito Corleone gets his surname because he is originally from Corleone, Sicily.
• Dominic Chianese, of The Sopranos fame, plays the role of "Johnny Ola" in this film, which also marks his film debut. In The Sopranos, Dominic Chianese plays Uncle Corrado "Junior" Soprano.
• The scene in which Vito negotiates with a corrupt police chief inspired George Lucas's deleted scene in , which Han negotiates with Jabba by asking for more time with paying the money.

External links

• [The Godfather Part II] at Filmsite.org
• [The Godfather Trilogy]

 

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