The Pantheon was created for me to highlight some of the films that I believe to be the best of the best and at the same time put them somewhat out to pasture. Some of them are revered classics, others films that I feel deserve to be held (in the most part at least) on the same level as those same classics. Once a film has been entered into the pantheon it is no longer available for discussion in future lists or general discussion. So these posts are here not only as an entry into the special place in my heart, but also a love letter to that film. Please enjoy:

Somehow I think the term, “it goes without saying,” would be a bit too easy for this entry into the pantheon.

With the pantheon being all that I believe to be films that should be understood more than constantly revered I feel that Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel, The Godfather, is probably the most obvious choice for such an honour – if you can call my praise to be that.

The thing that I love most about movies is its ability to grab the audience. When a film is able to grab the audience immediately then it’s left with the hefty job of having to keep it or forever be disappointing. With the opening scene, and more notably the opening shot slowly zooming out from Bonasera making his plea to Don Vito Corleone to enact justice for him. The scene is so plainly gorgeous that while filmmaking it taken note of it never detracts from the narrative and setup being created, which is true throughout the entire film. For the first twenty or so minutes of the film we’re watching the wedding of Carlo and Connie and all the antics of this wedding. We see Clemenza dancing, Barzini not liking his picture being taken, Luca Brasi practicing his speech he plans to make to the Don, Mrs. Corleone as well as another older gentleman singing a fun sounding Italian song for everyone to dance to, and the antics of the family waiting for Michael to take the big family wedding photo. It’s such a grand and rich world that the film doesn’t worry about time and force the scene to be over in five minutes in order to rush along to the point where the Corleones are in turmoil and war, and in return we get to constantly revisit and discover new parts of this world, and thanks to how rich the world of The Godfather is we never feel like the film is as long as it is, we never get that urge that time is being wasted, which is what I wish more films would take note of. It’s not how long (or short) you make your film it’s how rich it is. There’re ninety-minute films out there which feel like they only have thirty minutes worth of content in them.

In each of the films in this franchise it’s as much about the rise of a Don as it is about another’s fall. Here we see the rise of Don Michael Corleone and the fall of Don Vito Corleone. We enter with Vito in power, able to take any request from any and all at his daughter’s wedding and turn it into a reality, and later in the film we witness an attempted assassination on his life, his recovery, his suffering as he witnesses the results of this war on his family and then his eventual natural demise. This is all done while at the same time showing us the slow progression of Michael’s ascension to the top of the family. The first time we meet Michael he’s appearing at the wedding with his girlfriend, Kay, and he’s very much outside of the family business. He discovers the news of the attack on his father through outside circles, he then steps up to protect him at the hospital and we get that moment where for us, as well as for Michael, we know that Michael will be the one to take the Corleone family to the next step when he looks at his sick father and says “I’m here” and that’s enough to know that this is the first step. Even the scene where Vito dies is such a bitterly sweet moment where we see him playing with Anthony, his grandson, in the tomato garden and he falls over only for us to watch Anthony continue to spray his body with what I can only imagine are pesticides for the plants, the moment remains in your mind and makes the thought of how odd it is that a man so akin with death leaves this world in such an inconspicuous manner.

In a film that many today would consider brutally tame in its depiction of violence managed to have some of the most memorable death scenes in film history. Including Vito Coreleone, Luca Brasi in the Tattaglia bar, Paulie with the cannoli, Sollozzo and Capt. McCluskey in the restaurant and Santino on the causeway; the film never feared with making violence impress upon its viewers. However, at the same time, mostly to do with the tone and temperature of the film being presented, the violence barely became evident in most of these scenes. This darkened tone which almost seemed always barely lit in a hotel hallway as opposed to some more open/brighter scenes, like Sonny’s death, it barely hits home that we’re watching a man being shot down.

The Godfather continued to hammer home its final principle, “It’s business, not personal” with a maddening vendetta. The basis of this family was that it worked on the worlds business. We see the family expanding into casinos towards the end, making the move to Nevada where Fredo has learned all he can in order to setup shop there. However, with Vito now gone and Michael the head of the family we see a lot of people impeding his progress. We’re then treated to the finale of The Godfather in which we see many characters being killed off in the service of business. The film uses this idea as a parallel with real world business, almost saying that it’s okay as long as it’s not personal. So it’s okay for (hypothetically) Exxon to blow up a BP oil rig in order for them to enter that market because it’s business. Which is basically how business in the real world works; with a few less guns and a lot more economics involved. This I believe is the gem of the film that everyone is to take away from Coppola’s adaptation. We’re to come away with a darker view of what a CEO actually does with his pen and paper and take a look at what an economy is.

What’re your thoughts on THE GODFATHER?