Recent Films 2024

Here are brief comments on recently released movies. SPOILER ALERT! The plots will be discussed.

Megalopolis

After watching this film, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, I thought that it was an over-the-top, self-indulgent mess, but I was still glad I saw it. It is fascinating to look at, with its imagined futuristic look, and it has interesting themes. However, it comes off as a bombastic piece, with silly, instead of satiric, characters, like Shia LaBeouf’s Clodio Pulcher. So, I guess I was conflicted. In the film Wonder Boys, Katie Holmes’s character tells the writer, played by Michael Douglas, that he made no choices to leave out material in his overstuffed novel. I feel that is what happened here.

Coppola had been working on this project for a long time and ended up contributing $120 million of his own money to get it made. He recently stated that his main purpose in the story was to compare the United States to the Roman Empire. Thus, the names of the characters and even the male haircuts conjure up that ancient civilization. Adam Driver is Cesar Catilina and Giancarlo Esposito is Mayor Cicero. Lucius Sergius Catilina and Marcus Tullius Cicero were citizens of the Roman Republic and were political enemies. Coppola said that the film suggests that the United States is like Rome, which had a republic with senators, and great thinkers, like Marcus Aurelius (who is quoted in the movie). However, Rome succumbed to self-indulgence and a lack of morality, which led to its fall, and the United States can be headed that way, too. IMDb notes that “several of the famous New York landmarks referenced in this movie are actually mirrored or transposed from their real-life counterparts. The Statue of Liberty is shown with the torch in her left hand, and the Nedick's restaurant in the historic Madison Square Garden is shown on the opposite side of the entrance in the movie.” Those reversals may symbolize how American civilization has changed course and is headed in the wrong direction.

Cesar is a brilliant architect who has invented an indestructible substance. In addition, he seems to be able to stop time. Yet, he uses a T-square, an old-fashioned technical drawing device. There are other analog elements, non-digital clocks for instance. Coppola possibly wanted to show that there has been progress over time. The quotes from Aurelius and Shakespeare may be stressing the highlights of civilization despite the downturns. Fundi Romaine (Lawrence Fishburne) has a cautionary remark when he says, “When does an empire die? Does it collapse in one terrible moment? No, no... But there comes a time when its people no longer believe in it.” Cesar says, “Don't let the now destroy the forever." Coppola said that there is the hope that people can still use their strengths to create a positive future.

However, Fishburne’s character is a narrator at the beginning of the movie, who looks like he will be a major character, but then he and his voice disappear. Dustin Hoffman’s character is suddenly killed off by a tumbling building. Again, the film lacks focus and needs editing.

Conclave:

Those used to superhero films may find this movie a bit wordy and lacking in action. But the words here are significant, and this movie uses the death of a pope and the process of choosing a new one as a metaphor for the division between different factions in our world today.

After the pope dies, Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes, in an excellent performance) oversees the conclave in the Sistine Chapel in Rome where the cardinals must choose the new leader of the Catholic Church. The film conveys the claustrophobic atmosphere of the situation as these men are locked in together until they reach a decision. Instead of this gathering being a peaceful, inspirational process that Lawrence anticipates, it turns into a “war,” as Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) loudly informs Lawrence. There are liberals (such as Bellini), conservatives, and even a racist reactionary, Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto). Bellini says that Tedesco and his group were “savage” in their treatment of the late pope, trying to desecrate his memory. The film suggests that this kind of nastiness is what is happening in the world outside the supposed insulation of the church members. That connection is reinforced by terrorist attacks outside the conclave which cause debris to invade the religious sanctuary and crash down on the interior of the chapel.

The conflicting forces here are either looking to the past or the future. There is a new cardinal, Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who was a late moment appointment by the dead pope. He brings real life experiences of war to the cloistered group. He announces his view when he says, “The Church is not the past. It is what we do next.” There is also the battle between certitude and doubt. Lawrence, who is a questioner, delivers a homily where he says, “There is one sin which I have come to fear above all else … certainty.” He goes on to say that “certainty is the great enemy of unity … the deadly enemy of tolerance.” The film says that those with absolute stances that demonize others, who are different, will perpetuate war among the world’s inhabitants.

The resolution of the story is unexpected and conducive to discussion.

Here:

This film reunites the Forrest Gump team: actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and director Robert Zemeckis. The title refers to all action taking place on one spot on Earth in what becomes Pennsylvania since the extinction of the dinosaurs from a meteor strike, through the Ice Age, pre-Columbian times, the American Revolutionary War, and parts of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Most of the early images are brief, and the story becomes more detailed once it gets to the WWII era.

The uniqueness of the movie comes from the fact that the camera is fixed (until the very end). It does not pan or do close-ups. The actors approach the camera lens when a close-up is warranted. Most of the activity takes place in the living room of one house that is bought by different occupants. The film jumps back and forth in time by opening what are like computer “windows” to transition between scenes.

The action primarily focuses on the Young Family. One can hardly recognize the beautiful Kelly Reilly of Yellowstone as the conservatively dressed matriarch, Rose. Likewise, her husband, Al, is portrayed by Englishman Paul Bettany, who gets the American accent perfectly. Zemeckis has always been a technically savvy director (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Contact, and the Back to the Future films), and he uses computer de-aging technology to present the younger versions of Hanks and Wright.

There are historical backdrops in the movie in the forms of music, a TV showing programs, and references to the Spanish Flu, WWII, and even COVID. But the plot centers on the characters and their relationships. Zemeckis uses the image of a hummingbird in several shots. It suggests a feeling of continuity that links the shifting events he depicts. It may remind one of the feather in Gump, which implied change, arbitrariness, and union in one symbol.

There may be too much sentimentality here, and the film could have used a bit more humor, but it is an interesting piece of filmmaking.

Gladiator II:

This movie is grand in the old epic sense, with sweeping vistas and grand sets. The CGI use is well done, although the killer baboons, while scary, look fake.

This film is definitely a sequel to the initial film released in 2000. Ridley Scott is again the director, and Connie Nielsen reprises the role of Lucilla, the daughter of slain Emperor Marcus Aurelius and brother of the dead Emperor Commodus who had their father murdered.

There are many other ties to the previous film. especially in the form of the main character, Lucius (Paul Mescal), who turns out to be the son of Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus, in the original movie, and the grandson of Aurelius. Mescal brings gravity to the role as he deals with his being exiled by his mother, Lucilla, and the fact that she married General Acasius (Pedro Pascal) who is responsible for the death of his wife. Lucius loses his wife as did his father. Lucius, like his dad, also becomes a gladiator after becoming a captive. Lucilla eventually realizes Lucius is her son when he exhibits similar fighting techniques, such as planting his sword in the sand and grabbing a handful of the dirt in the Coliseum. In the original Gladiator Maximus is already a general and there is more time spent developing how he wins over the following of the other gladiators, while Lucius’s ability to lead appears abrupt.

While all the performances are solid here, the one that stands out is that of Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, an ex-slave of Marcus Aurelius, who became a gladiator and then won his freedom. (Don’t be surprised if Washington is nominated for a supporting actor Oscar). He now provides gladiators for the games and supplies arms, food, and oil to the empire. He is an Iago-like figure, who implements chess-like moves as he plays others, including the two co-emperors, against each other as he plots to gain power. Scott may be making a reference to current times as the senators compromise their morality by caving to the whims of those in power.

Macrinus is a realist who says that only the strong should survive. Lucius fights for the idealism for which Rome once embodied, a place which stands for liberty and justice. As Francis Ford Coppola said about Megalopolis, comparing America to the Roman Empire, he wanted to show that the ability to forge a positive future is still present.

Apocalypse Now

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

When does reality become so bizarre that it begins to feel like a surreal experience? Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now gives us a film that uses the Vietnam War to create that scenario. The movie goes beyond that theme by using Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as its source, and dives into the abyss at the center of the human soul and portrays the mythic ritual of sacrifice and regeneration, not of man’s hope but of his bestiality. (I am using the 1979 original film, not the Redux version, because I find the one with added footage slows the narrative and thus impacts the power of the story). 

The film begins with a shot of the jungle, both natural in its beauty and deadly in its hidden dangers, as is the nature of humankind. Helicopters fly slowly like mechanistic dragons, in unreal movement, as bombs reign napalm over the foliage. The fires of hell are brought to mind. Given the title of the movie, the soundtrack appropriately plays “The End” by The Doors. The lyrics talk about how “all elaborate plans” are now useless, which fits with the way the war was waged, and how we are in a “desperate land,” running out of options as to how to go on. The propellers of helicopters are then replaced by the ceiling fan blades of the room occupied by Captain Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen). We see his face superimposed over the jungle fires as the external destructive forces are becoming internalized in this character. The song’s line, “All the children are insane,” stresses the deranged state of war.

Willard is the narrator and he is disoriented, as is the effect of this war on those personally touched by it. He is in Saigon, but keeps thinking he’ll wake up in the jungle, because after being immersed in the uncivilized part of the world his mind can no longer adapt to society’s conventions. Like many veterans (as shown in The Hurt Locker, discussed on this site) Willard says how difficult it was to wake up when he returned home, unable to deal with the transition from the theater of war to peace at home. He shows how he is being torn when he says when he was in Vietnam he wanted to be home, but when back in the United States, “all I could think about was getting back into the jungle.” He is both repulsed and drawn to the horror (a word that will be stressed) of the place that symbolizes confusion and danger. He keeps waiting for a “mission” a purpose, and the waiting makes him “softer” and “weaker.” He is feeling like a pacified civilian, which undermines the animal ferociousness he needs to survive in the jungle, as the enemy in the “bush” gets “stronger.” He feels the walls of his hotel room are getting closer, caging the animal in him. He practices martial arts in the room, and at one point smashes a mirror with his fist, and bleeds. Mirrors, as was noted in other films, can signify the darker sides of oneself, and here the breaking of the looking glass demonstrates how the more sinister side can betray and harm a person. 

Willard says he wanted a mission, “and for my sins, they gave me one.” It is an enigmatic statement that can mean he was rewarded by getting what he desired. But, ironically, the orders he receives will also be a punishment, a penance for those “sins” he has already committed, almost like giving a junkie a fix. The foreshadowing of the terrible task becomes obvious when Willard’s voice-over says that when the operation was over, he “would never want another.” 

He says he didn’t realize it at that time but he was going to the worst place that existed, far away from any protected community, up a river “that snaked,” a demonic, ominous reference to Satan in the Garden of Eden, toward “Kurtz,” the object of the mission. When he arrives to receive his orders, Willard the narrator says, “It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz’s memory.” Very early on in this long tale the film informs us of the almost mythical force of fate that will define Willard’s future role. He says that there is no way of telling Kurt’s story without telling his own, and Kurt’s “confession” (an announcement of sins but also an intimate revealing) is also his. The story implies that Willard and Kurtz are doubles, resembling each other’s characteristics and paths, one younger, one older, as their ages will eventually define what must play out.

Harrison Ford, following his Han Solo role, plays a small part here as Colonel Lucas, (a reference to George Lucas who was supposed to direct this movie) one of the commanders issuing Willard's orders. Lucas questions Willard about his work in counterintelligence which included assassinations. But because he is a covert operative, Willard is reluctant to discuss his past, and the fact that he will not acknowledge his secret exploits, which were performed outside the parameters of acceptable rules, may be a test to make sure he will not divulge any aspects of the current assignment. General R. Corman (G. D. Spradlin, whose character’s name invokes director Roger Corman) and a quiet man in civilian clothes only referred to as Jerry (Jerry Ziesmer, the film's assistant director) are in attendance, and the General invites Willard to a nice lunch which contrasts with the distasteful mission. 

Lucas plays an intercepted audio transmission from Cambodia which is of Kurtz’s voice. Kurtz says that he has a “dream” which is also a “nightmare” of a snail crawling along the edge of a razor and surviving, suggesting what Kurtz will later call accepting the “horror” of life to be victorious. Kurtz also talks about killing and burning animals, villages, and armies, and then wonders how the “assassins” can “accuse the assassin” of wrongdoing. He is questioning the hypocrisy of those who do horrible things but cover them up with “lies” and pretenses of “mercy.” Corman says that Kurtz was a brilliant officer, a humanitarian, and a man of “wit.” But he, like Willard, joined the Special Forces, and his “method” and “ideas” became “unsound.” The suggestion here is that Kurtz became detached from being anchored to a superimposed ethical base, which he found phony. Since Willard’s military history is compared to that of Kurtz, the question is raised as to whether Willard is on the same track. 

Lucas says Kurtz has gone into Cambodia with a Montagnard army (Vietnamese mountain people) that follow him “like a god” and they do whatever he says. The implication is that without any restrictions, anything is permissible. Corman says that Kurtz is guilty of murder for killing Vietnamese intelligence assets he considered “double agents.” Willard is confused probably because he doesn’t see how murder can be a consideration in war where the point is to kill people. Corman admits in an understatement that in a war, things can get “confused out there.” Corman says there is a conflict in people “between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph.” He admits that sometimes the “dark side” wins (this statement must have sounded familiar to Ford after Star Wars). Corman says that everyone has a breaking point, and Kurtz reached his and has gone “insane.” But, there is the sound of a helicopter in the background reminding us of the irony of Corman delivering these insights because, the film may be arguing, that everyone involved in war is somehow complicit in insanity. Corman talks of Kurtz going beyond the bounds of decency at the same time he is ordering the murder of a military colonel.  Lucas then uses official language as he tells Willard that he must board a Navy patrol boat to find Kurtz, “infiltrate” his base and “terminate the colonel’s command.” Thus, Lucas is giving Willard unchecked authority to kill. Jerry, probably a CIA man, finally speaks to drive home the goal when he delivers one of the movie’s memorable lines, “Terminate with extreme prejudice.” It is euphemistic, but he is actually saying Willard is the executioner who must carry out the already decided sentence of death without a moment of hesitation. 

As he approaches the Navy boat (whose name is the Erebus which was the name of the Greek god of darkness, as IMDb states, and which fits with the title of the Conrad novella), Willard wonders how many people he has killed. Thus, he questions the validity of his orders when he says charging Kurtz with murder, “was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.” The film asks the question how can a country enter a situation that at its base involves killing and then state it’s against the rules to do so? Because Willard sees the hypocrisy of the mission, and the fact he has been ordered to murder an American officer makes him admit that he isn’t sure what he will do when he finds Kurtz. For Willard, the story eventually suggests, killing Kurtz would be like destroying himself.

One of the tragedies of war is that young people are put in a deadly situation, as Willard points out when he says some of the boat's crew were, “rock and rollers with one foot in the grave.” Willard observes that Jay “Chef” Hicks (Frederick Forrest) “was wrapped too tight” for Vietnam, suggesting that the man is jittery and can’t coolly deal with the pressure of the battle. Lance B. Johnson (Sam Bottoms) is using a reflector to get an even tan, and Willard narrates that the young man was a Los Angeles surfer. He looks like he’s at home on a beach instead of on a boat to hell. (There are many examples in the movie of Americans trying to escape the terrible circumstances they are in by mentally recreating the comforts of their lives before becoming soldiers). Tyrone “Clean” Miller (a very young Laurence Fishburne) came from a Bronx ghetto, and Willard says the sharp contrast of the “light and the space of Vietnam really put the zap on his head,” implying the whiplash effect of such a switch in the man’s life was disorienting for him. Chief Phillips (Albert Hall), according to Willard, made sure everyone knew that he had jurisdiction over the boat and crew. (Good writing usually uses actions and words to show who the characters are. The film is long, and possibly Coppola wanted to save time here with these summations, but it is legitimate to question his decision).

The Chief warns that they will be going through dangerous waters controlled by the enemy. He says he brought a man who was on a special operation once before, saying that man was “regular Army, too,” thus comparing the soldier to Willard. The Chief follows by saying that fellow shot himself. He is providing a cautionary tale for his self-assured passenger. The radio is playing which mentions how the local government wants to keep Saigon looking clean so soldiers should not hang their laundry outside. It is a sort of distracting statement to place domestic activities as a priority so as to not face the daily deadly realities that exist. “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones plays on the radio, and these men are trying to get some of what the song laments about not having. Clean dances to the song as Lance water skis behind the boat as they try to hold onto a piece of their old lives. But Lance creates large waves that buffet the Vietnamese on the beach and in the river, showing how the out-of-place American presence overpowers the lives of the locals. 

In contrast to this diverting activity, Willard somberly reviews the information on Kurtz, as the soundtrack now matches his mood. The documents show that Kurtz graduated at the top of his class at West Point, following a family tradition of attendance there. He received a master’s degree in history from Harvard and wrote a thesis on foreign policy in Southeast Asia, interestingly on the Philippines Insurrection, which shows he knows about rebellion. He also received many decorations and it appeared he was being readied for a top spot in the military. But when he reported his observations about Vietnam, those in power apparently did not appreciate what he had to say. It is at this point that Kurtz started to become alienated. 

Along with the Conrad story, the raft ride on the river which turns out to be a journey of discovery brings Huckleberry Finn to mind here. But, this story is a demonic version of that tale as the characters’ revelations are of an earthly apocalypse of the human soul. They meet up with the Air Cav that is to be the boat’s escort to the “mouth of the Nung River.” As Willard and his men go on shore, Coppola himself plays the head of a TV team as he says, “Don’t look at the camera … Go on. Keep going.” Here is an example where reality and illusion join. There is an actual war going on and the TV man/Coppola tells the soldiers to pretend like they are not being filmed for TV audiences and urges them to look “like you’re fighting.” But that is exactly what a director would want for his actors to do, that is to simulate reality, since this is not a true war, and actually is a bit of fiction - a movie. In essence, the make-believe actions are reversed depending on how we approach what we are seeing. 

The military outfit is “mopping up,” adding the finishing touches to an attack. Willard meets the commanding officer here, Lt. Colonel Kilgore, an appropriate name for this war lover played by Robert Duvall. Kilgore throws playing cards onto dead enemy bodies to let the Viet Cong know who killed their men, making it seem like war is some sort of game. There is a young American soldier sitting on a wall who looks overwhelmed by the carnage. Kilgore’s incredibly inappropriate comment to the youth is, “Cheer up, son.” The bombing devastated the area, yet a voice over the loudspeaker contradictorily declares to the locals that the military is there to help them. Although Kilgore is fighting for the U. S., he would be passionate about waging battle whatever side he was on. He says of one of the enemy soldiers who is holding his guts in after being wounded that the man deserves to drink from Kilgore’s canteen. Kilgore admires the battle experience in general. Kilgore is thrilled to meet Lance because he is a famous surfer, and the commander already has two surfers under him. As he leads Lance away, prayers are uttered in the background by a chaplain conducting a church service, which seems like a strange place to be trying to provide sanctity. 

Kilgore airlifts in steaks and beer as he turns the base of operations into what Willard says is a “beach party.” Willard’s cynical tone increases as he progresses toward views held by Kurtz. Willard says, “the more they tried to make it just like home, the more they made everybody miss it.” But, this desire to transform this land also can be seen as an imperialistic drive to Americanize a foreign country. Willard says Kilgore had a “weird light around him. You just knew he wasn’t gonna get so much as a scratch.” Willard seems to be comparing Kilgore to some kind of war god that leads his soldiers into battle but is not really risking any harm to himself. Kilgore becomes convinced to take Willard’s boat to an enemy stronghold because one of his men says it’s the best spot for surfing. The interest in surfing goes along with trying to recreate the United States so far away. Kilgore wants to defy the odds against safety by drawing an odd superior distinction between the Americans and the enemy when he says, “Charlie don’t surf!” 

Kilgore wears a western cavalry hat that lives up to the Air Cav name, which is also stressed by having his bugler sound the Old West cavalry charge as his fleet of helicopters lift off. He also plays Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries” loudly to scare the Viet Cong. The Valkyries are female entities from Norse mythology that fly and announce who will die. It is a fitting and chilling metaphor for these mechanistic death birds of prey who destroy the villages below. The front of the helicopter in which Kilgore is riding has “Death from above” written on it which fits in with the literal and supernatural connotations. Children on the ground coming out of school and peasants run for their lives along with armed enemy fighters who try to defend themselves. It is difficult in a guerrilla war such as this one (and in the conflict in The Hurt Locker) to distinguish who is the real threat. American soldiers are deployed from the helicopters, and some become casualties. As a helicopter tries to airlift out wounded Americans, a seemingly innocent woman hiding a grenade blows up the copter. Kilgore calls the enemy “savages,” but the film implies that savagery occurs on both sides of war to one degree or another. 

Bombs go off around Kilgore as he stands while the soldiers dive for cover. The image fits with Willard’s indestructible vision of the man. Instead of being empathetic about the loss of life and danger surrounding them, Kilgore is only interested in the way the waves break. He tells his surfing men that they either surf with bullets flying all around, or fight, giving them the frying pan or the fire choice. He calls in a huge napalm bomb strike that totally consumes the enemy area. It is here that Kilgore delivers the film’s memorable line: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning... It smelled like victory.” He then says that someday the war will end, and he sounds disappointed. The burning fires of hell are again suggested here to mirror the opening shot of the movie, and one wonders if Kilgore is announcing the way the devil can claim “victory” over the world through man’s lust for killing.

Willard takes in all of these happenings with an outsider’s viewpoint now, a Kurtz outlook, and ponders the reason to want to take out Kurtz when there was already “insanity and murder” in abundance there. He says the men on his boat just want the war to end, unlike Kilgore, and wish to go home. Narrator Willard says he’s been back to the states, and realizes there isn’t a way home anymore, because a soldier takes the jungle with him. They resume their trip up the river's artery to that heart of darkness. 

While stopping along the shore, Chef wants to look for mangos and Willard goes with him for protection. As they walk through this alien land, Chef reveals his nickname comes from his training to be a saucier in New Orleans. However, the military dampened his desire to be a cook in the service by the way the Navy ruined food, showing how refined living was left behind when war is the priority. The conversation of a faraway civilized world contrasts with the current locale. The discrepancy is emphasized as the trees and other vegetation completely dwarf them, symbolizing the power of uncontrollable nature over human beings. The ferociousness of the jungle literally appears when a tiger emerges, which suggests that humans are part of nature and violence is a basic drive in all animals. After the two men escape, Chef shows how he is “wrapped too tight” as he freaks out, screaming he’s never leaving the boat (the way to navigate around the danger inside and outside everyone?). Narrator Willard echoes what Chef says about staying on the boat, “unless you were going all the way,” that is, to accept the truth about the horror behind existence. He says that Kurtz got off the boat, meaning he left war’s false morality behind. He began to decide to wage battles on his own and initiated attacks without authorization. He had great success with Operation Archangel, the name suggesting that Kurtz saw himself as an instrument of supernatural wrath. Willard says the “bullshit” piled up so high in Vietnam, one needed wings to stay above it (like a flying archangel?). It is telling about the progression of Willard’s mentality that as he continued to read about Kurtz the more he “admired” him.

Willard and his men dock at a site that is out of place in the jungle. It has bright spotlights and a stage. They need fuel, and when there is some bureaucratic hold up, Willard violently grabs the soldier handling supplies in a threatening way to get what he needs. Willard is already practicing Kurtz’s rejection of rules. There is a show that night featuring three Playboy Bunnies. We again have reality turning into escapist fantasy. It is noteworthy that the locals must watch behind an enclosed fence. Even though the South Vietnamese were American allies, here they are not really accepted by the occupiers, and the military fosters the impossible idea that the soldiers can separate themselves literally and mentally from their surroundings. The women dance suggestively, using guns as phallic symbols. The attempt to put on a peaceful show of titillation fails, as the instinctual sexual urges of the hundreds of men are unleashed and they start to overrun the stage, clawing at the scantily dressed women, who must be evacuated. Willard, the observer, comments that the enemy had no rest and recreation, implying there was no reason to dream of home because they were home and couldn’t escape that truth. For them, their R&R was rice and rat meat to eat. They had only two options, “Death or victory,” and the implication is that is what makes them very hard to defeat by conventional means. 

Along the way they encounter other American boats. They play diversionary games by sailing too close to each other and one member throws an ignited object onto the covering of Willard’s craft. Chef has to put out the fire. Just like the Playboy Bunnies incident, escapism veers very close to dangerous activity, as the less admirable elements of people come to the surface. Speaking of those uncivilized aspects, Willard continues to read Kurtz’s dossier. The independent Kurtz, waging his own war, assassinated Vietnamese individuals, two of which were in the South Vietnamese Army. Since enemy resistance dropped in his sector, Kurtz had identified South Vietnamese spies, showing again how the enemy can come from anywhere. Then Kurtz disappeared into the Cambodian jungle, a place that now suited him. Kurtz wrote home saying he has been accused of murder, but he says that being “ruthless” many times is an act of “clarity,” that shows one what needs to be done. He wrote, “I am beyond their timid, lying morality.” Kurtz had decided to answer to nobody but himself, an understandable reaction considering the handling of the war, but a dangerous stance that can lead to crossing that line that General Corman talked about, and the committing of atrocities. 

As Willard reads the letter, the boat passes by dead bodies in trees, and a burning helicopter that crashed into another tree (of course, fire is again present). It is like they are passing by a grotesque graveyard. The Chief tries to keep order amid chaos as Chef and Clean argue. They come across a Vietnamese boat. The Chief says he has to check it out to make sure it isn’t a Viet Cong vessel, since, as was noted, the enemy may be anyone, including, metaphorically, oneself. Willard tells him not to stop, but the Chief says he has his orders. He forces the reluctant Chef to board the other craft and he acts roughly and loudly with the people there. Tension rises and Clean goes dirty as he loses control and starts firing his machine gun, killing all but one of the Vietnamese. There is a woman who is alive and she was only heading for a hidden puppy, not a weapon. The Chief wants to take the wounded woman to get medical assistance. Willard kills her, knowing that rescuing her will only delay his mission. The brutality of hysterical irrationality meets up with dispassionate violence in this scene as war strips away civilized behavior.

Willard narrates that he realized that the American occupiers told themselves that they needed to put a positive spin on their deeds. But, for Willard, it was like treating the Vietnamese by “cutting them in half” and then giving them a “band-aid.” He sees this action as a “lie” and the more he becomes like Kurtz the more he hates the “lies” inherent in American policy. The boat approaches the last American outpost situated at a bridge. It is totally lit up with rockets going off like fireworks. Lance, who has painted himself green as camouflage, but which symbolizes becoming one with the jungle, says he took the hallucinogen LSD. He carries the puppy retrieved from the boat they shot up. The cute dog is a symbol of innocence, like many of these young men, caught in a whirlwind of destruction. Lance says the place looks beautiful, and it appears at a distance like a theme park at night until there is a closer look. (Lance receives a letter from home about going to Disneyland and says where he is now is better than that amusement resort, which stresses the upside-down world he is now in). This scene very much adds to the theme of life losing its grounding in reality as rationality becomes insanity. Soldiers swim toward the boat asking to go home, which is all the soldiers really want as noted earlier, but which Willard said they can’t really do mentally once being in the war zone. Willard is given a communication by a man on another boat who then says he now can gratefully leave because Willard has reached “the asshole of the world.” This excremental view of humankind mirrors that of satirist Jonathan Swift.

Willard and his men go ashore and the soundtrack sounds like harsh circus music played in hell. They come across a bunker ironically called “Beverly Hills” where rock music plays and the men smoke pot, still trying to escape the nightmare. To stress the chaos of the situation, Willard asks a man firing his weapon wildly who is his commanding officer. The soldier asks, “Ain’t you?” His confusion represents that of all those there. The Chief questions the point of going forward, noting the cyclical nature of the war as they keep rebuilding the bridge there and each time the enemy blows it up again. But Willard is determined to find Kurtz, because the mission has also become an inner quest to meet the man who now reflects parts of himself.

The information Willard received is that someone else was sent on a similar mission before Willard. The man’s name is Captain Richard Colby (Scott Glenn, with no dialogue in this version) and he has joined the Kurtz cult. He tried to send a letter to his wife telling her to sell the house, the car, and “the kids” because he was “never coming back.” Once sucked into the black hole of this heart of darkness, there is no getting out. Lance plays with a smoke bomb, adding to the hallucinogenic fun ride theme park the war has become for him. But the smoke of his diversion turns into trails of incoming fire from the enemy on shore, coming out of the hostile jungle. Clean is hit and killed while a tape that arrived from his mother plays, adding to the tragedy as she speaks of the young man coming home and eventually giving her grandchildren. 

The journey continues as the boat goes through a fog (the fog of war?) which shows the clouded morality of the conflict. Lance has his arms up behind him as he leans against the craft and screams. The image reminds one of Odysseus who asked to be bound so he could hear the seductive song of the Sirens who lured ships to their destruction. Willard, almost psychically linked to Kurtz now, says he feels that the man is close. He says it was like the river was paradoxically (irrationally?) being sucked back into the jungle, (which adds to the black hole metaphor). A spray of arrows flies toward them, but here again the danger is misleading, since they are toy weapons, just meant to scare. But the Chief and Chef fire at the natives on the shore. A real spear then penetrates the Chief, as weapons now become more primal, barbaric, from a place removed from modern influence. In his dying action the Chief tries to pierce Willard with the point of the spear coming out of his chest in his own attempt to stop the madness.

Willard tells Chef his mission, which boggles Chef’s mind since it involves killing someone on their side of the war. Willard is ready to go on land on his own, but possibly because there has been so much sacrifice for the mission already, and he needs to hold onto some purpose amid the craziness, Chef tells Willard they will get him to where he is going. Lance has one of the toy arrows looking like it is going through his head, something that the comedian Steve Martin used to do. The image adds to the theme that reality has become so strange it feels like an illusion.

To add to that feeling, a Halloweenish landscape appears as there are skeletal heads propped up on spikes in a hellish graveyard. Willard narrates that more than his fear was the desire to confront Kurtz (and to face that part of himself that is like Kurtz?). They finally sail into Kurtz’s jungle kingdom. There are many natives standing on boats looking at the strangers arriving. They part, allowing the boat to dock, as if they expected the visit. The natives appear to be covered in some kind of mud-like substance, as if they sprouted from the land as offshoots of the jungle, which adds to the surreal atmosphere. There are many more armed local inhabitants on the grounds of what looks like an ancient temple, which contributes to the mythological aspect of the conclusion of the story. The soundtrack has thumping bass sounds that remind one of a loud beating heart that director John Carpenter later puts to great effect in his version of The Thing.

We now get one of the craziest characters ever put on screen, a sort of court jester in the form of Dennis Hopper’s stoned hippie photojournalist. He acts friendly like a cruise tour director in this nightmarish theater of war. He tells Chef to blast the boat siren which disperses the natives, since modern sounds are frightening to these people from the jungle. The photojournalist warns of mines and biting monkeys in an upbeat voice which contrasts with the suspended naked dead men near the docking area. The photojournalist says that the people there are Kurtz’s children who are afraid Willard and his men are going to take Kurtz away. He is a disciple, trying to pave the way to meeting Kurtz. He calls Kurtz a “poet warrior” who has “enlarged” his mind, which may have swelled to madness with the dispensing of insight into humankind’s soulless state. He babbles, trying to quote Kurtz who said, “keep your head when all about are losing theirs and blaming you.” This statement sounds darkly humorous since Kurtz is literally beheading people. He says he is a little man and Kurtz is great, and then quotes from T. S Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a poem that reflects Eliot’s themes of the decay of civilization, a view most likely held by Kurtz. Even this weird devotee admits that Kurtz “can be terrible, and he can be mean,” but he can be “right.” An unrestrained god is free to do good and terrible things. The photojournalist carries cameras and is recording what Kurtz does, but as he says later he does not see himself as the person who will present the gospel according to Kurtz. But he also says that Kurtz threatened to kill him for taking his picture. Perhaps a photograph would render Kurtz as something too concrete and trivial for what he sees as his exalted purpose.

The photojournalist escorts Willard past armed men, including Colby, the man sent before him. The American soldier stares intensely ahead with unblinking eyes, appearing as if he is under a spell. The photojournalist notes the heads of victims present. He is Kurtz’s apologist, saying sometimes Kurtz goes too far, and he even tries to show that Kurtz knows that he has committed atrocities when he says, “He’s the first to admit it.” But the man has drunk the Kool Aid and says, “No!” when Chef says Kurtz is crazy.

Kurtz is not there now as he has gone into the jungle, his true home now. Back at the boat Chef wails about Kurtz being insane and promises to help Willard with his mission. The camera pans over Kurtz’s people and the words, “Apocalypse Now” appear painted on a wall, stating Kurtz’s belief that the end of the so-called civilized life as we know it is happening. Willard says he will go with Lance to look around for Kurtz and tells Chef that if he isn’t back by 10 pm, he should call in an airstrike, with the code “Almighty.” It is an appropriate title for what Kurtz had become to those under his rule, but which can also affirm the established military’s superior strength. 

Willard narrates that the bodies of Vietnamese and Cambodians there convinced him that Kurtz was insane. He realizes that Kurtz wants him alive since his men do not harm him. They do drag him into the mud, an almost symbolic act to prepare him by being in touch with the primordial jungle before meeting their leader. Inside Kurtz’s hideaway is what Willard says is the “end of the river” which involves “slow death,” “malaria,” and “nightmares.” There is no pretense here of hope for the future. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) is filmed in shadows which fits the mysteriousness of this person. He washes himself as he talks about freedom from the opinions of others, and even one’s programmed opinion of oneself, as he seems to be cleansing himself of those judgments. Kurtz already knows that Willard is there to, as Colonel Lucas euphemistically stated, “terminate his command.” Willard admits that his superiors said Kurtz was insane and his “methods were unsound.” When asked if that is so, Willard finds no “method” in Kurtz’s madness. When asked if he is an assassin, Willard says he is a soldier, which is his excuse for killing another. Kurtz’s response won’t give him the satisfaction of either title, saying Willard is a lowly, servile “errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect the bill.” 

The photojournalist gives water to Willard who is now in a bamboo cell. He says that Kurtz is “clear in his mind, but his soul is mad.” Kurtz has seen the wrongdoings of man and the mental self-deceptions that followed, and that knowledge and trying to deal with those insights has brought on an insanity. The photojournalist says that Kurtz is dying and when he goes the response will not be to praise him because of his violations of accepted behavior. He tells Willard that Kurtz has a plan for Willard, implying the man who has come to kill Kurtz will carry the man’s message forward. 

Chef says he is asleep and dreaming on the boat, but he is actually awake, talking to himself, which again shows that blurring of illusion and reality. He tries to make the call that Willard ordered him to initiate. There is a quick shift to the bound Willard visited at night by the silent Kurtz, whose face is painted with that camouflage green that Lance used. Is he showing he has become one with the jungle or is he mocking the soldiers for pretending that they can artificially blend into their surroundings? As Kurtz walks away, one of his minions drops the head of Chef into the lap of the screaming Willard. The action reveals to Willard Kurtz’s mad soul in a personal way as he kills someone who Willard came to know. In a bizarre way he is mentoring Willard. 

Kurtz’s people now free Willard after his cleansing of civilized notions, and give him drink and food. Kurtz reads from Eliot’s “Hollow Men,” which deals with those who have lost their souls, are empty inside, and despite knowing that they are broken, seem powerless to act either for their condemnation or redemption. The last famous lines of the poem are, “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang, but a whimper.” It is this passivity, this abdication of will that Kurtz seems to despise. The photojournalist tries to interpret the poem for Willard in a roundabout way, saying nothing should be done part way. But, Kurtz throws a book at him, calling him, “Mutt!” since he sees the journalist as a type of lap dog, not as an alpha male. 

Willard narrates that he was not under guard but did not leave and stayed with Kurtz for days. He says that Kurtz knew he wasn’t going and was aware of what Willard would do more than he did himself. He says these words as the camera reveals books in Kurtz’s cave. One is The Golden Bough by James G. Frazer which is a study of ancient religions and fertility rites. This book recounts how religion mirrors the cycle of death and rebirth in nature through the seasons. A king or god is sacrificed only to be reborn again in many religious belief systems. A version of this ritual is what follows. 

Willard sees how Kurtz has been torn apart by what has happened around him and committed by him. Kurtz says he has seen “horrors” as has Willard, so they are likened by experience. He admits that Willard has the right to choose to kill him but not a right to call him a “murderer” or “judge” him, since he suggests that society’s rules are arbitrary. Kurtz says that “horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.” He tells a story of having gone into a village when he was in Special Forces to inoculate the children against polio. But, the inhabitants, not accepting any shielding from the ravages of the disease, cut off all of the vaccinated arms. His first response was to cry. Then, instead of seeing this action as superstitious ignorance, Kurtz says he realized these men had the will to do such an act. He says to win a war there must be those who can kill “without feeling, without passion, without judgment.” He seems to advocate that one must embrace the darkness or else be defeated by it, since it is overpowering and should be met with honesty and not denial. In very simplistic terms it’s like saying one must fight fire with fire. 

Kurtz tells Willard that he is afraid his son would not understand what he has done and he gives Willard a new mission which is to tell Kurtz’s boy why his father acted the way he has and to tell the youth of what Willard has seen. As the radio on the boat tries to communicate with him, Willard’s voice-over says he wasn’t even in their army anymore since what he does is not dictated by the orders given to him. Willard emerges headfirst from the river at night like some kind of phantom, as the natural and the supernatural blur. “The End” again plays which is appropriate because as the natives slice to death a water buffalo, Willard sacrifices Kurtz the same way, as the old god is killed and the new one comes to life. But it is a deity from the void that is born. Kurtz’s last words are “the horror,” which is what he teaches is either a friend or else an enemy. 

Willard walks out covered in the mud of the jungle into Kurtz's followers with his scythe, carrying Kurtz’s writings which have a note about killing everyone. Kurtz’s people let him pass, even bow down to him, and throw down their weapons as Willard and Lance leave on their boat. The last image is that of Willard’s face next to a superimposed statute of an ancient god, possibly one ushering in the apocalypse now.

The next film is The Killing.

The Godfather Part II

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

For this post, I used director Francis Ford Coppola’s Restoration version of the film, which is three hours and twenty-two minutes long. So, this analysis is quite lengthy.

Like The Godfather, this 1974 sequel (also winner of the Best Picture Oscar) further explores the contrasting elements within the lifestyle of the Italian Mafia. The lawbreaking with its accompanying violence exists while at the same time there is the impossible desire to keep the sanctity of the private family intact and separate from the business world. Coppola again uses organized crime as a metaphor for unscrupulous capitalist activity.

The first image echoes the last scene in The Godfather where there is the act of kissing the hand of the ironically named Godfather. The shot serves as the demonic version of the kissing of the Pope’s ring. The next image is the chair that Vito Corleone, the gangster boss of the first movie, sat in, which serves as a type of mobster throne, as opposed to the papal chair.

The story begins with narrative information about Vito Corleone, whose last name is Andolini, and who was born in the town of Corleone, Sicily. Where one comes from is important because of the emphasis in Italy on roots and family, so the fact that Vito’s last name is later transformed into the name of the place of his birth shows a close connection between the man and his origins. In 1901, his father was murdered because of an insult involving the local Mafia boss. There is a funeral procession for Vito’s father with nine-year-old Vito and his mother walking next to the coffin. This solemn ceremony is violated by the sound of gunfire, and as people scatter, someone shouts that they have killed Vito’s older brother, Paolo, who swore revenge, and had disappeared into the hills. Vendettas keep the violence going in this country, as is seen by the fact that there are so few men in Corleone by the time Michael visits in the first movie.

Young Vito (Oreste Baldini) and his mother (Maria Carta) visit the Mafia boss, Don Ciccio (Giuseppe Sillato). She says her husband was killed because he would not give into Ciccio’s will. This information shows that the men in Vito’s family do not bow to others. Vito’s mother says that her son is “dumb-witted” and hardly speaks, (but we know later he is quite intelligent) so she argues he poses no threat to Don Ciccio. He says it’s not Vito’s words he is afraid of. In the gangster world, one must always be looking for attacks. Although the mother says Vito is weak, Ciccio says that he will grow up and be strong and seek revenge. Despite her begging, he refuses to spare her son. She has a contingency plan and pulls out a knife, holds it to the Ciccio’s throat, and tells Vito to run. Ciccio’s men overpower the mother and shoot her dead. Vito runs away. If Ciccio had spared his family, and not tried to kill Vito, is it possible that Vito would not have sought revenge later? Apparently compassion is not in the Mafia playbook.

Ciccio’s men go through the town warning anyone who protects Vito will be punished. Despite the threat, a family (not a criminal one) does show sympathy, and helps him escape. He is all alone in the world and travels by ship to New York, which passes by the Statue of Liberty, the symbol of freedom and hope to all those who arrive in America. That same statue is in the first movie in the “leave the gun, take the cannoli” murder scene, which shows how the American Dream can turn into a nightmare. Immigration officials make a mistake by substituting the town for Vito’s last name, revealing how negligence in processing the many people entering the country can shortchange a person’s individuality. The immigration workers place a chalk “X” on Vito’s clothes, indicating he may be mentally challenged, as his mother noted. It turns out that others underestimate his potential. The doctor who examines him says he has smallpox and must be quarantined for three months. Vito’s early life is thus a hard one. During this whole time he doesn’t speak, but as he looks through the window in his room on Ellis Island at the Statue of Liberty, he finally uses his words to sing, seeking some comfort in this lonely situation. Being alone becomes an important theme in the rest of the story.

There is a jump forward to 1958 to the first Holy Communion ceremony of Anthony Vito Corleone (James Gounaris), Vito’s grandson, Michael’s boy, at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Religion and family continue to dominate the Corleones after Michael has made his move to Nevada as he proposed in the first movie. There is an opulent reception on the lake following the ceremony, which contrasts with the poverty of Vito’s young life, and shows how the Corleones have prospered monetarily. Connie (Talia Shire) shows up with her latest lover, Merle Johnson (Troy Donahue, whose real name is the same as that of his character). She has been in revolt against Michael after he killed her abusive and traitorous husband right after the baptism of her son. Mama Corleone (Morgana King) says that she was supposed to show up a week earlier, noting her daughter’s carefree ways. She lectures Connie about seeing her children more often, which is a violation of the family code of behavior that is ethically strict, as opposed to the lawbreaking inherent in the family business.

Nevada Senator Pat Geary (G. D. Spradlin) is there with his wife, who we later learn he cheats on repeatedly, cheapening his public show of decency. The senator thanks the Corleone family for their contribution to the state through a college endowment in the name of young Anthony. Geary mispronounces “Vito” and “Corleone” which is a form of disrespect, but also shows how he still distances himself from the Mafia family, presenting himself as a ceremonial acquaintance only. Later, he pronounces the name with the correct Italian version, showing his phoniness in this scene. There is then a photo opportunity with Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), his wife Kay (Diane Keaton), and the senator and his wife, showing how Geary is used to the public display of insincerity. Michael, however, has spent most of his life in the shadows, and now wants to fulfill his father’s wish that the family move into legitimacy. He is in denial about how it is impossible to achieve his goal given the Corleone past.

In contrast to the brightness of the outside public festivities, we have a dark scene in Michael’s private office, with adopted brother, lawyer Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall). This juxtaposition is similar to the opposing settings at the onset of the first film that takes place during another religious ceremony, the outside wedding of Connie and Carlo, with Vito granting nefarious favors in the office in his New York home. (The Holy Communion event, which sounds like a gathering of righteous people gives way to a sort of satanic conclave inside). The humanitarian display at the ceremony is followed by the corruption evident in a government figure in the person of Senator Geary. He points out that Michael already owns three hotel/casinos in Las Vegas and Reno, but for the fourth he needs a gaming license that was not grandfathered in. The senator wants upfront money and a cut of the revenues of all the casinos. Geary reveals he is exploiting the situation not only for the cash, but out of bigotry. He says he doesn’t like Michael’s “kind,” meaning Italian, dirtying up “this clean country” with “oily hair” trying to present themselves “as decent Americans.” Obviously he is not one to talk, since he is not fighting against organized crime here, but instead is using it for his own gain. Geary says he despises the Corleone “masquerade” of looking presentable while acting dishonestly. Michael keeps his cool, but accurately tells Geary that “we are both part of the same hypocrisy,” as the senator also portrays himself as an upstanding citizen while hiding his corrupt nature. Michael feels he can make the distinction that Geary does not, which is that Michael’s dirty business activities do not desecrate the members of his family. Geary wants to keep his facade of respectability by not dealing directly with Michael, and only wants to use an intermediary. Michael tells Geary that he won’t give him anything, and expects the senator to put up the twenty-five grand for the gaming license. The senator just smirks at Michael dismissively, and then walks out of the room. Geary puts on his genial facade as he is hypocritically cordial to Kay, who is with his wife.

Michael has his hands full with his family and business associates. One of his mob lieutenants, Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo) is drunk and unruly. He wants to see Michael about the death of Clemenza, one of the friends of Vito Corleone, Michael's father. The death may not have been by a heart attack according to Willi Cicci (Joe Spinell), Pentangeli’s associate. Pentangeli is not thrilled to have to wait so long to see Michael, which hints at how that anger will be used later to try to frame Michael.

Johnny Ola (Dominic Chianese), who works for Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), a gangster who was Vito’s business partner, makes an appearance. Al Neri (Richard Bright), one of Michael’s bodyguards, greets Johnny and ushers him into a meeting with Michael and Tom. (Ola brings an orange from Florida as a gift from Roth. Oranges were used in the first film and are employed here, too, as ominous symbols of approaching death. (They have been used since the Godfather in other movies as deadly forecasters, such as Children of Men and Identity). Michael dismisses Tom saying he is only involved in certain aspects of the business. This slight obviously hurts Tom’s feeling, and shows how the criminal life requires Mike to be paranoid in his carefulness to the point that his slights to his own family members can come back to hurt him, at least in the case of Fredo later. Ola says that Roth will back Michael in taking over the casino he wants. Ola says that they are losing a number of organized crime’s members by death, “natural or not,” prison, and deportation. His words emphasize the business’s hazards. He says Roth has survived because “he always made money for his partners,” stressing the need to spread the wealth and not foster anger and mistakes because of greediness. His statement may be a veiled threat that Michael should not try to gain too much individual power.

Connie meets with Michael and says she wants to book passage on a cruise to Europe since she and Merle are to be married. Michael is upset since she was just divorced and he sees her as out of control, hooking up with a gigolo. He lectures her about a lack of concern for her children, since she sees them only on weekends. He tells his sister that her son was picked up in Reno for stealing. Again, he feels his big crime dealings should remain separate from the lives of family members, who should conform to ethical rules. Such is the duality in the Italian American criminal world, which is used as an allegory here for the double nature of the political-economic sector in America. Connie admits that she needs money and that is why she has come to Michael. He says that she can live within the confines of the family estate with her children and be deprived of nothing. But, there is a price to pay, because she must do what Michael dictates, which is to not marry Merle, who Michael talks about dismissively as if he isn’t there. Michael is right that Connie is at sea before she even sails, but he acts like a controlling parent dealing with a child. He says that if she doesn’t do what he says, “you’ll disappoint me.” In any other family that would not be so ominous.

As the Holy Communion celebration goes into the night, Michael and the family, which includes Deanna (Marianna Hill), Fredo’s wife, have dinner together. She is obviously not Italian, since she doesn't know the toast “Cent’anni,” which means they should live for a hundred years, which Connie says might happen if their father were still alive, implying Michael is not a worthy successor. The back-and-forth in time format of the film is set up to compare Vito’s life and actions as he went from Italy to New York with Michael’s further westward movement to Nevada in a compromised type of immigrant journey westward to search for the new Eden in America. Michael’s plans meet numerous hurdles, which include Geary and Pentangeli, and Deanna’s drunken spectacle of herself on the dance floor. She questions Fredo’s masculinity when he tries to intervene, and Fredo admits to being incapable of dealing with his wife, since the men here seem to be required to control the females. Again, the public display of unruliness, such as Pentangeli’s spilling wine and Deanna’s actions, spoil the appearance of respectability. Even though Michael tells his brother that he has nothing to apologize for, Fredo’s feelings that Michael is ashamed of him leads to his betrayal later.

Pentangeli finally meets in private with Michael, and is angry that he must give the gangster Rosato brothers territory to run in New York. He tells Michael that Clemenza did not promise the brothers anything and hated them. Michael wants him to cooperate because the Rosato brothers are pals of Hyman Roth, and he doesn’t want to hinder his dealings with Roth. Pentangeli feels that Michael has lost touch with what’s really happening because he is now out of New York and living in luxury in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, an image suggesting Michael has elevated himself too high above his workers. Pentangeli says that the brothers are disrespectful, doing “violence in their grandmothers’ neighborhoods.” The thrust here is that you can be violent in the proper course of gangster business, but not if it spills over into the lives of the civilian family members. What these men don’t want to face is that it is impossible to prevent the overflow of violence from one world into the other. Pentangeli reflects the bigotry of his times, and uses ethnic slurs to criticize the Rosato brothers for hiring Hispanic and African Americans. He says that the Rosato brothers make money off of whores and selling drugs, leaving gambling, a lesser vice, as the least important source of income. Thus, in the gradation of criminal activity, Frankie lives up to the “-angeli” part of his name, since he is more noble than the newer types of criminals. He wants the Rosato brothers dead, but Michael insists that he can’t allow that. He reminds Pentangeli that Vito worked with Roth and respected the man. But Pentangeli says that Vito never trusted Roth. Pentangeli makes an exaggerated display of loyalty saying that there won’t be any trouble from him, but his manner of announcing his compliance shows his unhappiness with the decision.

Michael asks how the baby inside of Kay is doing. He asks if she thinks it’s a boy, and she gives him the macho answer he wants, saying yes. But, she has a troubled look on her face. She reminds him that he said (in the first film) that the Corleone family would be completely legitimate in five years, but seven years have passed, and he is still a mobster. He says, “I’m trying,” but his task is insurmountable. He later goes to a place of supposed safety, his bedroom, with his wife in bed. His son has drawn a picture of his dad wearing a black hat and riding in a limo. It is interesting that he sees his dad as a big shot in a long car, not as a person who is at the family dinner table or other place with his wife and children, despite Michael’s adulation of the idea of family. The picture shows him away, on business, in a car, but the child is too naive to see things critically, and only looks at things literally. Kay is awake and asks, “why are the drapes open?” Michael is attuned to the possibilities of treachery, so he immediately drops to the floor and pulls Kay there as bullets riddle the bedroom. Michael still won’t concede that he can’t keep the danger inherent in his criminal world from bleeding into his private life.

Michael knows this attack must be an inside job since the curtains were drawn open, allowing for clear shots. Michael tells his henchman, Rocco, to use the many guards to keep the shooters alive so he can find out who is behind the attempted murder. Inside the house, Kay is with her children and gives Michael an accusing look, and this violent assault may be what eventually leads her to break with her husband.

Michael tells Tom that he kept things from him, but it’s not because he doesn’t love him. He says he admires Tom, and he may have been trying to keep him untouched by the dirty business Michael was involved in. Michael says to Tom that he knows he is the only one he can trust following the shooting. What he is saying is the withholding of information turned out to be a test of Tom’s loyalty, since without knowledge of certain operations Tom had no reason to betray Michael. He says Fredo, although having a “good heart,” is “weak” and “stupid,” so he can’t rely on him in matters of “life and death.” As it turns out the continual slighting of Fredo becomes a flaw in Michael’s strategy. Tom, almost in tears, says he always wanted to be considered a real brother to Michael, since his non-Italian background and being adopted, has, despite always being valued, made him feel somewhat like an outsider. Michael tells Tom he will take over and be the Don. Michael knows that the shooters are already dead, killed by a traitor who wants to shut down any chance of being found out. When Tom finds it difficult to believe that men such as Neri and Rocco could be involved, Michael says that those around them are “businessmen,” and “their loyalty is based on that,” which means when money is involved, connections to people are secondary. However, Michael believes that loyalty can be found within the family, which turns out to be incorrect, but this miscalculation turns out to be due to Michael’s own actions. He says that their father said think like people around you think, and on that basis, “Anything is possible.” Given that suspicious belief system, which derives from existing in a selfish environment, one has to be constantly on guard against individual agendas.

The bodies of the two shooters are found, as Michael suspected. Michael goes inside to comfort his son, Anthony, but he really is denying the danger he puts his son in by diverting him from the dark side of Michael’s livelihood. He tells his son everything will be okay, which is not true, and asks him if he liked his party, which is a weird thing to say to a child after his father was almost shot to death. The boy says that there were a lot of presents from people he didn’t know, whom Michael calls “friends,” but who were really there out of obligation, to make money, or afraid not to attend. Michael tells him he has to leave the next day because of “business,” which is used a great deal here, as in the first film, to emphasize that the word encompasses all sorts of sins. Anthony wants to go with his father and says, “I could help you,” which is what a boy wants to do for his dad. But he must be denied, not only because of his age, but because Michael’s “business” precludes innocence in any form. Michael’s response of, “Someday you will,” is ominous, given how unscrupulous behavior is carried down through the generations of lawbreaking families.

There is a shift back in time to the adult Vito Corleone in New York City in 1917, where Vito comforts his young child, as did Michael. (The sepia coloring provides a sense that we are looking at a moving photograph album containing old pictures). Vito’s friend takes him to an Italian theater where his girlfriend has a role. The show portrays a longing for Italy and an Italian man’s attachment to his mother. The son has undermined his love for his “Mama” by coming to America, which symbolically means that the immigrant has lost maternal protection by leaving his native country to be an orphan in another land. The girlfriend’s character is considered a tramp by the man since she lured him away from his love for his mother. America symbolically is a dangerous seductress here. The show is a bit Oedipal, and does not present women as love interests in a positive light. Vito’s friend talks about how beautiful the actress is, but Vito believes in rules and proper conduct when it comes to the family, saying the woman may be beautiful, but, “for me, there’s only my wife and son.” The family is what is supposed to be most important, so the desire to separate the criminal activities from one’s home life is an old tradition.

Here is where Vito encounters the Mafia, or The Black Hand, in the form of Don Fanucci (Gastone Moschin), who stands up, blocking the girl from Vito’s friend’s view. He first calls the man a bum and tells him to sit. When Fanucci turns around, and Vito’s friend sees who it is, he is afraid and apologetic. When Fanucci walks out he passes the camera like a looming, dark presence, eclipsing others. Vito and his pal go around the back of the theater to see the actress, but Fanucci is threatening the owner of the theater and the actress, who is his daughter. Vito’s friend cowers, not willing to try to rescue the woman, and says they must leave. Vito holds his ground, seemingly not afraid, which foreshadows how he will be able to deal with the Mafia in the future. Vito says he doesn’t understand why Fanucci intimidates other Italians. But, his friend says that everybody pays Fanucci in the neighborhood for protection, supposedly since immigrants were discriminated against and did not always find equal treatment under the law. But, in the end, they paid so they wouldn’t be harmed by their so-called protectors.

Vito is preoccupied with what he saw at the theater, but will not discuss his feelings with his wife, which sets a pattern of keeping wives in the dark about their husband’s thoughts. As the couple eats, the young Clemenza (Bruno Kirby) calls into Vito’s window from another apartment. (The name "Clemenza" is an ironic one since it suggests "clemency"). He gives Vito a package to hide. Vito takes it, and finds guns inside. He does this behind the closed door of the bathroom, excluding his wife from what is going on. Later, when Clemenza asks if he peeked at the contents, Vito says he is not interested in things that don’t concern him. He is being deceptive, a tactic needed later when he is part of the criminal world. Also, he wants to show that he can be trusted with a secret. Vito does not seek the gangster life, but seems to be drawn into it by what occurs around him. When Clemenza acts like a friend of his is giving Vito a beautiful rug, it is obvious that they are breaking into a private home of a prosperous person to get the “gift.” The lesson learned here by Vito is that if playing by society’s rules gets one nowhere, laws must be broken in order to get ahead. Also, Clemenza says he knows how to repay a favor, which binds people to each other, and is a tenet in the criminal world, and, for that matter, in business and politics.

Vito works at the store owned by the father of the friend who took him to the theater. Fanucci visits the store where Vito works, and his friend says the Mafia man is now exploiting the citizens more, asking for twice as much in protection money. Fanucci gets Vito fired because he wants Vito’s boss to hire his nephew, which means that he must let Vito go. The owner tries to give Vito food, but Vito realizes that it is not the shop owner’s fault, and refuses the gift. He tells the man that he always treated Vito well, and he will remember that. Later, as is shown in the first film, the exchange of favors, but outside the confines of the law, is the foundation on which the gangster families became powerful.

As the story returns to the 1950’s, Michael goes to Florida to meet with Hyman Roth, who lives in a modest home. He tells people he lives on a pension, which again is a deceptive front. Roth, like the older Vito in the initial movie, looks like a harmless old man, but is quite the opposite. Roth has the TV on, watching sports. He says he likes baseball, which sounds mainstream American, but then he follows by saying he’s liked baseball “Ever since Arnold Rothstein fixed the World Series in 1919,” referring to the Black Sox scandal. His last name is Roth which resembles the famous gangster’s name, and shows how there is an underbelly of corruption that operates below the clean-cut surface of American competition. Roth says that he is glad Michael survived the attack, because good health is more important that success, money, and power. But, it is just a line, and Roth wants all of the above. Michael tells Roth that Pentangeli tried to have him killed for refusing to get rid of the Rosato brothers. He wants Roth to know nothing is more important than their plans for the future, which Roth agrees, and says they will be making history together. Michael asks if it is okay that Pentangeli is “a dead man.” Roth’s cold response is “He’s small potatoes.” The two compliment each other, with Michael telling Roth he is a “great man,” and that he can learn much from him. As we discover, this is all posturing, as these two are out to get each other.

The sunshine of Florida which pretends to reflect the warmth between friends is now exchanged for the snowy cold of New York, which accurately mirrors the harsh reality of what Michael knows about Roth. He waits for Pentangeli at his home, which is where Michael grew up, and to which he still feels attached. He says he was glad the house was not sold to “strangers,” so important are close relationships to Michael, but which, ironically, given his dealings, keep deteriorating. He shows his real anger when he yells how disgusted he is that he was attacked in his home, “In my bedroom where my wife sleeps! Where my children come to play.” It was a violation of keeping business and family life separate. He tells Pentangeli that he knows it was Roth who tried to kill him. He wants Pentangeli to settle his differences with the Rosato brothers instead of starting a war. He says his father taught him, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” It’s pretty sad when you must place your friends further from you than your enemies. He wants Roth to see that he helped him with the Rosato brothers, which will make him confident that their friendship is strong. Michael says he wants time to find out who is the traitor in his family that set him up. Michael practices the art of deception to discover deception, but all of this dissembling just leads to more lies.

The next scene shows us who betrayed Michael. Fredo gets a call in the middle of the night from Johnny Ola, Roth’s man. He says he needs more help, and wants to know if Pentangeli is really trying to make a deal with the Rosato brothers, or is it a double-cross. Fredo has obviously been feeding Ola information, and Fredo tells him that they involved him in something that he did not bargain for. Did Fredo not know that there would be an attempt on Michael’s life? If so, who opened the drapes in the bedroom? And who killed the two gunmen? Was it Fredo? It seems unlikely he would be up to that task. If he wasn’t the killer, then that leaves someone else in the Corleone camp. We are never given a complete explanation. Perhaps the audience is left with the idea that in this world one never can know all of the conspirators. When Fredo’s half-asleep wife asks who called, he says it was a “wrong number.” Boy, is that right.

Carmine Rosato (Carmine Caridi) meets with Pentangeli at a bar where they are supposed to close their deal over sharing the territories. But, the other Rosato brother, Tony (Danny Aiello, who will go on to do many memorable roles), tries to strangle Pentangeli, saying, “Michael Corleone says hello.” (Apparently, Aiello improvised his line, but it plays well in the story line). They drag Pentangeli to the back. A cop comes in wondering why the bar looks dark and closed, but people are in there. The Rosato brothers leave Pentangeli on the floor as a shootout takes place outside. Were the Rosato brothers not planning to kill Pentangeli, but just wanted to make him think Michael double-crossed him so he would become Michael’s enemy? Probably not, but since Pentangeli survived the attempt on his life, Roth later uses Pentangeli to try and bring down Michael.

We then move to a bordello operated by Fredo. Tom Hagen appears and goes into a room where Senator Geary is with the bloody body of a dead hooker. She is handcuffed to the bed. Geary remembers nothing, only that he woke up on the floor and says that he would never hurt the woman. Tom exchanges looks with Neri, Michael’s henchman. It is implied here that they set the senator up so as to manipulate him. The deceiving continues to multiply, along with the dead bodies. Tom says that it was lucky that Fredo runs the place and Tom can now clean up the incident. Tom says that Geary’s alibi is that he stayed as Michael’s guest at the Lake Tahoe residence. Tom informs Geary that the woman has no family, and it will be like “she never existed,” and he waves his hands, like a magician making someone disappear. He says to Geary, “All that remains is our friendship.” They preyed on the senator’s weakness for sex, made it look like they did him a huge favor, and allowed him to still appear to be wholesome. The Corleones will ask for payback concerning the gaming license, and whatever else the mobster family needs. As Michael told Geary, the politician and the gangster are part of the same hypocrisy.

Kay wants to take the children to New England, but Tom says she can’t leave the Lake Tahoe compound for her own safety. She views her confinement as a type of imprisonment. She has compromised her life to the point where because of her marriage to Michael, there is a threat to her life and that of her children no matter where she is. The quality of her life has become diminished because of her husband’s criminal activities.

Michael is in Havana to meet with Roth at a gathering hosted by the government of people investing in Cuba. Michael and Roth sit at a table with corporate heads, so the movie links criminals with corporations when it comes to trying to make a profit. They pass around a gift to the President of a solid gold telephone from United Telephone and Telegraph, a symbol of how businessmen try to imitate King Midas, who, of course didn’t turn out well in the story, since acquiring material wealth at the exclusion of all else is self-destructive.

Michael and Roth meet with other crime bosses as they gather to divide up the spoils (with the film using the obvious metaphor of cutting up a cake with the island of Cuba decorated on it) derived from having a government that they can control for their own profit. Roth implies that they are like any other corporations that make contracts with nations when he says, “This kind of government knows how to help business, to encourage it.” Cuba is contributing money along with the Teamsters Union and the crime bosses in a type of unholy alliance to turn Havana into a casino town with hopes of being more profitable than Las Vegas. Again we have the equating of illegal organizations with supposedly upstanding entities as they all work together for personal gain. Roth drives home the point when he says that they have what they always wanted, “real partnership with government.” But Michael questions the soundness of investing in Cuba since he saw a rebel explode a grenade, killing himself and policemen rather than being arrested. Roth is not happy about Michael casting doubt on their enterprise, and asks what that incident meant to Michael. He says the rebels are fighting the country’s government for a cause, not money, and are willing to make ultimate sacrifices that may allow them to win their fight. Roth tries to downplay the significance of the event, his greed blinding him from considering Michael’s keen insight.

Later in his hotel room, Roth points out to Michael that he didn’t want the fact that the Corleone upfront two-million-dollar investment not arriving yet reflected Michael’s worrying about the rebels. The old man keeps acting like he is ready to die, and he wants to ensure that he hands off his wealth to those he cares about. It is a pretense, since Roth is making himself appear more fragile than he is to hold off enemies who feel they can just wait for his death to rise to his place of power. Roth appeals to Michael’s desire to go legitimate by saying that there will be enough cash derived from their deal to fund someone who wants to run for the United States presidency. This suggestion is pretty scary, since it implies that a dangerous, unscrupulous person, by reason of wealth, can ascend to the highest office in the country. Roth says to Michael, “We’re bigger than U. S. Steel,” the story continually drawing similarities between criminal behavior and capitalism.

Fredo arrives with the money, saying he doesn’t know what the cash is for. Michael tells him about the investment in Cuba and that the two million dollars is a gift for the President of Cuba. Fredo says that Havana is a great town and asks if anybody they know is there. Michael says that Johnny Ola and Roth are there, but then Fredo lies when he says he doesn’t know them and never met the two men. They hang out together and Fredo says he wishes he would have married someone like Kay, instead of his erratic wife, revealing how he is envious of his brother. Fredo says he also wishes he could be more like their father. He notes that their mom said he was left on the doorstep by gypsies. These statements point to Fredo’s insecurities and how his family treated him as a failure. Michael tries to be positive, telling him he’s no gypsy. Fredo confesses that he was mad at Michael, probably for shutting him out of any real responsibility, and therefore not respecting him, which does coincide with what Michael told Tom about how he felt Fredo lacked intelligence and was weak. Fredo wishes he could go back into the past and “spend time” like they are doing now, so they could have been closer.

Michael tells Fredo that Senator Geary and other government officials will be flying in and he wants Fredo to show them a good time so as to pave the way to get government favors. He confides to Fredo that on the way back to his hotel from a New Year’s Eve party at the Presidential Palace (in a military vehicle, so he will feel safe, deception always employed in these schemes to throw the victim off), he will be assassinated. He says it’s Roth who is out to get him, and echoing his father in the first film about the hoodlum Barzini, Michael says, “It was Roth all along.” He says Roth has been lying about making Michael his successor, and really wants to live forever. So, he wants a powerful person like Michael out of the way so he can keep the profits to himself. Michael says that he has already made a plan to thwart the attack, and that “Hyman Roth will never see the New Year.”

Michael meets again with Roth, who knows Fredo came with the money. Michael wants time to think about investing, but he’s just stalling to carry out his assassination plot. He also wants to know who gave the order to kill Pentangeli, since he didn’t. The unspoken accusation is that Roth did. Roth counters with the story of Moe Green (who was in the first film) who was Roth’s partner a long time ago (and was modeled after gangster Bugsy Siegel, who helped create Las Vegas). Roth calls Green a great man of vision, and Roth loved him. But, he defied Michael and as Roth says, “somebody put a bullet through his eye.” Roth says he didn’t question who gave the order, “because it had nothing to do with business.” Here we have the acceptance of murder committed in the course of conducting business, so important is making a profit that a person’s life is secondary. As was noted in the initial movie, cruelty in the moneymaking world is “not personal,” the “person” part of that word being negated when business is transacted. Roth doesn’t give Michael any more time, saying they will be partners if the money is on the table when he wakes up from his nap; otherwise, their relationship will be terminated.

Fredo and Michael entertain some senators and a judge at a club, showing how gangsters and politicians intermingle well. Geary, not having learned from his overindulgence in his sexual appetites, tells Fredo he’s interested in hooking up with one of the local beautiful women. Johnny Ola is there and again Fredo acts like they have never met before. They go to a sex club, and Fredo has consumed a great deal of alcohol at this point. Geary asks Fredo where did he find this club, and Fredo lets slip, “Johnny Ola brought me here.” He goes on to say that Roth won’t go to these places, but Ola knows them well. Michael’s eyes shift toward his brother, realizing Fredo lied to him about knowing Roth’s henchman, and now sees his own brother as a traitor. This betrayal is especially painful coming from his immediate family, the place where he put all his trust. Now, Michael feels he can’t believe anyone who pretends to be his ally, suggesting that the lying that goes around comes around to harm the deceiver.

Later, Michael’s silent bodyguard/assassin (Amerigo Tot), dressed in black, looking like the angel of death, sneaks into Roth’s hotel room and kills Ola. But he must get out before murdering Roth since doctors are there preparing to send the old man to the hospital. The killer goes to the hospital, tries to smother Roth, but is killed by military guards. So, Michael has failed despite his intelligent plotting to stop his powerful nemesis.

Michael and Fredo are at the Presidential Place for the New Year’s celebration. But as Michael predicted, the rebels have the government on the run. Soldiers march in and the President announces his capitulation. The irony here is that Roth’s dream of welding together government and criminality into a type of capitalistic heaven is defeated by the communist forces of Fidel Castro. Michael aggressively hugs Fredo, telling him there is a plane waiting to take them to Miami, since Michael knew he would need to get away quickly if Roth was killed. He fiercely kisses Fredo on the lips, a combination of love and violence resulting from the realization of treachery. It's sort of a kiss of death. Michael tells his brother he knows that it was Fredo who is the traitor, and says, “You broke my heart.” Michael here acknowledges that his reliance on the love for his family is shattered. Fredo slinks off, afraid of his own sibling’s wrath. In the mobs of people trying to flee the revolutionary forces, Michael sees Fredo and tells him to come in his car to escape. But Fredo, who knows about his brother’s past acts of vengeance, runs off in fear. As Michael heads to the airport, the revolutionary forces yell “Fidel” which drives home the defeat of the “Gangsta’s Paradise” dream. (My apologies to Coolio for the reference).

Back in the states Michael meets with Tom, asking him what he bought Michael’s son for Christmas, so it will seem like he knew about the gift. Michael, the family man, has let his business take precedence over his connecting with his family on the most family-oriented holiday. But, of course, appearances must be maintained, so he will lie about previously knowing what was bought. Tom says that Roth used a private boat to get out of Cuba. He had a stroke, but recovered, the man seemingly having cat-like nine lives. He is in Miami. Fredo apparently made it to New York. Michael says he wants Tom to get in touch with his brother and tell him he knows Roth misled him and didn’t know they were plotting to kill Michael. What Michael says may be what he believes, but it really doesn’t matter to him. The fact that Fredo did something behind Michael’s back with a rival is enough to condemn him. Tom reluctantly tells Michael that Kay had a miscarriage, which strikes another blow against Michael’s need for a strong family foundation. He is angry that Tom can’t tell him if it would have been a boy, which is what he had hoped for to help carry on the manly Sicilian legacy.

There is then a shift to Vito, who is concerned about baby Fredo having pneumonia, indicating a time when the vitality of the family was paramount (no pun intended as to the studio that released the film). (The superimposing of images at the beginning of these time shifts into the past as Michael contemplates his situation could mean that he is actually thinking about his father’s early life, and is nostalgic about it. However, Coppola presented the two movies in sequential order for television, which would argue against these flashbacks just being in Michael’s mind). Fanucci, always wearing a white suit, presenting a fake benevolent impression since his intentions are always sinister, jumps onto Vito’s truck and informs him that he knows that he and his partners are stealing goods. He tells Vito that he needs to give Fanucci a cut of the action to be allowed to continue, since it is Fanucci’s neighborhood. If Vito doesn’t comply, the cops will be called to go after Vito, and he will be ruined. In another false appearance, instead of protecting his countrymen, Fanucci is actually exploiting them.

Vito tells his partners, Clemenza and the younger Tessio (John Aprea), about Fanucci’s demands. Clemenza says they have to pay since Fanucci works for a higher-level Mafia boss who has connections with the police. Thus, the illicit connections between gangsters and law enforcement officers go way back, since money has always been used as a tool for corruption. Before eating his pasta Clemenza makes the Catholic Sign of the Cross, another example of how these hoods compartmentalize their ethical religious beliefs and their criminal actions. Vito declares that it is unfair having the fruits of their labor taken away from them. He could be sounding like any worker in the capitalist system who slaves away as big shots reap the gains of his labor. Vito says that they should each only give him fifty dollars for Fanucci. Vito says, “I guarantee he’ll accept what I give him.” He wants them to not have knowledge of his lethal plan, to protect them, maybe, but also because they would try to stop him from carrying it out. In English, Vito says, “I’ll take care of everything,” which shows how he is on his way to becoming an Italian American Mafia boss. He tells them that they should remember that he did them a favor, and so, he will expect reciprocity, which is, as was noted before, how alliances are formed in any business situation.

The Godfather movies use religious ceremonies as contrasting ironic backdrops during which violence occurs. In the first film, the ending has the assassinations of the heads of the warring Mafia organizations occurring at the same time as the baptism of Michael’s godson. Here, there is a religious procession in the streets. Traditional music mixes with the “Star Spangled Banner,” demonstrating the allegiances to both the old and new countries. After giving Vito the small amount of money, Clemenza asks Vito if Fanucci will go for the reduced offer. Vito responds with what may be the first occurrence chronologically of a version of the famous line when he says, “I’ll make an offer he don’t refuse,” a statement that carries a lethal underside to its falsely benevolent surface.

Vito meets with Fanucci and gives him the money, which the man is not happy about. But Vito smiles, acts congenial, and says he’s a little short for right now. Fanucci admires Vito’s “guts,” and actually offers Vito the opportunity to work for him. He even tells Vito that there are “no hard feelings,” and says, “If I can help you, let me know.” Vito could let it go at that, and join up with Fanucci, but he most likely feels he must honor his partnership with Clemenza and Tessio, and he no longer wants to be somebody’s puppet. Also, Fanucci still expects the rest of his payment.

Fanucci struts around the neighborhood like he owns it, accepting greetings from the intimidated inhabitants. He walks in the opposite direction of the religious pageant, which could suggest that his presence is demonic. He passes by a marionette show which depicts violence and which symbolizes how those in power manipulate others. But, Fanucci is carrying one of those ominous oranges, an indication that death is imminent. The religious statue that men carry through the streets has lots of donated money attached to it. The strange image combining the worship of the spiritual and the material at the same time is an appropriate image that reflects the attitudes of these Catholic gangsters. Vito stalks Fanucci from the rooftops, symbolically showing how he places himself above the laws of man and God. Vito has hidden a gun, wrapped in a towel, a disguise masking its lethal intent, similar to how Vito presented himself in his meeting with Fanucci. The hidden gun ties in with the stashed weapon that Vito's son, Michael, will use in the original film. Like father, like son. Vito waits outside Fanucci’s apartment and then shoots him as fireworks go off, drowning out the shots. As has been noted, the film is loaded with acts of deception. Even after the man is dead, Vito brutally desecrates the body by shooting Fanucci through the mouth to stress that who killed this scary man must be feared even more. After performing this homicidal act, which criminals would excuse as necessary to conduct “business,” Vito then assumes his other persona as a caring family man, telling the infant Michael, “your father loves you very much.” The family is waving American flags, another image joining domestic love with patriotism, but tinged with violence after what Vito has done.

In Michael’s adult world, there is a U. S. Senate investigation into organized crime where the senators question mobster Willi Cicci. The committee chairman asks if he is a member of the Corleone crime syndicate, but Cicci corrects the senator, saying he belonged to the “family.” His response shows that even though mobsters tried to keep their private family separate from their criminal affairs, they still built their “business” on a family model, expecting obedience to rules and the maintenance of loyalty. But, as Michael said earlier, money can’t buy true fidelity. Cicci admits that he was an assassin for the Corleone family, but says he never received a kill order from Michael personally. In an inappropriate manner, Cicci jokingly picks up on Senator Geary’s phrase by saying that there were a number of “buffers” between him and Michael. Cicci was Pentangeli’s associate, and since the Rosato brothers implied that Michael ordered Pentangeli’s death, Cicci may be testifying to get back at Michael.

Back at the family home in Lake Tahoe, Michael looks dejected and doesn’t let Kay know he is home. He is not even there to comfort her after the supposed miscarriage, almost as if he blames her for depriving him of another son, which turns out, in fact, to be the case. Later, Michael goes to his mother asking her if being strong to protect the family can cause one to lose it. He is talking metaphorically, weighing whether his actions have distanced himself from the family members, and exposed them to harmful forces. She says that he can’t lose his family, but she is being literal. He says times are changing and he means for the worse, moving away from the time when his father gained prominence.

The story moves, appropriately, to Vito’s time, before the changes that Michael bemoans. Vito is now known in the neighborhood as a man of power, and he appreciates others showing him respect. So, when a man offers him free fruit, he is willing to grant a favor in return for the act of goodwill. Vito’s wife wants her husband to help a neighbor, Signora Colombo (Saveria Mazzola), who was evicted by her landlord for keeping a dog that her son loves, but that neighbors complained about. The landlord is Signor Roberto (Leopoldo Trieste), known as a slumlord, and Vito confronts the man very politely, asking him to reconsider his actions. Vito shows his generosity by willing to pay the rent six months in advance. Roberto is belligerent, and dismisses Vito’s request to show compassion for a woman who is poor and has no family to help her. Vito tells Roberto to ask around about him, and he will find that Vito knows how to return a favor. Once the landlord discovers that Vito has mob connections, he comes to Vito looking worried and ready to apologize. The landlord now calls him Don Vito, showing how Vito has replaced Fanucci as the new, more compassionate crime boss of the neighborhood. After a few stern, wordless looks from Vito, Roberto not only allows Signora Colombo to stay with her dog, but agrees to reduce the rent substantially. He is afraid to stay any longer and comically has trouble opening the door to leave (the lock was rigged without the actor knowing about it, and he improvises wonderfully). Such is the power that fear can generate, but, when used nobly, as here, it can be a force for justice when legitimate channels are unresponsive to the pleas of the disadvantaged. Vito then raises the sign on his imports store, the legitimate front for his illegitimate business operations.

Back at the Senate hearings, Michael now testifies. Geary utters platitudes about his Italian American constituency, and makes the statement about how some of his “best friends are Italian American.” It has become a joke that when a person announces that members of an ethnic group are among his friends, those “friends” probably do not exist. Geary then starts to figuratively distance himself from Michael and the Mafia, saying that there should be no defaming of all Italian Americans because of “a few rotten apples,” Michael being one of the “rotten” ones apparently. Then he departs the committee to work on another one, literally disconnecting himself from the people who did him favors, but who now are politically dangerous to be associated with. Michael perjures himself, denying his mobster associations. Kay is there and has to publicly hear her husband accused of the murders he committed or ordered in the first story. Michael reads a statement to clear his “family name,” hoping to have his children live their lives “without a blemish on their name and background.” We again have Michael trying to accomplish the impossible task of trying to keep his family untainted by the poison of his unlawful life, and can only attempt to do so by being even more dishonest by pretending to be a law-abiding citizen.

The Senate committee chairperson announces at the end of the session that there will be a witness to corroborate the accusations against Michael. The next scene is a good segue since it shows Pentangeli in the custody of U. S. Marshalls. He has made a deal to inform on Michael, and lives in a comfortable, protected residence on an army base. But, he is dejected, probably because he has forfeited his freedom, feels guilty about betraying a fellow criminal, and feels that he will be marked for death after he testifies.

Michael’s people have found out that Pentangeli is still alive, and Roth was the one who engineered the attempt on Pentangeli’s life. Fredo is now at the Tahoe home, and Michael talks to him to see if he can learn anything from him. Fredo looks defeated as he appears collapsed in a chair. He says he didn’t know much about Roth. He confirms that Roth made it look like Michael was Pentangeli’s enemy. Fredo becomes angry when Michael says he always took care of him. He says he was the older brother and Michael disrespected him, giving him menial jobs. Fredo says that Johnny Ola had approached him and said if Fredo could make the deal between Roth and Michael go quicker there would be “something in it” for Fredo. Because Michael’s harsh business ways belittled his brother, Fredo sought empowerment from a man who turned out to be Michael’s enemy. Fredo reveals the corruption in the U. S. Government itself, because the Senate lawyer is Roth’s man. Michael makes no attempt to understand his brother’s pain. He tells him he is nothing to him now, not a brother or a friend. He tells him “I don’t want to know you, or what you do.” He doesn’t want him in his house and when Fredo visits their mother, he wants notice so Michael doesn’t have to be there to see him. Secretly, he tells his henchman Neri that he doesn’t want anything to happen to Fredo while their mother is still alive. Michael may want to spare his mother that grief, but he conveys that he will eventually order the execution of his brother.

At the Senate hearings, Pentangeli sees that Michael has brought his brother, Vincenzo Pentangeli (Salvatore Po), who, according to what Tom tells the senators, came at his own expense from Sicily to be there for his brother. Pentangeli’s subsequent testimony contradicts his sworn affidavit. He says he just made up stuff about the Corleones to make a deal. He admits he only was in the olive oil business with them. It is not made clear whether the brother’s presence was meant to convince Pentangeli that Michael was not his enemy, or whether Vincenzo would be harmed if Pentangeli testified against Michael. In any event, without his testimony, Michael is off the hook.

Kay tells Michael she and the children are leaving him. She no longer wants anything to do with him and his business. His power has corrupted him and he ruptures the wall that he erected to separate his criminal behavior from how he acts with his family. He now treats his wife the same way he does those in his world of crime. He orders her around, and will not tolerate opposition. She sadly admits that she feels no love for him at all. He says that he will change and that they will have another child. To make sure that he will want nothing to do with her, she tells him the truth about having an abortion, not a miscarriage. She says their marriage is an abortion, “Something that’s unholy and evil,” the opposite of what Michael’s religion teaches, and whose laws he only pretends to follow. She says that she didn’t want to bring another one of his sons into his demonic world. Her actions strike at the very core of Michael’s reverence for family and children, and his desire to have descendants carry on the Corleone legacy. It adds to his feeling that he is being betrayed on all fronts, and that he no longer can trust anyone, which is the risk of choosing the life he leads. He responds by striking Kay. Just like he told his brother, he no longer wants to see her. As he feared when he spoke to his mother, he is losing his family.

There is a return to Vito’s time, as he takes a trip to Sicily with his wife and children to visit relatives, which contrasts with Michael’s deteriorating family situation. But, Vito also has darker motives. He goes to the house of Don Ciccio, the man who murdered his family. Vito, as he did with Fanucci, throws his enemy off guard by pretending to be a respectful and congenial businessman, even kissing Ciccio’s hand, in the manner one greets a gangster boss. When the old man asks his father’s name he tells him it was Antonio Andolini. And then, Vito cuts him, killing the man who ordered the deaths of his father, mother, and brother. Ciccio was right to fear an older Vito. The Sicilians always follow through with their vendettas, so important is their commitment to avenge wrongs, and in so doing, perpetuating the state of violence.

Michael’s mother has now passed away. Fredo cries at the wake held at the Tahoe estate, and is comforted by his sister, Connie. Tom tells Fredo that Michael will not see him even on this day of grief when family members usually comfort each other. This fact shows how emotionally hardened Michael has become, his isolation deepened with the loss of his mother. Michael has his children there, and he told Kay that he would use all of his power so she would not take them. He has succeeded in his threat, but at what cost to their well-being. Connie tells Michael she would like to stay close to home now. She admits that she hated him, and acted in self-destructive ways so she could hurt him. But, now she realizes that he was just being strong, like their father. She says she forgives him, but hopes that he can forgive Fredo. She says he needs her now, and wants to take care of him. She is right, since she is the one family member who actually wants to be closer to Michael. However, they do not embrace, but instead she kisses his hand, which is more the act of a Mafia subordinate than that of a sister, stressing the impossibility of separating the worlds of criminality and family. This point is further made when Michael goes to Fredo and embraces him, as a brother should. But it is a false show of affection, as Michael gives Neri a cold look, reminding his henchman what Michael said about Fredo’s fate after Michael’s mother died.

Michael then plots the death of Roth, who has tried and failed to be allowed to live in several countries. His passport is only valid for a return to the United States, and he will be arriving in Miami. Tom sees no point in going after the man, since he is supposed to be terminally ill. Michael does not buy that the man’s death is imminent. Tom says it’s impossible to get at him, since Roth will be met at the airport by the IRS, Customs, and the FBI. Michael (while significantly eating one of those ominous oranges) says it’s not impossible to kill Roth. Michael’s dark, cynical view is that if it’s one thing that history has taught us, it’s that “you can kill anyone.” Tom says that Roth and the Rosato brothers are “on the run,” and he asks if it’s worth going after them. Tom says that Michael has won, and asks him, “Do you want to wipe everybody out?” Michael replies that he just wants to get rid of his enemies, but violence and greed seem to create new ones seeking revenge or power. Michael now even doubts Tom’s loyalty, wondering if he will leave to pursue an offer to be a vice president of a casino in Las Vegas. Tom says he turned down the offer, but just because he didn’t mention the job possibility, in Michael’s paranoid mind, it causes him to suspect Tom. Michael says that if Tom isn’t going along with the program, Tom can take his wife, family, and his mistress and move them all to Vegas. Tom is very hurt by the way Michael is now treating him, threatening exile from the family he has loyally served, especially after Michael earlier on told Tom he was the only person he could trust. 

Fredo is very sweet with his nephew, Anthony. Near the lake, he says that he used to go fishing with his father and brothers, and he caught a fish every time he said a Hail Mary prayer. His nostalgia, mixed with spirituality, speaks of a close family time that no longer exists. Fredo’s feeling of safety and love is really a cruel distraction, perpetrated by Michael, to prevent Fredo from seeing what is to come. Tom meets with Pentangeli and assures him that his brother has returned home safely. They, like Fredo, talk of times past, even going back to the ancient Roman period, which the Mafia modeled themselves after, using the same military terms, such as “regimes,” “capos,” and “soldiers.” Pentangeli compares the Corleone family to the rule of the Roman Empire, as he tries to elevate criminality to a level of greatness. During those times, men who failed to overthrow the Emperor were allowed to take their lives by slitting their veins in a bath, knowing that their families would be taken care of. This practice seems civilized to Pentangeli, and he takes comfort from the talk with Tom, which has communicated to Pentangeli what he should now do. Tom translates his name, calling him, “Frankie Five-Angels,” adding an ironic religious feel to their conversation that offers suicide as a way to seal the deal to protect one’s loved ones.

Kay is visiting with the children, but Connie warns her to leave soon since Michael is approaching, and if she doesn’t go she will face his anger. She makes it to the back door, as she is reduced to having to sneak about to see her son and daughter. She pleads for their son to kiss him before she goes. She had hinted earlier that Anthony was damaged by the terrible events that the family experienced. Michael appears and closes the door on Kay repeating what happened at the end of the first film, symbolizing how she has been shut off from the love and emotional connection she once hoped for.

Fredo is preparing to take Anthony fishing, but Connie says that the boy will be going to Reno with his father. This is another deception in order to isolate Fredo so he can be killed by Neri in the boat. It is heartbreaking to hear Fredo tell his nephew that they will go fishing together the next day, since there will be no tomorrow for Fredo. The movie reaches its climax like the first one, with several deaths. Roth is shot at the airport, and Pentangeli commits suicide. We see autumn leaves blow across the lawn, signifying the end of life. Fredo is killed on the lake, the murder following his reciting the Hail Mary prayer, containing words that, appropriately, make a plea to pray for sinners, and there are many of them here.

Michael sits alone in a dark room at the house. There is a flashback, this time probably a memory of Michael’s, to when the whole family was together around a dinner table, a fitting place for Italians to gather. Michael, along with his brothers, Fredo, Sonny (James Caan), and Tom, as well as Connie and her future husband, Carlo (Gianni Russo), are there, as well as Vito’s associate, the older Tessio (Abe Vigoda). It is right around the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, and Sonny says that those enlisting to fight are “saps,” because they “risk their lives for strangers.” Michael says that is what their father would say. Sonny, like Vito, puts the family even above country, so tribal is the feeling perpetuated through the generations of Italian American mobsters. Sonny says one’s countrymen “are not your blood.” At this time, in contrast to what he later believes, Michael says he doesn’t feel that way. He announces that he has quit college and enlisted. Sonny is very angry, mostly because he fears losing his brother pointlessly as a soldier fighting a war that he sees as having nothing to do with the family. Tom says that their father had to “pull a lot of strings” to get Michael his deferment (the “strings” reference fits the marketing image for these films, with the crime boss being the puppet master who manipulates others). Tom says that he and their dad talked about Michael’s future, which Michael finds strange, since he wasn’t consulted about his own life. He says he has his own plans, but as we know, those plans never take place. Michael’s independence here seems at odds with his future immersing of himself in all things tied to his family.

Michael is left alone at the table as the rest go to greet their father on his birthday. Then there is a shot of Vito holding Michael waving goodbye on the train in Sicily. The final shot is of a solitary Michael at Lake Tahoe. The cumulative effect is a vision of a lonely man bereft of the family he treasured due to a combination of the life he inherited and the path he chose to follow.

The next film is The Night of the Hunter.