Well, I finally got around to seeing The Godfather for the first time in it’s entirety. What an epic masterpiece this film was – that’s probably not news to anyone, I suppose. Every main character gave an incredible performance, from Al Pacino’s descent from a straight-edged student into the murky underworld to James Caan’s brilliant portrayal of Sonny, the maniacal brute. There was just too much brilliance to soak up. Brando, of course, was just phenomenal. His presence in the movie was just monstrous, but two scenes stand out for me:
a) when his son Sonny is killed, there’s a scene just after that when he asks for Tom (maybe the most underrated performance played by Robert Duvall) to put together a meeting of all the top family leaders and says quietly, “this war ends here.” The subsequent scene showing that meeting of all the leaders is one of the best movie scenes I’ve seen in quite some time.
b) Towards the end, Brando, more or less retired, old, and reduced to a consultant, is frolicking in the backyard with his grandchild – an absolutly brilliant way to finish up Brando’s role – a 180 degree turn.
I could go on and on, but I won’t. I don’t know why it took me so long to finally see it, though. Next up – Part II. Hopefully soon.
I feel like I should comment about Trent Lott. As you may know by now, he made some comments a couple of weeks back that our country would have been better off if Strom Thurmond was elected president in 1948, running on a segregation ticket. Obviously this was an utterly stupid thing to say. And Lott’s record does have insinuations of racism – no doubting that. But I find it hard to believe that Lott made these comments with pure hatred or racism in mind. I mean, I want to assume he isn’t stupid and would say such a thing in public like that with racism in mind. My gut feeling is that he was just trying to pay tribute to a retiring friend and was just too dumb to realize what he was saying, or didn’t run the talk by any of his PR people. Either way, I hope they boot his ass out – he deserves it. Now, what angers me a little bit is people tying in George Bush as a racist. Warmonger? Perhaps. Stupid? Maybe. Articulate – most certainly not! But racist? I just don’t buy that. He had a hand in naming Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell to very high positions in our government. I don’t think the guy is racist. But I am looking forward to when he’s NOT president anymore, that’s for sure.