This weekend, my wife Namita borrowed The Godfather on Blu-ray from our local library. I remember attempting to watch this years ago, but I fell asleep during my viewing. I knew everyone found this to be an amazing film, but I couldn’t match that to falling asleep. At the time, I remember finding it slightly confusing, slow-paced, and I couldn’t get into it. I’m glad we attempted it a second time, albeit a decade later, because we thought it was a very good film. Now that I was able to stay awake, I understood the film, the characters, and the overall storyline.
In case you haven’t seen it yet either, here’s my understanding. The film takes place in the late 1940’s / 1950’s, sometime after American GIs have returned from the war. The film tells the story of the Corleone family, a major NY Italian mob organized crime family. You watch some of the inner workings of the family (run by patriarch Vito Don Corleone), and their interactions with the other mob families. The cast is a veritable Who’s Who of major actors and actresses:
- Marlon Brando
- Al Pacino (Al Pacino!?!)
- James Caan
- Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton
- Abe Vigoda
When one of the other families wants to break into drug distribution (e.g. meth, cocaine, heroin), the families disagree. While the disagreement doesn’t seem like a big deal at first, we see a war between the other families. I enjoyed seeing a story about the mob from this time period, the phenomenal acting, the emotions, and the storyline kept us engaged. No wonder it won the 1973 Academy Award for Best Picture
The Godfather (1972)
