Film

Those who regularly cite Godfather Part II as every bit the equal of the first movie have to overlook the fact that, in truth, the second film’s structure doesn’t make all that much sense. The rise of young Don Vito doesn’t run parallel to Michael’s Tahoe and Cuba adventures in any critical way; “it’s just additional data, like footnotes,” Vincent Canby carped in his infamous New York Times pan.

Indeed, the connections are more intuitive, an insinuating web that illustrates how defensive infighting on the Lower East Side could grow—a generation later—to front-row seats at the fall of Batista and dealings with the world’s most unassuming gangster (Strasberg’s Hyman Roth, inspired by Meyer Lansky). Fredo’s final fishing trip is, in its way, a pathetic echo of Vito’s vengeance killing of the deaf Don Ciccio in Sicily.

It’s a movie that never fails to make the viewer freeze the remote—and Gordon Willis’s vaunted chiaroscuro should look even lovelier on the big screen. My favorite moment is Roth’s subtle revenge for the murder of Moe Greene (“This…is…the business…we have chosen!”), but it’s a close call between that and Kay’s cry of “It was an abortion. An abortion, Michael!” and Pacino’s attendant death glare. From start to finish, this is filmmaking at its most immortal.