The Godfather is just about as great as a movie’s ever gonna be. The 1972 Best Picture Oscar winner is a great pulp drama co-authored for the screen by Coppola and novelist Mario Puzo (the script also won an Oscar). And all the while, we think we’re watching a Mafia crime story but we’re actually watching one of the great American family melodramas. The casting is nothing to sneeze at either with Marlon Brando delivering one of the signature performances of his career (he, too, won an Oscar) and the very young Al Pacino seizing his screen destiny. So many great roles and characters in this movie and then there’s that eternally haunting Nino Rota score. As for the storytellng, The Godfather is an intricately constructed gem that simultaneously kicks ass. As for Gordon Willis’ celebrated cinematography, let me just say that if you’ve only seen this dark atmospheric stuff on TV, you owe yourself the revelation of seeing it in a theatre. It’s an offer you can’t refuse.
This article appears in March 28 • 1997 (Cover).
