The Godfather Part 2: Review, Synopsis, Cast, Critics

One of the most successful sequels in American film history, The Godfather, Part II, was, for many, at least as good as its predecessor. Like the original Godfather, Part II won the Academy Award for best picture and best adapted screenplay. It also won four other Oscars, including best director to Coppola and best supporting actor to Robert De Niro; it was nominated in five more categories. Part II includes two different narrative segments. The principal segment is a direct sequel to the original Godfather, following the efforts of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) to manage and extend the increasingly "legitimate" business empire of the Corleone family. The secondary segment is a prequel to the original, detailing the early years of Don Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) as he comes to America and gradually establishes himself in organized crime. This secondary segment adds an air of historical authenticity to the entire Godfather sequence, while also enhancing its narration of the growth of the Corleone family within the context of the growth of American capitalism as a whole.

In the secondary segment, young Vito is orphaned in Sicily when both parents are killed by Don Ciccio, a local Mafia lord. He comes alone to America in 1901 as a nine-year-old boy, makes his way through Ellis Island, and somehow manages to survive to adulthood, when he struggles to make a life for himself and his family in an ethnic Italian neighborhood of New York. Eventually, however, he runs afoul of Don Fanucci, the local Mafia chief, eventually eliminating Fanucci and taking his place. Vito's courage and resourcefulness help him to establish himself as a growing power in organized crime. Later, he returns to Sicily and kills Don Ciccio as well, before to returning to America to build the empire that exists at the beginning of the original Godfather.

In the principal narrative segment, Michael puts more and more of the family resources into legal operations in the hotels of Las Vegas and Reno, though he is willing to employ bribery, intimidation, and a number of other techniques when necessary to further the success of those operations. He also becomes involved in a complex battle against his enemies in the underworld, while facing the continual deterioration of his onceclose family. Much of the film is essentially a suspense-thriller in which Michael outwits and defeats his enemies, while also evading the attempts of a Senate committee to implicate him in its investigations of organized crime. He succeeds in these efforts, eventually eliminating the aged Hyman Roth ( Lee Strasberg), last of the old dons of his father's generation, and clearing the way for his new, more modern techniques of operation. He does not, however, succeed in restoring the former closeness of the family. As the film draws to a close, he is estranged from his wife Kay ( Diane Keaton) and has ordered the death of his older brother, Fredo ( John Cazale), whom he has discovered to be in league with Roth. Michael himself grows increasingly suspicious and seems to trust no one, even his loyal lawyer and stepbrother, Tom Hagen ( Robert Duvall). In the final scene of this segment, Michael sits alone, lost in thought and alienated from everyone around him. The film then closes with a contrasting scene from 1941, as Don Vito celebrates his birthday, with all of his children and other family members together to share the moment.

The Godfather, Part II, is significantly enhanced by one sequence in the principal narrative segment, in which Michael and Roth go to Cuba to discuss the expansion of their operations on the island. They meet with officials of Batista's government, which they find extremely receptive to their efforts and to the efforts of the other American businessmen (representing a variety of large, "legitimate" corporations) who attend the same meeting, emphasizing not only the American neocolonial exploitation of Cuba, but also the similarity between the operations of organized crime and ordinary American capitalism. These plans go awry, however, as Castro's rebels march into Havana, forcing both Batista and the Americans to flee. Fredric Jameson describes this event as "the climactic end moment of the historical development" of the film, "when American business, and with it American imperialism, meet that supreme ultimate obstacle to their internal dynamism and structurally necessary expansion which is the Cuban Revolution" (34). Part II thus proposes, as a potential alternative to the alienating capitalist modernization represented by Michael Corleone, not only the older system of social relations represented by his father, but the newer system represented by socialism. The second part of the Godfather sequence is thus far stronger in its political content than is the first, though both of these parts can easily be read as mere "gangster" films, leaving audiences the option of ignoring the political content altogether.

Bibliography : Film and the American Left: A Research Guide, Biskind (Easy Riders); Biskind (Godfather Companion); Clarens; Cowie (Coppola); Cowie (Godfather Book); Ferraro; Jameson (Signatures); Lebo; Papke; Robert Ray.

ACTORS:

Al Pacino

John Wayne

Johnny Depp

Leonardo DiCaprio

Orlando Bloom

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