Monday, May 12, 2014

The Godfather

Christopher Garcia     
Out of all the movies that we watched I found the godfather to be one of my favorites. Before we watched the movie we talked briefly about it. The godfather was created by Frances Ford Coppola in 1972 as well as went to school with James Caane(Sonny). The godfather was nominated for 11 awards and won three including: best picture, best actor, and best adapted screenplay. I found the themes of the godfather particularly interesting. In the godfather the themes are Anti-Hero where the bad guys are really good guys. We root for them despite that they are criminals and murderers. With this violence/Murder is intertwined and in this film saw 23 on screen deaths.

The article that I found really critically analyzed the movie and talks about the theme of family primarily. In the Godfather the family value differences between the families head (Don), future head, gang members, daughters; sons are all shown and given certain respects. Furthermore, In the movie there were weddings, baptisms, and over 50 scenes with food in it. Food and family are huge aspects in what makes a family a family. There was a scene were sonny says “No business at the table”, the dinner table is given a respect due to the family values that it represents, We must also remember that the story is told from within the family as opposed to society examining the mafia from the outside looking in.  

The article though it talks a lot about family also touches on the view of understanding and sympathizing with those that are supposed to be bad. During the movie we see not a single actual civilian victim of organized crime. Or in short we don’t actually see acts of crimes beside death attempts being made. You did not see any women trapped into prostitution, drugs being sold, deals with cash exchange for goods taking place, lives wrecked by gambling, victims of theft, fraud or protection rackets. Even in terms of people being bought out though it is said and beside the one officer there were not many views of corruption taking place.


The godfather was one of the highest grossing films of all time; in 1972 it grossed $82 million dollars, a total of $134 Million in the USA and a total of $244 Million in the world. When I was watching the movie which I hadn't seen in a long time I found specific dialogues to really catch my attention. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”, “It’s a Sicilian message, Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes”, and “This one time, Kate, I’ll let you ask me about my business”. These scenes that I heard this really brought me back to the time when I first watched this movie. Furthermore, out of all the scenes in the godfather the one scene that I felt the most dread was when mike’s Sicilian wife was blown up in the car. That scene made me feel sorrowful because it marked the end of his true freedom and happiness. Instead he is thrown into the family business once again and this time there is no hiding. I saw this as a symbolic representation of what the mafia truly was in terms of trust, love, and death.

Article: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-godfather-1972

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Name:#___chris garcia______________________________Date:#_________5/11/14___________________##

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