The core of Coppola's classics doesn't alter with time, but these works reveal their secrets to different generations in contrasting ways. When I watched The Godfather in a packed house during its 25th anniversary revival 11 years ago, I was struck by how viewers in the go-go 1990s treated ominous lines as if they were comic words to live by. And why not? "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" might have been the motto of Wall Street from the late '80s until three weeks ago. I wonder how dialogue like that will play in this more sober time.
Some scenes in Part II, such as American industrialists and mob bosses meeting in Havana to divvy up Batista's Cuba, may prove to be more relevant than ever. In any case, those who love these movies will continue to make them relevant, in big ways and small. Just last Wednesday on Hardball, Chris Matthews headlined a story on Congress' attempt to carve out an economic bailout with the words, "going to the mattresses" - the phrase The Godfather made famous as a synonym for readying a mob war.
John Huston once declared that if you smack any one scene from a great script with a mallet, all the themes of the entire movie should start reverberating. That's why, even when these movies deal with "business," they're still all about family. Coppola pits the supposed sanctity and tenderness of the Corleone household against the cool impersonality of "the world." At home, attention must be paid to everyone from hotheaded Sonny (James Caan) and thoughtful Michael (Al Pacino) to weak, clownish Fredo (John Cazale) and the sometimes-hysterical Connie (Talia Shire). But when Michael takes over from Don Vito (Marlon Brando), outside pressures fray clannish bonds. Variations on "this isn't personal, it's just business" - the mobsters' standing excuse for murder - grow more terrifying as the films go on. Coppola derives excruciating tension and exhilarating epiphanies from the increasing confusion of business and family values.
Even the exacting Gordon Willis, the peerless cinematographer who fought tooth and nail with director and co-writer Coppola during the first film, told me with a crusty chuckle last week, "It's a very arresting piece of material. If you start watching I or II, it's hard to stop or to resist getting involved." The restoration wizard who ensured that audiences could see these films today as if for the first time is Robert A. Harris, the architect of (among others) the Lawrence of Arabia reconstruction. Indeed, with the help of Willis and Coppola and a squad of film and digital experts, Harris has engineered prints that are even more striking than those we saw in the premiere engagements.
