The Godfather: Part II | Eastern North Carolina Now

    
“It’s Not Personal, Sonny. It’s Strictly Business”

    This is the line Al Pacino, as Michael, delivered to his oldest brother, Santino Corleone, and Tom Haden in the “The Godfather” when Don Vito lay near death and Michael, because of his father’s demise, was being drawn deeper into the family business. The “It’s not personal. Its business” line was first spoken by Don Vito when a terrible deed was about to b e done to preserve the viability of the crime family. Michael, who was groomed for another life outside of the family business, made a pivotal life choice to protect his father and his family, and at that inextricable moment, it was the proper time to use that same explanation. Michael, like Don Vito, was a natural leader. He did what he thought was best at each moment, and eventually he became a very able Godfather. It would become the job that he could consummately handle. It was the job that would rob him of his family, and possibly, his salvation.

    “The Godfather: Part II examines, in its 200 minutes of runtime, the continued story of the Corleone Family, and especially Michael, as it moves its center of operations to Lake Tahoe, Nevada and seeks to lay the groundwork to become a legitimate business, and the beginning of Vito Andolini from Corleone, Sicily.

    By successfully using a plethora of flashbacks, Director Francis Ford Cappola takes us back into the life of young Vito: first to late 19th Century Sicily to witness the murder of his father, Antonio, and his brother; then to Ellis Island as he is smuggled from Sicily to New York; next when Vito becomes, a young man, portrayed by Robert De Niro, with a family; and eventually when young Vito becomes the enterprising young Don of the neighborhood.

    Before the multitude of flashbacks, the film begins with the very elaborate party, along the shores of Lake Tahoe, celebrating the catholic confirmation of Michael's son, Anthony Corleone. Similar to the wedding party in the first "Godfather," the party is grand and opulent. The party is a confluence of family and the many people, who visit the Don to wish his family well of to have dealings with business side of the family.

    There is a big band by the lake, but curiously, they are not playing a variety of Italian tunes mixed in with their big band sound, like the wedding party at the New Jersey compound in the first “Godfather.” One senses a desire within Michael to slowly withdraw from the Sicilian connection. He had promised his wife Kay, Diane Keaton, in the first "Godfather."

    Later in the second "Godfather," Kay reflected to Michael, "It made me think of what you once told me: In five years the Corleone family will be completely legitimate. That was seven years ago."

    Michael reflects on decisions that must be made for the good of the family - the family that his father built.

    Try as he so diligently did, Michael could not pull away from La Cosa Nostra. Michael had put down roots into the gaming industry in Nevada, and he was moving into Cuba as a partner of Hyman Roth (loosely based on the real Jewish Mobster Meyer Lansky), played in measured tones by Lee Strasberg, to provide the destination resort hotels and casinos for rich American tourists.

    Fulgencio Batista was the dictator of Cuba up until being overthrown by guerillas loyal to Fidel Castro in 1959. Before that eventful moment of ouster and exile, the associates of Hyman Roth were assured of the Dictator’s paid protection. Just like on the streets of New York, just on a much larger scale.

    Film maker Coppola was just as successful in staging the period to be shot perfectly, which is his talent and his art, as he did in “The Godfather.” The warmer tones of the late 1940’s were replaced by the shinier, more opulent colors symbolic of the late 1950’s. This was Michael’s time to take his family in the right and proper direction toward legitimacy: He just didn’t count on Hyman Roth trying to kill him or his simple brother Fredo inadvertently helping Roth and his devious wise guy Johnny Ola.
    And with a kiss from Michael, "I knew it was you ... Fredo. You broke my heart."
    Not unlike “The Godfather,” Mario Puzo’s classic screenplay, which he reprised this variation of the first, “The Godfather: Part II” is very smart and is more of a prequel than a sequel as it round off the rough edges and ties up any loose ends so that both films have the proper foundation so they might both maintain the lofty status of classic.
    Vito, the young family man, played by Robert De Niro, returns to his brood after his day making his presence known in the Italian and Sicilian immigrant community.
    The prequel scenes of this classic explains copiously history of how the Don came to his place of power at the head of the Corleone Crime Syndicate, and it revealed his devotion to those who knew him as father and godfather. Robert De Niro was excellent as Young Vito, and between he and Al Pacino as Michael, and Robert Duvall as Family Consigliore Tom Hagen, we are witness to one of the best acted films of the 20th Century.

    "The Godfather: Part II" does not project the magic that makes a film as perfect as can be made as was the “The Godfather,” but as the prequel / sequel of the original, it is a pure classic, and as I am not too proud to be redundant, it enhances the former, and the film takes plenty of bows in its own right. Director Coppola made a great film by giving us a glimpse of a tough world, dominated by family, in a saga written in blood. Michael managed that tough world by keeping it "strictly business, not personal." Poor Fredo. Poor Kay. Poor Michael, his salvation in jeopardy.

    Rated R. Released in theaters in 1974.

    This article is provided courtesy of our sister site: Better Angels Now.