#2 THE GODFATHER (1972)

 "Look how they massacred my boy..."
--- Don Vito Corleone


   The dominant love theme in The Godfather is between the members of the Corleone family, not between the couples in the story.  Women are not only secondary to the male characters but more importantly, they are insignificant to the greater meaning of the film.  Instead, the love between the three brothers and the patriarch Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is the catalyst for most of the crimes committed and the actions taken against those who try to mess with the family.  When an assassination attempt is made on Don Corleone's life, sons Santino (James Caan) and Michael (Al Pacino) take violent action against those presumed responsible.
   This tight bond between the members of the Corleone family is the reason why this film resonates with so many people.  If you grew up in a close family, especially with a big extended family, you can relate to wanting to protect your family members and feeling a natural instinct to defend them if someone or something threatens them.  Director Francis Ford Coppola and author Mario Puzo are so masterful at creating this world around the family, and justifying the lengths they will go to protect and honor each other, that their crimes and wrongdoings are overlooked by the audience.  Michael Corleone murders a police captain but the audience is so with him that we are more concerned with how he's going to execute the murder, and then escape without being caught, than we are with the fact that he killed an officer of the law.  The murder is justified to us because we understand that he is trying to avenge his father's bullet injuries (as well as get back at the police captain for punching him in the face).  If Coppola had not crafted this tight-knit world of the Corleones so well, this plot line would never have worked for the audience.
   I think the reason why The Godfather is #2 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time is not only due to the engaging storyline but mostly to the fact that almost everyone can relate this film because everyone has a family, and just about everyone feels and understands the loyalty these characters feel towards their own.  Though the measures they take are extreme (most people do not go around killing in the name of the family) the love they feel for one another is universal.




FUN FACT: The horse head found in the movie producer's bed was an actual horse's head!  Coppola's team went to a dog food company and requested that the company ship them the head of a horse the team had picked out when it was time for that horse to be killed for food.


FAVORITE QUOTE: "I work my whole life, I don't apologize, to take care of my family.  And I refused to be a fool dancing on the strings held by all of those big shots.  That's my life, I don't apologize for that."
---Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather