I should say, as a kind of postscript to my last post, that there are contrarian opinions of The Godfather. Said Judith Crist, upon the release of Part II in 1974:
The immorality lies in his presentation of murderers as delightful family men--the criminal is the salt of the earth--and to our shame we rub it into the wounds of our Watergate-world morality and even ask for more.
And Stanley Kauffmann:
They have put padding in Brando's cheeks and dirtied his teeth, he speaks hoarsely and moves stiffly, and these combined mechanics are hailed as great acting. . . . Like star, like film, the keynote is inflation. The Godfather was made from a big bestseller, a lot of money was spent on it, and it runs over three hours. Therefore it's important.
In the last month of his life Edmund Wilson wrote in his journal:
Two movies: Godfather and French Connection, bang bang.
The first two are from Halliwell's Film and Video Guide (1997). Except for the allusion to Watergate, Crist's opinion might be applied to the tragedies of Shakespeare; and inasmuch as "inflated" is the way jealousy pronounces "great," the same goes for Kauffmann. Wilson's review does not take account of numerous garrotings.
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