The Godfather

This time my group watched The Godfather. Like the other two of Coppola's films that I have seen, I tend to like it. The acting is, like we noticed in The Art of Film 1, to Coppola's perfection. The quality of the film is very good for an early 1970's film and the story is superb.

I looked at a Roger Ebert review from Rotten Tomatoes. Ebert states that the film leads you into the Corleone family and "we tend to identify with Don Corleone's family not because we dig gang wars, but because we have been with them from the beginning..." Although, like the two other Coppola movies I have seen, The Godfather tends to start slow. It seems to build up to the climax. During this rising action we grow on the Corleone family. We feel like a part of their family, without the quick attitudes and guns.

But the real story, according to Ebert is not the guns fights or money, but the way the youngest Corleone son, Michael starts in on the family business "while revising his old-fashioned ways..."

So while I was watching The Godfather, I realized that one; I should watch more Coppola films and two; what such a great impact family has had on me and the people around me...I know I didn't really talk about that in the paragraphs above, but it seemed like a good way to end...

Apocalypse Now...worth watching

My group is studying the director Francis Ford Coppola. We watched the movie Apocalypse Now. I would have to say that I liked this movie a lot despite the lengh and the ending which seemed to carry on literly for hours. But over all the movie was well done and worth the 200 plus days of shooting. But like we talked about in The Art of Film 1 last semester, I can see how it got most of it's credit and fame long after it came out.

Now I haven't seen many '70s films but according to Allen Barra this decade could have been the most exciting one in American film. Now I haven't seen any other of Coppola' films (so maybe I should just shut up) but I guess they were pretty good. According to Barra, Apocalypse Now was supposed to "put a cap on the most exciting decade in American film, that it would sum up everything that had come before and influence everything that came after." But Barra thinks otherwise. He thinks it was a disappointment.

Like I've said, I haven't seen any other of Coppola' films but I can't imagin that it is that bad to him. In The Art of Film 1 we talked about how the film didn't get much attention when it came out but in todays time, it seems pretty famous. So although "top critic" (according to rottontomatoes) thinks it is not a film worth seeing, I do...so if you haven't seen it pick 2 hours and 35 minutes out of your evening and plop down and watch it.