MIT Lecture Series Committee

Rated R
175 minutes

view trailer

The Godfather (1972)

Featuring a special newly restored print by film archivist Robert Harris, under the direction of director Francis Ford Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis.

Based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo (who co-wrote the screenplay with director Francis Ford Coppola), The Godfather tells an epic tale of Mafia life in America during the 1940s and 1950s. Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is the family patriarch balancing a love of his family with an ambitious criminal instinct. At the wedding of the Don's daughter Connie (Talia Shire), youngest son Michael (Al Pacino) is reunited with his family. A subsequent assassination attempt leaves the Don too ill to run the family business, forcing Michael and Sonny (James Caan), with the help of consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), to lead the Corleones into a vendetta-filled war with other mob families. Violent revenge ensues as the family tries to change from its old criminal ways into legitimacy. Coppola's certified masterpiece, which won three Oscars (including Best Picture) and spawned an Oscar-winning sequel (The Godfather Part II), set a new screen standard for merging blood-soaked violence with intimate family drama. In the process, Coppola single-handedly established the Mafia as an industry in film and television (Goodfellas, The Sopranos). Featuring truly unforgettable performances, including the Best Actor-winning Brando, the riveting Pacino, and an unexpectedly dramatic Diane Keaton, The Godfather is the pinnacle of Hollywood cinema in the 1970s. [www.rottentomatoes.com]

There are volumes that could be written -- and have been -- about the movie's uniformly powerful performances; its precedent-setting editing by William Reynolds and Peter Zinner; Nino Rota's haunting score; and Dean Tavoularis's evocative set design.
      -- Desson Thomson, Washington Post. Read this review.