Director Francis Ford Coppola continues his Shakespearean prose opera of the Will to Power in 1974's THE GODFATHER, PART II. Universally considered one of the greatest films ever crafted along with its twin, the original THE GODFATHER (1972), THE GODFATHER, PART II continues the tragic tale of kingship and kinship begun in the earlier film.
Coppola creates a fascinating film study of Father and Son, as he compares and contrasts the middle-aged Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and the young Vito Corleone (Robert DeNiro) as the former falls from authority into corruption and decline and the latter rises from obscurity to strength and power.
In two brilliantly crafted parallel period tales spanning the twentieth century, we watch the Father create a self-contained universe centered around Family, while the Son slowly destroys what his Father hath wrought.
DeNiro's Vito Corleone begins life as a frightened immigrant child fleeing a vendetta in Sicily; at his apotheosis, in an act of filial piety he kills Don Ciccio, the man responsible for his own father's, mother's and brother's deaths. Pacino's Michael Corleone begins the film at the height of his powers, then falls deeper and deeper into his own internal darkness. At his nadir, in an act of complete abnegation, he kills his own misguided brother, Fredo (John Cazale).
The difference between them is manifest in that while Don Vito kills only two men (the aforementioned Don Ciccio, and Don Fanucci, a neighborhood predator who takes away Vito's job as a grocery clerk, leaving him unable to feed his Family and driving him into a life of crime), Don Michael is drenched in the blood of other men. Where Don Vito uses his own inherent self-respect and the finespun fear others' feel to serve the essentially unselfish ends of protecting the defenseless in his world, Michael uses the brute force of his personality and unrestrained violence to maintain his own personal wealth and power, ultimately squandering both, and in the end, sacrificing both respect and Family.
The organized crime elements of this film are a dramatic backdrop to the biographical elements. They propel the story but are not the core of it.
Robert DeNiro's Oscar-winning performance as Don Vito Corleone marked the only time that two actors won Academy Awards for the same role (along with Marlon Brando as Don Vito in THE GODFATHER). Pacino's parallel performance as Don Michael is a bleak study in genius, well-deserving its own Oscar.
A gifted film, THE GODFATHER, PART II remains one of the few sequels to match or outmatch it's predecessor film.