GREATEST FILMS OF ALL THE TIME By Mr. Newman…
The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a script co-written with Mario Puzo. The film is both a sequel and a prequel to The Godfather, chronicling the story of the Corleone family following the events of the first film while also depicting the rise to power of the young Vito Corleone. The film stars Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Talia Shire, John Cazale, Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg.
The Godfather Part II was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Robert De Niro, and has been selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry.
The Godfather Part II was shot between October 1, 1973 and June 19, 1974, and was the last major American motion picture to be printed with Technicolor‘s dye imbibition process until the late 1990s. The scenes that took place in Cuba were shot in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Charles Bluhdorn, whose Gulf+Western conglomerate owned Paramount, felt strongly about developing the Dominican Republic as a movie-making site.
The Lake Tahoe house and grounds portrayed in the film are Fleur du Lac, the summer estate of Henry J. Kaiser on the California side of the lake. The only structures used in the movie that still remain are the complex of old native stone boathouses with their wrought iron gates. Although Fleur du Lac is private property and no one is allowed ashore there, the boathouses and multi-million dollar condominiums may be viewed from the lake.
In the director’s commentary on the DVD edition of the film (released in 2002), Coppola states that this film was the first major motion picture to use “Part II” in its title. Paramount was initially opposed to his decision to name the movie The Godfather Part II. According to Coppola, the studio’s objection stemmed from the belief that audiences would be reluctant to see a film with such a title, as the audience would supposedly believe that, having already seen The Godfather, there was little reason to see an addition to the original story. The success of The Godfather Part II began the Hollywood tradition of numbered sequels.
In the documentary The Godfather Family: A look Inside, Coppola stated that three weeks prior to Part II being released, film critics and journalists pronounced the film a disaster, claiming the parallel stories between Vito and Michael were uncomfortably fast, not allowing enough time for the stories to leave a lasting impression on the audience. Coppola stated that he and the editors returned to the cutting room to change the film’s narrative structure, but could not complete the full re-arrangement in time, leaving the final scenes of the film poorly timed.
For both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, many scenes that were shot were not shown in the original theatrical runs but were included in the television adaptation The Godfather Saga (1977) and the home video releases The Godfather 1901-1959: The Complete Epic (1981) and The Godfather Trilogy: 1901–1980 (1992). To date, there has not been a single release that contains all of this footage together in one collection.[citation needed]
A limited time-reduced version of The Godfather Part II was later released because of its runtime.
While not to the extent of the original, The Godfather Part II was commercially successful, grossing $193 million on a $13 million budget. It was Paramount’s second highest grossing film of 1974 (behind Chinatown) and the sixth highest grossing overall.
The Godfather Part II ranks among the most critically and artistically successful film sequels in movie history, and is the most honored. It, like its predecessor, is widely considered as one of the greatest films of all time. Many critics praise it as equal, or even superior, to the original film (although it is almost always placed below the original on lists of “greatest” movies). The Godfather Part II:
- Is featured on Roger Ebert‘s “Great Movies” list, even though Ebert’s original review of the film granted it only three stars
- Is ranked the #7 on Entertainment Weekly‘s list of the “100 Greatest Movies of All Time”
- Is featured on movie critic Leonard Maltin‘s list of the “100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century”
- Received only one negative review on Rotten Tomatoes and a “98%” approval rating, 2% less than The Godfather (although it does hold a higher rating average of 9.2/10 compared to the predecessor’s 9.1/10) but 32% more than The Godfather Part III.
- Was featured on Sight and Sound‘s list of the ten greatest films of all time in 1992 and 2002.
- Is ranked #1 onTV Guide‘s 1998 list of the “50 Greatest Movies of All Time on TV and Video”
The general public and many movie critics have praised Pacino’s performance in Part II as perhaps his best, and one of the best performances of all time by any actor. Many critics have criticized the Academy for not awarding Pacino the Academy Award for Best Actor (Art Carney won instead, for his role in Harry and Tonto). In 2006, Premiere issued “The 100 Greatest Performances of all Time”, ranking Pacino’s performance as at #20. Later in 2009, Total Film issued “The 150 Greatest Performances Of All Time”, ranking Pacino’s performance at #4.
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