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1974 Best
Picture:
The Godfather Part II
The Competition:
Chinatown, The
Conversation, Lenny, The Towering Inferno
Other Winners:
Best Actor:
Art Carney, Harry and Tonto
Best Actress: Ellen Burstyn, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Best Supporting Acting: Robert De Niro, The Godfather, Part
II
Best Supporting Actress: Ingrid Bergman, Murder on the Orient
Express
Best Director: Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather, Part II |
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| Young
Vito Corleone and his mother beg for help from a Sicilian Don. |
Al
Pacino is Michael Corleone, the new head of the family business. |
Diane
Keaton is Kay, hanging in despite broken promises that the family
would be out of the business by now. |
Storyline:
The Godfather, Part II is sort of like a prologue and an epilogue to
the first film. It tells the story of Vito Corleone, and his
rise to power as a Mafioso Don, as well as the fall of the family
fortune, under the helm of his son, Michael.
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Did It Deserve to Win?
You wanna believe it did! The
Godfather, Part II is a rarity in cinema history, not only in the
fact that it is a successful sequel, but it is actually a better
film than its predecessor.
Chinatown was
the closest competition, as a film noir-esque drama starring Jack
Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, both in their peak years. Coppola
also had a smaller picture, The Conversation, up for the win, proof
that he too was enjoying his glory days as a director.
The Towering
Inferno was proof that the disaster genre was in its heyday, and the
biopic, Lenny, was about the glory days of controversial comic,
Lenny Bruce.
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| Pacino
and Keaton are shot at from their bedroom window. |
When
a Senator doesn't co-operate, he is found with his pants down,
and a hooker butchered. |
Pacino
as Corleone gets his hands dirty in Cuba. |
Critique:
The Godfather, Part II is a
complicated film, and Coppola is careful to take care of tiny
little details, while still presenting the big picture, on a
grand scale. Once again, real life events are
intertwined with fiction, this time the Cuban revolution of
the 1950's, and American immigration around the turn of the
century, being the focal points.
While in
the first film, Michael Corleone is the naive upstart, new to
the business, and not yet corrupted by the lure of the
business. In this film he assumes the role as head of
the family, and he rules with an iron fist. He is sharp,
and to the point. Meanwhile, the life of his father,
Vito Corleone, is explored through flashbacks throughout the
film. Here we see a complete role reversal, as in the
first film, we were introduced to Vito as head of the family,
weathered, but dangerous. This sequel presents his rise
to power, from a dreadful beginning in Sicily, when his
parents are murdered by a dangerous Don, to his rise, as an immigrant
in the United States.
The
performances in this film seem to be a lot better than the
first. Pacino is excellent as the favored son, assuming
the position of power. De Niro takes over from
Brando, playing the the young Vito in a manner that is a
compliment to the performance that Brando gave in the first
film. It's no surprise that he won the Best Supporting
Actor Oscar. Talia Shire is back as sister Connie, newly
divorced, and trying to get her life back. Her character
truly takes shape in this film. Diane Keaton as Kay,
continues to play the role of the neglected wife, to
perfection. And of course, supporting performances from
Lee Strasberg as Hyman Roth, John Cazale as brother Fredo, and
Michael Gazzi as Frankie, are all part of what makes this a
great film.
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| Famous
acting coach, Lee
Strasberg, plays Hyman Roth, a friendly enemy to Michael. |
Robert
DeNiro as young Vito Corleone, moves to New York, and
gets involved in the racqet there. |
The
local Don stands in Vito's way for only so long. |
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Behind the Scenes:
The Godfather, Part II was nominated for eleven Academy
Awards, and won six of them, including Best Supporting
Actor for DeNiro and Best Director for Francis Ford
Coppola. DeNiro was originally supposed to play a
part in the first movie. He actually read for the
part of Michael Corleone. Pacino was originally
slated to play in Bang the Drum Slowly, and Coppola
pulled some strings to have him taken out. DeNiro
went on to take that role, and was later cast in the
second film as Vito Corleone.
Sophia Coppola played three
different roles in the three films. She was a baby
at the christening scene at the end of the first
film. She was a small child on the boat to New
York at the beginning of the second. And she played
a prominent role, that of Mary Corleone, Michael's
daughter, in the third film.
1974
was definitely Coppola's year. He was nominated
for The Conversation, and he also had writing credit for
another big film that year, The Great Gatsby. He
won the Best Director Oscar against formidable
competition, including Bob Fosse, who took the award in
1972 for Cabaret. Meanwhile, his father, Carmine
Coppola, was also a winner that year, taking home the
Oscar for Best Original Score for The Godfather, Part
II.
Ellen
Burstyn won her Best Actress Oscar for a film that she
co-produced. She hired Martin Scorcese to direct,
stating that she wanted a director that was 'hungry' to
direct. She also wanted someone that could tell
the story from a woman's point of view. Burstyn
didn't attend the ceremony. Instead she chose to
work that night, on Broadway, in the play, Same Time
Next Year. She felt that there was no point.
"I won't win," she said. "I never
do."
Ingrid
Bergman won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Murder
on the Orient Express. She became the third actor
to win three. She was led by Walter Brennan and
Katherine Hepburn.
The Godfather, Part II is the
only sequel to ever win a Best Picture Oscar. The
role of Vito Corleone is the only character ever to win
Oscar's for two different actors. And Robert
DeNiro is one of three actors (Sophia Loren and Roberto
Benigni are the others) to win Oscar's for performances
played in a foreign language.
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