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From cinematicwallpaper.com

Kermit said the Blu-Ray edition of The Godfather was so clear, you could see Michael’s chin trembling just before he shot Solozzo.

We know someone who doesn’t need Blu-Ray clarity to achieve that, Ernie pointed out.

Charito Solis, we chorused.

Apparently making the Blu-Ray version entailed a great deal of restoration work. The movie was such a blockbuster that so many prints were struck using the master copy, and the master was falling apart. So they had to find a good print and then make a new master copy before they could make the super-clear edition. Hence Michael’s chin. And Diane Keaton’s dewy youth, which made Kay Adams seem even more naive (Was her character really the USA?) And the horse’s head, bought from a glue factory. And Santino’s back hair. Kermit noted that if The Godfather had been made today, the producers would’ve made James Caan get waxed. We think that in the current climate, when producers are all pandering to the teen demographic, something like the Coppola would never have been made.

Bert observed how most of the scenes take place in half-darkness. Coppola had hired (Kermit correction: the cinematographer was Gordon Willis) may have been impressed by the work of Vittorio Storaro, who did The Conformist with Bertolucci and was sort of the king of shadows (Those venetian blinds, which Schrader used to great effect in American Gigolo).

The Conformist photo from HammertoNail

We think much of the look of The Godfather was inspired by The Conformist, from the lighting to the clothes to Dominique Sanda’s hair. Kermit pointed out that the scenes in Sicily were in the blinding sunshine, heightening the contrast in Michael’s character. The main story of The Godfather is Michael’s gradual turning to the dark side, and Al Pacino’s face shows the evolution: you can see his expression hardening. It didn’t hurt that Al Pacino was so handsome.

Ernie made no remarks because while we were watching The Godfather in Kermit’s attic he was watching Sherlock with headphones on his computer at the bar.

Nino Rota, Fellini’s favorite scorer, did the music for The Godfather—the main theme reminds us of the music for La Strada. In fact, Kermit reminded us, the theme from The Godfather was disqualified from the Oscars because it had not been composed specifically for the movie. Later the score of The Godfather II won the Oscar.

Beautiful as the music is, the most tense moments take place without it. Don Vito buying fruit, footsteps picking up speed, shots. We were set up for this—Freddo drove the car because Pauly was absent. No unnecessary explanation, no one in the kitchen crying, The don might get assassinated! Michael groping behind the tank—What if the gun isn’t there! Michael and Enzo standing outside the hospital with their hands inside their coats delivered the message to the would-be assassins, just as Michael calmly lighting a cigarette tells us that something has changed in his character—or triggered something that was dormant.

In most movies dialogue does the work that the other elements should’ve done; that’s inept direction. In bad movies the music does the work, telling the audience how they should feel. Most recent movies make us want to shoot the musical scorer, though it is ultimately the director’s fault (Assuming the director had the final say and not a committee from the finance and marketing departments).

Later we had one of our typical discussions with Kermit, who likes to impose reason in a fundamentally irrational universe.

How did Corleone know it was Barzini?

Because at the meeting of the capos he gleaned that Barzini was pulling Tattaglia’s strings.

Yes, but how did he know?

You don’t get to be Godfather without having a gut instinct for these things.

Why did Tessio go quietly? He should’ve pulled out his gun and started shooting.

There’s lots of violence elsewhere. More emotional kick in Tessio knowing that he’s doomed and he brought it down on himself. When he asks Tom if he can be spared…

But he’s dead so why doesn’t he just take them all with him?

Because these are gangsters with a code of honor that is already being eroded with the times.

It doesn’t make sense.

Ikaw na lang kaya ang magsulat ng pelikula!

Of course if Kermit wrote movies they would last two minutes. (Unstoppable: They should just fire a missile at the engine and it would be over. Da Vinci Code: If the old man wants their secret to stay secret, he should just die quietly, duh.)

Impossible to watch The Godfather and not have an Italian dinner afterwards. (We know people who have Godfather dinners in character.) We had pasta, sausages, gelati, cheese, chianti. We were supposed to bring cannoli (“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”) but we don’t care for the one sold in Italianni’s and we’re not sure it’s still available. So we brought Vargas butter cake as an allusion to a later Brando movie.