The Godfather 2 Literary Elements

Francis Ford Coppola

Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro

John Cazale, Michael V. Gazzo, Lee Strasberg, Talia Shire

Gangster film

English

Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor: Robert De Niro, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Set Decoration, Best Original Dramatic Score

December 20, 1974

Francis Ford Coppola, Gray Frederickson, Fred Roos

New York City, turn of the 20th century/Nevada and Cuba, late 1950’s.

The film has two points of view. One follows the rise of Vito Corleone from a young child arriving alone as an immigrant in the 1901 to become the head of one of the most powerful Mafia “families” in New York. The other follows Vito’s grown-up child Michael who has now become “The Godfather” and is trying to move the family toward more respectability in the early part of the second half of the century.

The tone and mood of Vito’s story are heavily influenced by the Italian-American culture; Vito does not even speak English. His story is one of hope and living the American Dream, even if within the darker shadows of that dream. Vito enjoys the company of good friends and family as well as an ease within the community. By contrast, Michael is a prisoner in his compound who trusts no one and is steadily losing even the closeness of family members. Michael’s story is a tragedy compared to Vito’s.

Vito v. Don Fanucci. Michael v. U.S. Congressional Committee, Hyman Roth, and his own brother, Fredo.

For Vito, the main conflict is with the prevailing local mafia don who is corrupt, abuses his power, and is disrespectful of the community. For Michael, the major conflict is with Jewish gangster Hyman Roth, who seeks to eliminate Michael, take over his business interests and expand his own syndicate’s presence in Cuba.

Vito’s story actually climaxes not with his murder of Don Fanucci, but with his use of the power that taking over from Fanucci gives him to return to Sicily and avenge the don there who killed his father, brother and mother. For Michael, the climax of the story is the assassination of Hyman Roth, but this victory is severely undercut by the fact that he has also ordered the murder of Fredo and finds himself at film’s end entirely alone.

During the wedding reception that opens Michael’s section of the movie, Frank Pentangeli tries to get the band to play a traditional Italian song. The clarinet player has some trouble and winds up riffing on “Pop Goes the Weasel” with the rest of the orchestra soon joining. Later on, Pentangeli will become a “weasel” when testifies against Michael to Congress.

Michael’s reaction upon first realizing that it was his brother Fredo who betrayed him. The expression on Michael’s face barely changes, registering nothing that could be seen by others, but the profound pain and shock is all there in Pacino’s most masterful moment of understated acting.

The greatest innovation of The Godfather, Part II is the way that it connects two timelines without engaging in the usual techniques of delineating between present day and a flashback. There are no wavy lines and musical cues indicating a time change; essentially, the film presents two parallel stories taking place in the present. The story of Vito is not a flashback indicated by something that happens in the present; the cuts back and forth are thematically related in telling a single saga, the middle of which exists as its own, previously-told movie.

Hyman Roth alludes to the 1919 World Series in which the Chicago White Sox became forever infamously known as the Black Sox when several players conspired with organized crime figures to throw games and lose the Series. Part of the plot involves the Marxist revolution of Fidel Castro against dictator Fulgenico Batista, though Castro does not appear as a character.

Michael Corleone manifests a strong propensity toward wanting to “go legitimate” and works hard toward making his family’s business respectable, but it is a long-term plan that requires so many short-term actions of pure evil that he winds up losing everything in his single-minded mission to save everything.

The entire film is an exercise in parallelism. The stories of young Vito’s rise and Michael’s fall into tragedy parallel each other in ironic subversion.