2022年教父英文影评 .pdf

1 教父 The Godfather review by ROGER EBERT We know from Gay Taleses book Honor Thy Father that being a professional mobster isnt all sunshine and roses. More often, its the boredom of stuffy rooms and a bad diet of carry-out food, punctuated by brief, terrible bursts of violence. This is exactly the feel of The Godfather, which brushes aside the flashy glamour of the traditional gangster picture and gives us whats left: fierce tribal loyalties, deadly little neighborhood quarrels in Brooklyn, and a form of vengeance to match every affront. The remarkable thing about Mario Puzos novel was the way it seemed to be told from the inside out; he didnt give us a world of international intrigue, but a private club as constricted as the seventh grade. Everybody knew everybody else and had a pretty shrewd hunch what they were up to. The movie (based on a script labored over for some time by Puzo and then finally given form, I suspect, by director Francis Ford Coppola) gets the same feel. We tend to identify with Don Corleones family not because we dig gang wars, but because we have been with them from the beginning, watching them wait for battle while sitting at the kitchen table and eating chow mein out of paper cartons. The Godfather himself is not even the central character in the drama. That position goes to the youngest, brightest son, Michael, who understands the nature of his fathers position while revising his old-fashioned ways. The Godfathers role in the family enterprise is described by his name; he stands outside the next generation which will carry on and, hopefully, angle the family into legitimate enterprises. Those who have read the novel may be surprised to find Michael at the center of the movie, instead of Don Corleone. In fact, this is simply an economical way for Coppola to get at the heart of the Puzo story, which dealt with the transfer of power within the family. Marlon Brando, who plays the Godfather as a shrewd, unbreakable old man, actually has the character lead in the movie; Al Pacino, with a brilliantly developed performance as Michael, is the lead. But Brandos performance is a skillful throwaway, even though it earned him an Academy Award for best actor. His voice is wheezy and whispery, and his physical movements deliberately lack precision; the effect is of 精选学习资料 - - - - - - - - - 名师归纳总结 - - - - - - -第 1 页，共 4 页a man so accustomed to power that he no longer needs to remind others. Brando does look the part of old Don Corleone, mostly because of acting and partly because of the makeup, although he seems to have stuffed a little too much cotton into his jowls, making his lower face immobile. The rest of the actors supply one example after another of inspired casting. Although The Godfather is a long, minutely detailed movie of some three hours, there naturally isnt time to go into the backgrounds and identities of such characters as Clemenza, the family lieutenant; Jack Woltz, the movie czar; Luca Brasi, the loyal professional killer; McCluskey, the crooked cop; and the rest. Coppola and producer Al Ruddy skirt this problem with understated typecasting. As the Irish cop, for example, they simply slide in Sterling Hayden and let the character go about his business. Richard Castellano is an unshakable Clemenza. John Marley makes a perfectly hateful Hollywood mogul (and, yes, he still wakes up to find hell have to cancel his day at the races). The success of The Godfather as a novel was largely due to a series of unforgettable scenes. Puzo is a good storyteller, but no great shakes as a writer. The movie gives almost everything in the novel except the gynecological repair job. It doesnt miss a single killing; it opens with the wedding of Don Corleones daughter (and attendant upstairs activity); and there are the right number of auto bombs, double crosses, and garrotings. Coppola has found a style and a visual look for all this material so The Godfather becomes something of a rarity: a really good movie squeezed from a bestseller. The decision to shoot everything in period decor (the middle and late 1940s) was crucial; if theyd tried to save money as they originally planned, by bringing everything up-to-date, the movie simply wouldnt have worked. But its uncannily successful as a period piece, filled with sleek, bulging limousines and postwar fedoras. Coppola and his cinematographer, Gordon Willis, also do some interesting things with the color photography. The earlier scenes have a reddish-brown tint, slightly overexposed and feeling like nothing so much as a 1946 newspaper rotogravure supplement. Although the movie is three hours long, it absorbs us so effectively it never has to hurry. There is something in the measured passage of time as Don Corleone hands over his reins of power that would have made a shorter, faster moving film unseemly. Even at this length, there are characters in relationships you cant quite understand unless youve read the novel. Or perhaps you can, just by the way the characters look at each other. 精选学习资料 - - - - - - - - - 名师归纳总结 - - - - - - -第 2 页，共 4 页2 教父 The Godfather Twenty-five years hindsight wasnt necessary to prove the brilliance and authority of The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppolas classic epic of a Mafia family in America. It was clear, even when the movie opened in 1972, that Coppola had created a landmark in American cinema. It remains the high point of his career. What we couldnt see then was how wide the films influence would spread. Theres barely a gangster movie, a family epic or a movie about Italian Americans that doesnt inevitably use The Godfather as a frame of reference. Its more than a standard-bearer for critics and filmmakers - its a monument. Today, as the Castro Theatre launches a two-week revival of The Godfather in a new 35mm print with a digitally enhanced stereo soundtrack, its fascinating to consider the directions that Coppola and his actors have taken in the quarter- century since they made the movie, which was based on Mario Puzos best-seller. TOUGH TO MATCH For Coppola, the struggle to match The Godfathers achievement has rendered mixed results. He was only 31 when he was signed to direct The Godfather, and had only a handful of features to his credit: the coming-of-age comedy Youre a Big Boy Now, the musical Finians Rainbow, the bleak character study The Rain People. Based on that work, no one could have anticipated the confidence and depth he would bring to The Godfather, or to its first sequel two years later, Godfather II. (Does anyone remember that Coppola invented the use of Roman numerals in movie sequels?) Trying to equal that success and find new projects as large as his imagination and ego would bring Coppola repeatedly to near-disaster. Apocalypse Now became a 16-month location shoot from hell and nearly killed him, One From the Heart wiped him out financially and The Cotton Club was as empty as it was flashy. To recover, Coppola became a hired gun and delivered The Outsiders, Rumble Fish and Peggy Sue Got Married. He made the conventional Tucker: The Man and His Dream, the overblown Bram Stokers Dracula and most recently the embarrassing Jack. But even as he lost his 精选学习资料 - - - - - - - - - 名师归纳总结 - - - - - - -第 3 页，共 4 页momentum and self-assurance, it was impossible to dismiss him - or to stop hoping he would recapture The Godfather magic. For his actors The Godfather was also a benchmark. Marlon Brando revived a slumbering career with his masterful, Oscar-winning icon Don Vito Corleone - but thereafter become lazy and disdainful of his profession. CHALLENGE FOR PACINO Al Pacino, who played the more challenging role of reluctant heir Michael Corleone, has won an Oscar, eight nominations and never lost his spark on screen. Diane Keaton, nearly unrecognizable today as his naive wife, Kay, is probably the biggest surprise: Theres nothing in The Godfather to indicate the brilliant comic instincts of Annie Hall or The First Wives Club or the emotional transparency of Marvins Room. Twenty-five years may have reordered our perceptions of Coppola and his cast, but the basic fact of his films greatness is undiminished. In scene after scene - the long wedding sequence, John Marleys bloody discovery in his bed, Pacino nervously smoothing down his hair before a restaurant massacre, the godfathers collapse in a garden - Coppola crafted an enduring, undisputed masterpiece. 精选学习资料 - - - - - - - - - 名师归纳总结 - - - - - - -第 4 页，共 4 页