We have no choice but to show respect. To be clear, it is unequivocal good news that The Godfather is being rereleased. The pretext is its 50th anniversary but, really, it should be reissued every year for the sheer cinematic hell of it. Excellent, too, that it is being followed by both sequels. (Yes, The Godfather III deserves your love.) To see these genius films on a big screen, in a dark room, the way they were intended, etc etc: bellissimo! And yet on another level: irrelevant. In 2022, we are watching The Godfather all the time already.
The influence is everywhere; in movies but far more than that. For now, let’s stick with entertainment and consider Succession. Deep inside 2022’s most state-of-the-art storytelling are Francis Ford Coppola’s 50-year-old themes: the boss and the shadow his power casts across cursed adult children. The dramas of Waystar Royco have their own energy, but also enough of a debt for each run to end in homage. Warning: spoilers. The first season finale took place backstage at a wedding, how The Godfather began; in the second, a Fredo-style kiss preceded betrayal; in the third, another wedding, more treachery and a closing shot that winked so hard at Coppola, fans called Matthew Macfadyen’s family-by-marriage sap “The Tomfather”.
