16 + GUIDE - British Film Institute

FILM CRITICISM
Autumn 1978, pp.35-44
The Godfather I and II: patterns of corruption, by Anthony Ambrogio
For Ambrogio, key set pieces of I are echoed in far darker tones in II, such as the opening
celebration (wedding/communion), the family structure and the final bloodbath. This is not
merely generic repetition but a thematic device, as “Godfather II’s imperfect repetitions show
the expansion of evil, the degeneration of crime and of that criminal empire”.
JOURNAL OF POPULAR FILM
Spring 1973, pp. 115-37; pp. 204-9.
Motifs of image and sound in The Godfather, by Judith Vogelsang / The Godfather:
metaphor and microcosm, by Jonathan P. Latimer
Vogelsang sees orange (the colour and the fruit) as a symbol of betrayal and death and
discusses the role of cars, baptisms and Clemenza, the “loyal capo” in this textual analysis of
THE GODFATHER. Latimer analyses THE GODFATHER’s popularity among cinemagoers,
arguing that violence is legitimised as a “necessary business” and that the film celebrates the
Outlaw, drawing “parallels between the world of the Corleones and a world picture widely held
in grassroots America today.”
JOURNAL OF POPULAR FILM
vol.4 no.2. 1975, pp. 157-63
Godfather saga: the death of the family, by John Yates
While not disputing that THE GODFATHER I and II are metaphors for “America’s rottenness”,
Yates argues that the film’s greatest strength is in its dissection of the family, “how it worked
through the generations, and how it now falls apart.”
27