Shattered Politics #31: The Godfather (dir by Francis Ford Coppola)

Posted on January 24, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I got something for your mother and Sonny and a tie for Freddy and Tom Hagen got the Reynolds Pen…” — Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) in The Godfather (1972)

It probably seems strange that when talking about The Godfather, a film that it is generally acknowledged as being one of the best and most influential of all time, I would start with an innocuous quote about getting Tom Hagen a pen.

(And it better have been a hell of a pen because, judging from the scene where Sollozzo stops him in the street, it looked like Tom was going all out as far as gifts were concerned…)

After all, The Godfather is a film that is full of memorable quotes. “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.” “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” “It’s strictly business.” “I believe in America….” “That’s my family, Kay. That’s not me.”

But I went with the quote about the Reynolds pen because, quite frankly, I find an excuse to repeat it every Christmas. Every holiday season, whenever I hear friends or family talking about presents, I remind them that Tom Hagen is getting the Reynolds pen. Doubt me? Check out these tweets from the past!

[tweet https://twitter.com/LisaMarieBowman/status/411891527837687810 ]

[tweet https://twitter.com/LisaMarieBowman/status/280387983444697088 ]

That’s how much I love The Godfather. I love it so much that I even find myself quoting the lines that don’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things. I love the film so much that I once even wrote an entire post about who could have been cast in The Godfather if, for whatever reason, Brando, Pacino, Duvall, et al. had been unavailable. And I know that I’m not alone in that love.

But all that love also makes The Godfather a difficult film to review. What do you say about a film that everyone already knows is great?

Do you praise it by saying that Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton, Marlon Brando, John Cazale, Richard Castellano, Abe Vigoda, Alex Rocco, and Talia Shire all gave excellent performances? You can do that but everyone already knows that.

Do you talk about how well director Francis Ford Coppola told this operatic, sprawling story of crime, family, and politics? You can do that but everyone already knows that.

Maybe you can talk about how beautiful Gordon Willis’s dark and shadowy cinematography looks, regardless of whether you’re seeing it in a theater or on TV. Because it certainly does but everyone knows that.

Maybe you can mention the haunting beauty of Nina Rota’s score but again…

Well, you get the idea.

Now, if you somehow have never seen the film before, allow me to try to tell you what happens in The Godfather. I say try because The Godfather is a true epic. Because it’s also an intimate family drama and features such a dominating lead performance from Al Pacino, it’s sometimes to easy to forget just how much is actually going on in The Godfather.

The Godfather tells the story of the Corleone Family. Patriarch Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) has done very well for himself in America, making himself into a rich and influential man. Of course, Vito is also known as both Don Corleone and the Godfather and he’s made his fortune through less-than-legal means. He may be rich and he may be influential but when his daughter gets married, the FBI shows up outside the reception and takes pictures of all the cars in the parking lot. Vito Corleone knows judges and congressmen but none of them are willing to be seen in public with him. Vito is the establishment that nobody wants to acknowledge and sometimes, this very powerful man wonders if there will ever be a “Governor Corleone” or a “Senator Corleone.”

Vito is the proud father of three children and the adopted father of one more. His oldest son, and probable successor, is Sonny (James Caan). Sonny, however, has a temper and absolutely no impulse control. While his wife is bragging about him to the other women at the wedding, Sonny is upstairs screwing a bridesmaid. When the enemies of the Corleone Family declare war, Sonny declares war back and forgets the first rule of organized crime: “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.”

After Sonny, there’s Fredo (John Cazale). Poor, pathetic Fredo. In many ways, it’s impossible not to feel sorry for Fredo. He’s the one who ends up getting exiled to Vegas, where he lives under the protection of the crude Moe Greene (Alex Rocco). One of the film’s best moments is when a bejeweled Fredo shows up at a Vegas hotel with an entourage of prostitutes and other hangers-on. In these scenes, Fred is trying so hard but when you take one look at his shifty eyes, it’s obvious that he’s still the same guy who we first saw stumbling around drunk at his sister’s wedding.

(And, of course, it’s impossible to watch Fredo in this film without thinking about both what will happen to the character in the Godfather, Part II and how John Cazale, who brought the character to such vibrant life, would die just 6 years later.)

As a female, daughter Connie (Talia Shire) is — for the first film, at least — excluded from the family business. Instead, she marries Sonny’s friend Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo). And, to put it gently, it’s not a match made in heaven.

And finally, there’s Michael (Al Pacino). Michael is the son who, at the start of the film, declares that he wants nothing to do with the family business. He’s the one who wants to break with family tradition by marrying Kay Adams (Diane Keaton), who is most definitely not Italian. He’s the one who was decorated in World War II and who comes to his sister’s wedding still dressed in his uniform. (In the second Godfather film, we learn that Vito thought Michael was foolish to join the army, which makes it all the more clear that, by wearing the uniform to the wedding, Michael is attempting to declare his own identity outside of the family.) To paraphrase the third Godfather film, Michael is the one who says he wants to get out but who keeps getting dragged back in.

And finally, the adopted son is Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall). Tom is the Don’s lawyer and one reason why Tom is one of my favorite characters is because, behind his usual stone-faced facade, Tom is actually very snarky. He just hides it well.

Early on, we get a hint that Tom is more amused than he lets on when he has dinner with the crude Jack Woltz (John Marley), a film producer who doesn’t want to use Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) in a movie When Woltz shouts insults at him, Tom calmly finishes his dinner and thanks him for a lovely evening. And he does it with just the hint of a little smirk and you can practically see him thinking, “Somebody’s going to wake up with a horse tomorrow….”

However, my favorite Tom Hagen moment comes when Kay, who is searching for Michael, drops by the family compound. Tom greets her at the gate. When Kay spots a car that’s riddled with bullet holes, she asks what happened. Tom smiles and says, “Oh, that was an accident. But luckily no one was hurt!” Duvall delivers the line with just the right attitude of “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!” How can you not kind of love Tom after that?

And, of course, the film is full of other memorable characters, all of whom are scheming and plotting. There’s Clemenza (Richard S. Catellano) and Tessio (Abe Vigoda), the two Corleone lieutenants who may or may not be plotting to betray the Don. There’s fearsome Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana), who spends an eternity practicing what he wants to say at Connie’s wedding and yet still manages to screw it up. And, of course, there’s Sollozzo (Al Lettieri, playing a role originally offered to Franco Nero), the drug dealer who reacts angrily to Vito’s refusal to help him out. Meanwhile, Capt. McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) is busy beating up young punks and Al Neri (Richard Bright) is gunning people down in front of the courthouse. And, of course, there’s poor, innocent, ill-fated Appollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli)…

The Godfather is a great Italian-American epic, one that works as both a gangster film and a family drama. Perhaps the genius of the Godfather trilogy is that the Corleone family serves as an ink blot in a cinematic rorschach test. Audiences can look at them and see whatever they want. If you want them and their crimes to serve as a metaphor for capitalism, you need only listen to Tom and Michael repeatedly state that it’s only business. If you want to see them as heroic businessmen, just consider that their enemies essentially want to regulate the Corleones out of existence. If you want the Corleones to serve as symbols of the patriarchy, you need only watch as the door to Michael’s office is shut in Kay’s face. If you want to see the Corleones as heroes, you need only consider that they — and they alone — seem to operate with any sort of honorable criminal code. (This, of course, would change over the course of the two sequels.)

And, if you’re trying to fit a review of The Godfather into a series about political films, you only have to consider that Vito is regularly spoken of as being a man who carries politicians around in his pocket. We may not see any elected officials in the first Godfather film but their presence is felt. Above all else, it’s Vito’s political influence that sets in motion all of the events that unfold over the course of the film.

The Godfather, of course, won the Oscar for best picture of 1972. And while it’s rare that I openly agree with the Academy, I’m proud to say that this one time is a definite exception.

Documentary Review: Seduced and Abandoned (dir by James Toback)

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recently watched James Toback’s 2013 Seduced and Abandoned on HBO. This documentary failed to seduce me but it certainly left me feeling abandoned.

Seduced and Abandoned follows James Toback and Alec Baldwin as they wander around the Cannes Film Festival, interviewing filmmakers and attempting to raise money for Toback’s latest film. That film, incidentally, is a remake of Last Tango In Paris. Though neither Toback nor Baldwin goes into too much detail about the film (and I’m not exactly convinced that they’re all that serious about it to begin with), we do learn that this remake would be set in Iraq. Alec Baldwin would play a right-wing CIA agent while Neve Campbell would play a leftist journalist. We watch as Baldwin and Toback pitch this film to a countless number of potential producers and ask for twenty million dollars. Without fail, every producer replies that he loves Alec Baldwin but he’s not willing to spend that type of money on him because Baldwin is not a bankable star. As Baldwin and Toback frequently lament, nobody seems to care what the film is about. Instead, they’re only interested in making money.

And this brings us to this documentary’s main problem. It would be easier to agree with them about businessmen sacrificing art for greed if not for the fact that the movie that Toback and Baldwin are talking about making sounds like perhaps the worst fucking film ever pitched. A remake of Last Tango in Paris starring Alec Baldwin, directed by James Toback, and taking place in Iraq? Are you freaking kidding me? I would never pay money to see a movie that sounded that pretentious. I would never ask anyone else to buy me a ticket for this movie. If I saw this movie on HBO, I would cancel my cable subscription. Seriously, no way.

And yes, I do understand Baldwin and Toback’s point. They’re arguing that a politically-themed, Iraq-set remake of Last Tango In Paris could not be made today because the system has been set up to silence the voice of artists. The industry is more concerned with making money than making an artistic statement. I happen to agree 100% but that still doesn’t change the fact that Toback and Baldwin’s film sounds terrible.

Toback and Baldwin interview everyone from Ryan Gosling to Jessica Chastain to Martin Scorsese to Francis Ford Coppola and the one thing that every interview has in common is the sound of Toback’s braying laughter. It’s a very forced and calculating laugh, one that seems almost as fake as Toback’s pseudo-intellectual persona. And that’s the other big problem with Seduced and Abandoned. Toback and Baldwin never really come across as being the rebels that they obviously believe themselves to be. Even when Toback is talking to the financiers that he and Baldwin appear to blame for ruining the movies, it’s obvious that Toback wants us to impressed by the fact that he knows so many fabulously wealthy people. In the end, the film feels self-congratulatory in the most undeserving of ways.

And yet, there are occasional moments where the film, almost despite itself, manages to escape from the suffocating egos of James Toback and Alec Baldwin. The section of the film that deals with the history of Cannes Film Festival is fascinating and Martin Scorsese is such a lively and sincere artist that it’s impossible not to enjoy his interview. (In many ways, Scorsese seems to be the anti-Toback.) For a few seconds, Alec Baldwin stops being insufferable long enough to do a reasonably humorous impersonation of Woody Allen. If you’re a student of Italian cinema, you’ll be happy to see a brief appearance from Mark Damon, a former actor turned producer who appears in several Italian spaghetti westerns in the late 60s. Damon is the first producer to have to sit through Toback’s pitch and its fascinating to watch just how indifferent he is to idea of remaking Last Tango In Paris with Alec Baldwin and James Toback.

Mark Damon aside, Seduced and Abandoned is a documentary that fails to do the former and will probably inspire many viewers to do the latter.

Scenes I Love: Apocalypse Now

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Arleigh

It’s been awhile since I put up a scene I love from a film I love. Time to change that and what better way to do it than pick a favorite scene from one of the best films ever made: Apocalypse Now.

This particular scene occurs in the last act of the film which finally puts Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) face-to-face with his target in the off-the-reservation Special Forces commander Col. Kurtz. This is the first time we actually see Marlon Brando in the role of Kurtz in a film that’s been obsessed with his character right from the very beginning. The glimpses we get of Kurtz are fleeting as he remains in the shadows with only his rumble of a voice giving weight to his presence in the scene. I have to admit that even after seeing this film for over a hundred times through the years it’s still pretty difficult to understand some of what he is saying. Yet, when such an occurrence would be a death for a scene it doesn’t for this scene. It only helps highlight just how far down the abyss this former paragon of American military might has put himself in to accomplish a mission given to him by people he dismissively call “grocery clerks”.

There’s no soundtrack to try and manipulate the scene for the audience. It’s just the ambient noises of the jungle and the ancient temple Kurtz and his people have called home. Even the dialogue in the beginning of the scene where Kurtz inquires about where Willard was from was full of menace and hidden dangers. It’s very difficult not to get hypnotized by this scene. There’s not a fake beat to the dialogue between Sheen and Brando. The way the scene unfolds almost acts like a metronome that lulls the viewer until the reveal in the end when we finally see Kurtz’s face in full for the very first time.

Coppola has done great work before this film with hi first two Godfather films but this scene in this film I consider the best he has ever put on celluloid.

“Kurtz: Are you an assassin?

Willard: I’m a soldier.

Kurtz: You’re neither, you’re an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill”

Scenes I Love: The Opening of the Godfather

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I was recently lucky enough to catch a showing of the classic film The Godfather at the Cinemark West Plano theater down here in DFW and, in honor of that occasion, allow me to present this scene that I love. This is the opening of The Godfather and it’s one of the best first scenes in cinematic history. In just a matter of minutes, director Francis Ford Coppola tells us everything that we need to know about Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and his business.

Add to that, I love the cat!

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Conversation (dir. by Francis Ford Coppola)

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As a result of my continuing effort to see every single film ever nominated for best picture, I’ve been lucky enough to both discover and rediscover a handful of excellent films that, for whatever reason, have ended up forgotten and neglected in the years since they scored their nominations. One of the more recent of these films was Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece of a paranoia, the 1974 Best Picture nominee The Conversation.*

The Conversation tells the story of Harry Caul (played by Gene Hackman), a surveillance expert who, along with his colleague Stan (played by the great John Cazale), is hired by a businessman (Robert Duvall) to bug a conversation between Duvall’s much younger wife (played by Cindy Williams) and a man who might be her lover (played by Fredric Forrest). Harry, we quickly discover, is a man who values his privacy and who manages to find a balance between his unsavory job and his devout religious faith by maintaining an impenetrable shield of detachment from the rest of humanity. He is a man who hides from the world inside of his apartment, only allowing himself to show the slightest hint of emotion when playing his saxophone. In one of the film’s best scenes, Harry finds himself awkwardly socializing with a far more sleazy acquaintance (played by Alan Garfield, one of the great character actors of the 70s) and it becomes apparent that Harry may be the best in the business but he’s still the ultimate outsider.

However, Harry is forced to confront the contradictions of his own lifestyle when he listens to the conversation between Forrest and Williams and believes that he might have found evidence that both Forrest and Williams are in fear for their lives. With Duvall’s operatives demanding the surveillance tapes, Harry Caul soon finds himself becoming more and more paranoid and unstable as he finds it more and more difficult to justify his detachment. Harry finds himself obsessively listening to the conversation over and over again, going over every possible nuance and emphasis to try to figure out what’s actually being said. Of course, by the end of the film, it’s obvious to both Harry and the audience that nothing is as simple as it sounds.

Compared to the Godfather films and Apocalypse Now, the Conversation is a surprisingly low-key and rather muted film. A lot of this is because, as opposed to the Corleones and Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard, Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul is a complete and total introvert, a man who makes his living by observing a world that he refuses to be a part of. Though the film works quite well as a thriller, it works best when viewed as a sympathetic character study of a paranoid and anti-social human being. Hackman full inhabits the role, bringing Harry — with all of his frustrating contradictions and conflicted actions — to oddly vibrant life. The film ultimately serves as a sad-eyed look at how a good person can justify doing bad things and how the inevitable consequences of those bad things can only be delayed for so long.

On a final note, an impossibly young Harrison Ford shows up here as Duvall’s sinister assistant. He plays the role with just the right amount of prissy arrogance and he has a great scene where he asks Harry is he wants to try a homemade cookie. “They’re good,” Ford assures him.

So is The Conversation.

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* Of course, another Coppola film — The Godfather, Part II — beat the Conversation for best picture. However, The Conversation did win the Palme D’Or at Cannes that year. It was a good year to be Francis Ford Coppola.

Horror On The Lens: Dementia 13 (dir. by Francis Ford Coppola)

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s excursion into the world of public domain horror, I offer up the film debut of Francis Ford Coppola. Before Coppola directed the Godfathers and Apocalypse Now, he directed a low-budget, black-and-white thriller that was called Dementia 13. (Though, in a sign of things to come, producer Roger Corman and Coppola ended up disagreeing on the film’s final cut and Corman reportedly brought in director Jack Hill to film and re-film additional scenes.)

Regardless of whether the credit should go to Coppola, Corman, or Hill, Dementia 13 is a brutally effective little film that is full of moody photography and which clearly served as an influence on the slasher films that would follow it in the future. Speaking of influence, Dementia 13 itself is obviously influenced by the Italian giallo films that, in 1963, were just now starting to make their way into the drive-ins and grindhouses of America.

In the cast, keep an eye out for Patrick Magee, who later appeared as Mr. Alexander in A Clockwork Orange as well as giving a memorable performance in Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat. Luana Anders, who plays the duplicitous wife in this film, showed up in just about every other exploitation film made in the 60s and yes, the scene where she’s swimming freaks me out to no end.

(One final note: I just love the title Dementia 13. Seriously, is that a great one or what?)

What could have been: The Godfather

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I don’t know about you but I love to play the game of “What if.” You know how it works. What if so-and-so had directed such-and-such movie? Would we still love that movie as much? Would so-and-so be a star today? Or would the movie have failed because the director was right to reject so-and-so during preproduction?

I guess that’s why I love the picture below. Taken from one of Francis Ford Coppola’s notebooks, it’s a page where he jotted down a few possibilities to play the roles of Don Vito, Michael, Sonny, and Tom Hagen in The Godfather. It’s a fascinating collection of names, some of which are very familiar and some of which most definitely are not. As I look at this list, it’s hard not wonder what if someone like Scott Marlowe had played Michael Corleone? Would he had then become known as one of the great actors of his generation and would Al Pacino then be fated to just be an unknown name sitting on a famous list?

(This page, just in case you happen to be in the neighborhood , is displayed at the Coppola Winery in California.)

The production of the Godfather — from the casting to the final edit — is something of an obsession of mine. It’s amazing the amount of names — obscure, famous, and infamous — that were mentioned in connection with this film. Below is a list of everyone that I’ve seen mentioned as either a potential director or a potential cast member of The Godfather. Consider this my contribution to the game of What If….?

Director: Aram Avankian, Peter Bogdonavich, Richard Brooks, Costa-Gravas, Sidney J. Furie, Norman Jewison, Elia Kazan, Steve Kestin, Sergio Leone, Arthur Penn, Otto Preminger, Franklin J. Schaffner, Peter Yates, Fred Zinnemann

Don Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando): Melvin Belli, Ernest Borgnine, Joseph Callelia, Lee. J. Cobb, Richard Conte, Frank De Kova, Burt Lancaster, John Marley, Laurence Olivier, Carlo Ponti, Anthony Quinn, Edward G. Robinson, George C. Scott, Frank Sinatra, Rod Steiger, Danny Thomas, Raf Vallone, Orson Welles

Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino): John Aprea, Warren Beatty, Robert Blake, Charles Bronson*, James Caan, David Carradine, Robert De Niro, Alain Delon, Peter Fonda, Art Genovese, Dustin Hoffman, Christopher Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, Tony Lo Bianco, Michael Margotta, Scott Marlowe, Sal Mineo, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O’Neal, Michael Parks, Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Richard Romanus, Gianni Russo, Martin Sheen, Rod Steiger**, Dean Stockwell

Sonny Corleone (played by James Caan): Lou Antonio, Paul Banteo, Robert Blake, John Brascia, Carmine Caridi, Robert De Niro, Peter Falk, Harry Guardino, Ben Gazzara, Don Gordon, Al Letteiri, Tony LoBianco, Scott Marlowe, Tony Musante, Anthony Perkins, Burt Reynolds***, Adam Roarke, Gianni Russo, John Saxon, Johnny Sette, Rudy Solari, Robert Viharo, Anthony Zerbe

Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall): James Caan, John Cassavettes, Bruce Dern, Peter Donat, Keir Dullea, Peter Falk, Steve McQueen, Richard Mulligan, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Ben Piazza, Barry Primus, Martin Sheen, Dean Stockwell, Roy Thinnes, Rudy Vallee****, Robert Vaughn, Jerry Van Dyke, Anthony Zerbe

Kay Adams (played by Diane Keaton): Anne Archer, Karen Black, Susan Blakeley, Genevieve Bujold, Jill Clayburgh, Blythe Danner, Mia Farrow, Veronica Hamel, Ali MacGraw, Jennifer O’Neill, Michelle Phillips, Jennifer Salt, Cybill Shepherd, Trish Van Devere

Fredo Corleone (played by John Cazale): Robert Blake, Richard Dreyfuss, Sal Mineo, Austin Pendleton

Connie Corleone (played by Talia Shire): Julie Gregg, Penny Marshall, Maria Tucci, Brenda Vaccaro, Kathleen Widdoes

Johnny Fontane (played by Al Martino): Frankie Avalon, Vic Damone*****, Eddie Fisher, Buddy Greco, Bobby Vinton, Frank Sinatra, Jr.

Carlo Rizzi (played by Gianni Russo): Robert De Niro, Alex Karras, John Ryan******, Sylvester Stallone

Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo (played by Al Letteiri): Franco Nero

Lucas Brasi (played by Lenny Montana): Timothy Carey, Richard Castellano

Moe Greene (played by Alex Rocco): William Devane

Mama Corleone (played by Morgana King): Anne Bancroft, Alida Valli

Appollonia (played by Simonetta Steffanelli): Olivia Hussey

Paulie Gatto (played by John Martino): Robert De Niro*******, Sylvester Stallone

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* Charles Bronson, who was in his mid-40s, was suggested for the role of Michael by the then-chairman of Paramount Pictures, Charlie Bluhdorn.

** By all accounts, Rod Steiger – who was then close to 50 – lobbied very hard to be given the role of Michael Corleone.

*** Some sources claim that Burt Reynolds was cast as Sonny but Brando refused to work with him. However, for a lot of reasons, I think this is just an cinematic urban legend.

**** Despite being in his 60s at the time, singer Rudy Vallee lobbied for the role of the 35 year-old Tom Hagen. Supposedly, another singer — Elvis Presley — lobbied for the role as well but that just seems so out there that I couldn’t bring myself to include it with the “official” list.

***** Vic Damone was originally cast as Johnny Fontane but dropped out once shooting began and announced that the project was bad for Italian Americans. He was replaced by Al Martino.

****** John P. Ryan was originally cast as Carlo Rizzi but was fired and replaced with Gianni Russo. Ryan went on to play the distraught father in Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive. Russo went on to co-star in Laserblast.

******* Robert De Niro was originally cast in this role but dropped out to replace Al Pacino in The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Pacino, incidentally, had to drop out of that film because he was given the role of Michael in The Godfather.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale (dir. by Richard Shepard)

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Despite only appearing in 5 films and dying 8 years before I was born, John Cazale is one of my favorite actors. You might not recognize his name but, if you love the films of the 70s, you know who John Cazale is because he appeared in some of the most iconic films of the decade. Though he’s probably best known for playing poor Fredo in first two Godfather films, Cazale also appeared in The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. All five of his films were Oscar-nominated for best picture and three of them won. All five are, in their own individual ways, classics of modern cinema and, though he was never more than a supporting player, Cazale gave performances of such unexpected emotional depth that he elevated each of these films just by his very presence. Tragically, Cazale died at the age of 42 of lung cancer. At the time, he had just finished filming The Deer Hunter and he was engaged to marry an up-and-coming actress named Meryl Streep.

I Knew It Was You is a documentary that both attempts to tell the story of Cazale’s life as well as pay tribute to him an actor. While it fails somewhat to do the former, it succeeds flawlessly as a tribute. The film is filled with footage of Cazale’s legendary performances and watching these clips, you’re struck by not only Cazale’s talent but his courage as well. As more than one person comments during the documentary, it takes a lot of guts to so completely inhabit a role like The Godfather’s Fredo Corleone. While other actors might be tempted to overplay a character like Fredo (essentially winking at the audience as if to say, “I’m not a weakling like this guy,”) Cazale was willing to completely inhabit his characters, brining to life both the good and the bad of their personalities. Watching the clips, you realize that Cazale, as an actor, really was becoming stronger and stronger with each performance. On a sadder note, this documentary make it painfully obvious just how sick Cazale was in The Deer Hunter. The contrast between the nervous, lumbering Cazale of Dog Day Hunter and his gaunt, unbearably sad appearance in The Deer Hunter is simply heart breaking.

The documentary is full of interviews with actors and directors who either worked with or were inspired by John Cazale and you’re immediately struck by the affection that they all still obviously feel for him even 30 years after his death. Among those interviewed are Steve Buscemi, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, Sam Rockwell, and Richard Dreyfuss. (I thought I knew every bit of Godfather trivia but I learned something new from this film when I found out that Richard Dreyfuss came close to being Fredo before Coppola saw Cazale in a play.) Perhaps most interesting are the interviews where actors like Pacino, De Niro, and Gene Hackman talk about how acting opposite John Cazale caused them to give better performances than they might have otherwise. If nothing else, it’s a good reminder that a classic film is, more often than not, a collaborative effort.

Where this documentary drops the ball is in detailing who Cazale was as a person. Though everyone’s affection for him is obvious, we learn little about what drove the man who was so sad and tragic as Fredo Corleone. Cazale’s upbringing is covered in about 2 minutes of flashy graphics and his untimely death (and his struggle to complete his Deer Hunter role) is also covered a bit too quickly. There’s a fascinating and inspiring story there but this documentary only hints at it. For reasons I still can’t figure out, this thing only lasts 40 minutes. Even just an extra 15 minutes would have been helpful.

Hollywood director Brett Ratner is also interviewed and I imagine this probably has something to do with the fact that Ratner co-produced this documentary. So, I guess Ratner is a Cazale fan and good for him but it’s still kinda jarring to see him there with directors like Lumet and actors like Pacino and De Niro. Ratner, to be honest, is the only one of the people interviewed who actually comes across as having nothing of value to say. Which isn’t all that surprising when you consider that Ratner is pretty much the golden child of bland, mainstream filmmaking right now.

Still, even if it never reaches the heights of Werner’s Herzog’s My Best Fiend, I still have to recommend I Knew It Was You as a touching tribute to a truly great actor. As a bonus, the DVD contains two short films featuring a very young and intense John Cazale. Watching him, you can’t help but mourn that he wasn’t in more movies but you’re so thankful for the legendary performances that he was able to give us.