Another Godfather Thread: Best Character

craig r · #1 11-25-2005, 09:07 AM

My favorite would probably be Sonny.

A second would be Waltz (the movie producer in the first one). I don't know why I think it is so funny when he calls Tom a "guinea WOP", finds out he isn't Italian, and decides to throw out more racial slurs. It was like Waltz was just determined to insult him and could only do it racially.

I also like Clemenza also.

craig

KaneKungFu123 · #2 11-25-2005, 09:13 AM

the guy joe pesci played.

craig r · #3 11-25-2005, 09:16 AM

[ QUOTE ]
the guy joe pesci played.

[/ QUOTE ]

Joe Pesci was in the Godfather? I don't remember him. Maybe he had a small role.

Oh wait, wasn't he Vito's wife? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

craig

diebitter · #4 11-25-2005, 09:18 AM

yeah to Sonny and Clemenza. Vito too, but liked him in his younger days better.

Vito was a MAN in all senses of the word (loved his children, respected people, did what he had to do, used his head, kept his word, stuck with his friends - you know, all those masculine traits that don't seem to be held in much esteem these days).

I like Connie as well, especially when she talks to Michael about Fredo.

Blarg · #5 11-25-2005, 09:19 AM

Clemenza was very cool. Really easy to like.

I get a bone for Abe Vigoda just on principle, though, so I like Tessio, too.

I also really liked Tom Hagen a lot. It was hard being deeply in that world and in that family and still never quite accepted. Yet never quite rejected. He's always walking a lot of very fine lines in between different worlds and walking them very well, usually better than he's given credit for.

It occurs to me that he seems like the only character in the story who could have written it.

ChipWrecked · #6 11-25-2005, 09:19 AM

Bobby DeNiro as the young Don.

The scene where the neighborhood slumlord is so shitscared he can't get Vito's office door to open makes me laugh every time.

(refers to the superior GFII, which I assume is fair ground here)

Blarg · #7 11-25-2005, 09:23 AM

I don't agree it's superior at all, but lots of people do.

I'll put a kind word in for Fredo. He's this half-century's Shemp. Nobody would want to be Fredo, but John Casale really did him well and made him memorable.

craig r · #8 11-25-2005, 09:23 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Vito was a MAN in all senses of the word (loved his children, respected people, did what he had to do, used his head, kept his word, stuck with his friends).

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I know what you mean by "respected people", but for the most part he didn't. He was still violent. I think this is one thing that seperates Goodfellas/Casino from The Godfather movies. When I watch the Godfather I say to myself, "that life wouldn't be so bad". But, with Goodfellas/Casino, yes that life is glorified, but most realize it isn't a good life. I don't know, those are just my takes.

craig

Also, Vito, at first was against bringing in smack, but eventually changed his mind. So, on one hand he was a "man" with respect, but on the other hand he was willing to profit off of other people's extreme misery. And I think Coppola did do a good job of showing that. Coppola also did a good job of showing the "justification" of "their" way of life.

craig

KaneKungFu123 · #9 11-25-2005, 09:24 AM

Blarg · #10 11-25-2005, 09:27 AM

He had some standards, reflected in his not wanting to deal drugs and wanting to have meetings be conducted decently when tensions were high, in not throwing his weight around and interfering in Connie's marriage, and in not ordering a murder of the mortician's daughter's rapist, but merely a savage beating. He drew lines.

But he was also compulsively what he was. The boogeyman scaring the little kid in the garden was him reverting to type, inescapably and stupidly what he was. A man of both intelligence and practical wisdom, but a flawed and corrupted heart.