“Pacino’s Michael Corleone embodies perhaps better
than any other character the bitter unraveling of the American dream in the
postwar 20th century—heroism and idealism succumbing to the corrupt and
murderous undercurrent of bad blood and bad money. Watching it again, the first
two parts anyway, it feels almost biblical: each scene virtually carved in
stone, a celluloid Sistine Chapel painted with a brush dipped in blood.”—Ron
Rosenbaum, “Passion Play: Al Pacino Gets Ready for the Next Act in His High-Wire Career—Bringing Live Theater to the Movie Screen,” Smithsonian, September
2013
I had this quote, waiting to be used for the last
year—then forgot to include it for my post yesterday about The Godfather: Part II.
But this brief but perfect commentary, by one of my favorite nonfiction writers on one of the
essential postwar American films, is way too good to waste.
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