Watched on Blu-Ray

Like his colleagues and friends Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola belongs to a generation of cultural figures whose place in film history is unchallenged and who played a decisive role in shaping the medium of film during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. In the search for filmmakers who would attract that same new generation of moviegoers to the theatres, the still very young Coppola was given the directing job on the adaptation of Mario Puzo's novel "The Godfather", a responsible task that Coppola probably took a little too seriously for the studio, as his insistence on details from costumes to his desired cast not only drove up the budget but also cost everyone involved a great deal of nerves. But their work and their struggles paid off in the end and resulted in the beginning of a film series that is nothing less than an outline of the socio-political upheavals of the time, captured in a great family drama that has lost none of its fascination even today.

With peace comes change in the country, as well as in the Corleone family. With the end of the war, they are confronted with new lines of business, with a decision for even more wealth and influence or a decline of principles, represented by the entry into the lucrative drug business. From the very first meeting of Vito and Sonny with Solozzo, played by Al Lettieri, one becomes aware of the rupture within the generations when the son interrupts his father and, against Vito's instructions, shows open interest in the deal. The ultimately favoured Michael may be more of the businessman his father wants at the head of the family, but in him the image of the slick businessman is combined with that of the power seeker.

In "The Godfather", a mirror seems to be held up to the USA. The rigid hierarchy of the Corleones, in which there is no place for the weak like the sensitive Fredo, as well as the omnipresent atmosphere of violence, which discharges in spurts and sometimes shows truly gruesome images, point to the roots of this brutality in everyday life. In a parallel montage we follow the exuberance of Conny's wedding while in the darkened back room the next acts of murder are already being planned. Murder is never far away in a film like The Godfather, it comes abruptly and with full force, and is accompanied by a coldness that only a calculating businessman can take for himself.

Coppola's cinema is always one of the great dramas of contemporary history, as can be seen in "The Godfather" series as well as in works like "The Conversation" or "Apocalypse Now". Michael, played by Al Pacino, wants to emancipate himself from the family, as he tells his fiancée, wants to be independent, but, as he says at many points throughout the three films, is caught in the middle when it comes to ensuring their survival. In one telling scene, he corrects the hot-headed Sonny, who falsely accuses him of overreacting and taking things too personally, by telling him it's not so and it's all "strictly business", even if it involves killing someone.

As the beginning of the three-part series, "The Godfather" can be seen as a kind of exposition that not only introduces the cornerstones of the films, but also prepares the viewer to witness a process of dehumanisation, a maelstrom of violence, at the end of which is placed the very character who actually wanted to free himself from the old generation and its sins.