Years & Movies: 1974

The best film of world cinema of 1974, according to FilmGourmand, was recognized the film by Francis Ford Coppola "The Godfather: Part II".

"The Godfather: Part II" premiered in New York on December 12, 1974.

There was a possibility that "The Godfather: Part II" could have been directed not by Francis Ford Coppola, but by some other director, e.g., Martin Scorsese. The fact is that during the filming of the first part, the producers were going to fire Coppola several times, and Coppola got tired of these, to put it mildly, "friction" with the producers. Therefore, having received an offer to shoot the sequel to "The Godfather", Coppola set a number of rather significant conditions for the producers. Including, complete freedom of creativity in this film, as well as the right to work in parallel on the film "The Conversation", in which Coppola acted as a scriptwriter, director and producer.

The producers, taking into account that the first part of "The Godfather" was a resounding success, and first of all, financial (the film with a budget of $ 6 million brought its creators almost $ 270 million), agreed with all the conditions of the director and, moreover, presented him a Mercedes Benz limousine. And Scorsese's candidacy, proposed by Coppola himself, was rejected.

A few weeks after its premiere, Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather: Part II" received 6 Golden Globe nominations. However, it won none. In the most important nominations - Best Drama Film and Best Director - "The Godfather: Part II" and Francis Ford Coppola lost to the film "Chinatown" and its director Roman Polanski.

And shortly thereafter, "The Godfather: Part 2" received 11 Oscar nominations, of which it won 6, including in the most important categories: Best Picture and Best Director. Many film reviewers have made about the same conclusion on this, namely: "Coppola finally tackled the project that the entire world seemed to be waiting for: The Godfather, Part II. Hailed as an even greater film than its predecessor, Part II proved just as successful, becoming the only sequel to ever win Best Picture. Coppola also won his first Oscar as Best Director. "

Coppola's award for his directing work was absolutely justified and natural. Much of his work on the film has demonstrated a professional attitude of the highest level. For example, when the film was shot almost entirely, one musician drew Coppola's attention to the fact that all the men in the film wear zipped pants, while, at the time described in the film, the zipper was not invented yet. Coppola ordered all such scenes to be re-shot, forcing the men to wear button-down trousers.

In addition to Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director, "The Godfather: Part II" received Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. However, if you look at this award more closely, you can come to the conclusion that it is not entirely correct. Despite the fact that everywhere it is claimed that the film is based on the novel by Mario Puzo, the connection between the film and the novel is very minor. Only the scenes about the young Vito Corleone have any basis in the book, since only one chapter in the book is devoted to Vito's childhood and youth. And everything about Michael (Al Pacino) and his family in Las Vegas presents a completely original plot. Moreover, already in the course of filming, Al Pacino, threatening Coppola with the fact that he would refuse the role, actually forced him to almost completely rewrite the original script. And Coppola did it in literally one weekend. Nonetheless, the film won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, although it would have been fairer to give it for Best Original Screenplay.

Also interesting is the history of the Oscar, received by the film for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score, which was awarded to Nino Rota. This composer was nominated for an Oscar for his music for the first part of "The Godfather". But this nomination was canceled due to the fact that the score used in "The Godfather" was used in the 1958 film "Fortunella". The musical score in the second part of "The Godfather" largely repeats the theme from the first part, and, consequently, the score from the movie "Fortunella". However, Nino Rota won an Oscar. To be honest, I have not seen the film "Fortunella" and therefore cannot judge how the musical score of this film coincides with the music from "The Godfather". But in any case, Nino Rota's music is simply incomparable. In fact, it was with her that the acquaintance of Soviet cinema audiences with this film masterpiece began: the film was not shown in Soviet cinemas, at least until the beginning of perestroika, but the music sounded in a lot of places.

Since we have touched upon the Academy Awards won by the film, it should be noted that five actors in this film were nominated for this award. And only one Robert De Niro received the award as Best Supporting Actor. And it should be noted that his acting work in this film is another example of a professional attitude to business. In order to achieve the complete authenticity of his image of Vito Corleone, Robert De Niro spent 4 months learning to speak the Sicilian dialect of the Italian language, of which he simply lived in Sicily for 3 months. And this is no coincidence, since in English the hero of De Niro in the film speaks only 8 words.

But Al Pacino, nominated for an Oscar as Best Lead Role, did not receive this award, neither for the first part of the film, nor for the second. American film academics considered Art Carney's acting in "Harry and Tonto" to be more worthy of this award. However, it is possible that the fee received by Al Pacino for this role to some extent compensated for his bitterness of defeat. Al Pacino's fee for the second part of "The Godfather" was 500 thousand dollars (approximately 2.8 million dollars today) + 10% of the profits. This fee was several dozens times higher than his fee received for the first part, which amounted to 25 thousand dollars.

And this despite the fact that the box office of the second part, according to various estimates, ranged from $ 48 million to $ 88 million. That is, even the maximum ratings did not come close to the financial results of the first part of the film. And the budget of the second part was more than twice the budget of the first part, namely $ 13 million. It is possible that the threefold decrease in the box office of the second part compared to the box office of the first part was due to the overestimated expectations of many American moviegoers, generated by the overwhelming success of the first part. It is known that tickets worth $ 26 million were booked in 340 US cinemas before filming ended.

The American Film Academy was the only one in the world to award Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather: Part II" with its highest award. European and Asian film academies and film festivals have not even honored this film with a single nomination. More precisely, only the British Film Academy nominated the film for its BAFTA award in not the most important categories and awarded Al Pacino. Moreover, as we already wrote, it was awarded, as they say, "on the basis of merits": for two roles, including the role in the film "Dog Day Afternoon" by Sidney Lumet.

As for the reviews of film critics, their opinions were also very ambiguous. The overwhelming majority of the reviews were enthusiastic. However, leading film critics have been very reticent about the film. For example, Vincent Canby, a film reviewer for the leading American edition of The New York Times, wrote in his review, published the day after the New York premiere: "The only remarkable thing about Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather, Part II" is the insistent manner in which it recalls how much better his original film was."

The guru of American film critic Roger Ebert, in a review written in 1974, rated the film three stars out of four possible and commented on his rating as follows: "“The Godfather, Part II” moves both forward and backward in time from the events in “The Godfather,” in an attempt to resolve our feelings about the Corleones. In doing so, it provides for itself a structural weakness from which the film never recovers, but it does something even more disappointing: It reveals a certain simplicity in Coppola’s notions of motivation and characterization that wasn’t there in the elegant masterpiece of his earlier film....There’s also some evidence in the film that Coppola never completely mastered the chaotic mass of material in his screenplay. Some scenes seem oddly pointless (why do we get almost no sense of Michael’s actual dealings in Cuba, but lots of expensive footage about the night of Castro’s takeover?), and others seem not completely explained (I am still not quite sure who really did order that attempted garroting in the Brooklyn saloon)."

However, it may have worked what the poet described as follows: "Face to face. Not seeing a face. Great things are seen at a distance." Over time, some have changed their original opinion. The same Roger Ebert 34 years later, in 2008, wrote a new review in which he rated the film with a maximum of 4 stars and included it in his list of "Great Movies". This review is already peppered with epithets such as "a great movie", "a work of unconditional greatness", "a movie that contains all the life lessons you need to know", "a movie that everyone who appreciates cinema should watch."

And James Berardinelli wrote in 2001: "Combined, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II represent the apex of American movie-making and the ultimate gangster story. Few sequels have expanded upon the original with the faithfulness and detail of this one. Beneath the surface veneer of an ethnic period piece, The Godfather is not so much about crime lords as it is about prices paid in the currency of the soul for decisions made and avoided. It is that quality which establishes this saga as timeless."

The well-known Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev gave the film 9.5 points out of 10 possible and in the 2007 review wrote: "Although the events of the novel and film are completely fictional, Coppola creates a true historical epic about the mafia, correctly guessing the essence of this "growth", "cancer" on the body of the state. It reveals the ways to involve people in the orbit of influence of the criminal syndicate, the philosophy and ethics of power of those who are at the head of the organization. The measured, epic breath of the second series, the thoroughness and scale of the narrative made some fans of dashing action prefer the first part. But it seems that the Director was right, not wanting to mechanically exploit the success of his former action movie, putting a greater charge of sociality and critical perception of American reality in the new story."

Modern moviegoers rated Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather: Part II" very highly, perhaps much higher than audiences in the 1970s. 86% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this movie ratings from 8 to 10. And 42% of users rated the movie with the highest score - "ten". With this in mind, and as stated above, the rating of Francis Ford Coppola's film "The Godfather: Part II" according to FilmGourmand's version was 9.295, making it 104th in the Golden Thousand.

In addition to Francis Ford Coppola's film "The Godfather: Part II", the following films were included in the "ten" best films of world cinema in 1974 according to FilmGourmand:

- Chinatown. Director Roman Polanski, USA. Movie's Rating - 9,237; 110th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- C'eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much). Director Ettore Scola, Italy. Movie's Rating - 9,014; 154th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Profumo di donna (Scent of a Woman). Director Dino Risi, Italy. Movie's Rating - 8,709; 239th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- The Conversation. Director Francis Ford Coppola, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,574; 290th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land). Director Andrzej Wajda, Poland. Movie's Rating - 8,427; 351st Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- A Woman Under the Influence. Director John Cassavetes, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,393; 366th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser). Director Werner Herzog, Germany. Movie's Rating - 8,369; 384th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Potop (The Deluge). Director Jerzy Hoffman, Poland. Movie's Rating - 8,218; 460th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (Conversation Piece). Director Luchino Visconti, Italy. Movie's Rating - 8,186; 489th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

10 most "cinegenic"*, in our opinion, events of 1974:

- Watergate. In the USA, as a result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon resigned. The post of the US president moved to Gerald Ford.
- The opening of the terracotta army. In China, 30 km from the city of Xi'an, local peasants digging a well discovered the terracotta army of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. The army, which consisted of 8,099 life-size figures of warriors and horses, was buried for over 2 thousand years.
- Super flash tornado. Within 24 hours, a series of 148 tornadoes hit 13 US states and one province in Canada. 319 people died. About 5.5 thousand people were injured. The cumulative damage was $ 848 million (equivalent to $ 5 billion in 2021). Until 2011, this outbreak remained the largest in history.
- "The Carnation Revolution". In Portugal, there was a bloodless military coup carried out by the underground army organization Captains Movement. It led to the overthrow of the corporate regime created by Salazar and supported by Caetanu for 40 years.
- "Bulldozer Exhibition". In the USSR, on the outskirts of Moscow, an exhibition of paintings by Soviet avant-garde artists was held. The exhibition was destroyed by police officers using watering machines and bulldozers.
- A coup d'état in Cyprus. The conspirators from among the officers of the National Guard of Cyprus overthrew the country's president, Archbishop Makarios III, and tried to assassinate him. As a result of the conspiracy, Nikos Sampson, a supporter of the annexation of Cyprus to Greece, was proclaimed president. In response, Turkey sent its troops to Cyprus, occupying 37% of the island's territory. The attempt to annex Cyprus to Greece, which led to the opposite result, finally discredited the regime of "black colonels" in Greece and led to its downfall.
- IRA attacks. The Irish Republican Army carried out a series of bombings in England. In London, part of the Palace of Westminster was blown up, in Birmingham two pubs were blown up, as a result of which 21 people died.
- Disaster DC-10 near Paris. A McDonnell-Douglas-10 Turkish Airlines plane crashed in the vicinity of Paris (France). 346 people died, making this the largest disaster to date.
- Attack on the French Embassy in The Hague. Three members of the Japanese Red Army, a Japanese left-wing organization, stormed the French Embassy, demanding the release of their member, Yatsuk Furuya. The ambassador and ten other people were taken hostage. The siege and negotiations lasted for five days, resulting in the release of Furuya, the hostages of the embassy, and the terrorists managed to safely leave the Netherlands.
- Patricia Hearst's Stockholm syndrome. The granddaughter of American billionaire and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Patricia Hearst, was abducted by the American left-wing terrorist group Symbionist Liberation Army (SAO). She spent 57 days in a closet measuring 2 meters by 63 centimeters, the first two weeks blindfolded, the first few days without a toilet and gagged, was subjected to physical, psychological and sexual violence. After that, she agreed to go over to the side of the invaders and adopted their political beliefs under the threat of murder. As part of the SAO combat team, Patricia Hearst took part in the robbery of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco. Later, she was involved in a bank robbery in the town of Carmichael (California), the shooting of a supermarket, several cases of car theft and hostage-taking, the production of explosives.

Besides Penelope Cruz was born. Vittorio De Sica and Vasiliy Shukshin died.

* -With "cinematic" in the present context, we mean events that either have already found their reflection in world cinema, or deserve to become the basis of the plot of a future film.