The Ambiguity of Part II

I watched Parts I and II again on AMC on Thanksgiving. One of the things that struck me what that although both movies form part of a series, they are remarkably different (for the record, I definitely prefer Part I--if I could only watch one movie for the rest of my life, it would definitely be I).

The entire feel of both films is much more different than I remembered. Not only is II much darker (except for the Vito scenes) than I, but it is far more mysterious and ambiguous. Even at the end of the film, many key questions remain unresolved. Did Fredo intentionally conspire to kill Michael? Why did Roth want Michael dead? What happened in the bar with Pentangeli--did the Rosatos really try to kill him, or was it a gigantic setup to get him to testify against Michael at the Senate hearings? How did the appearance of Pentangeli's brother at the hearings persuade him not to go through with his testimony?

The purpose of this post isn't to rehash the questions above. All have been extensively debated on these boards. Rather, it's to ask the question: Is the ambiguity of Part II (which, in my opinion, goes a little too far) by accident or design? Did Coppola and Puzo get so caught up in creating an intricate plot that they forgot to answer these questions? Or did they deliberately never answer them in order to give the viewer the same uncertainty and sense of fear that one would have being a real life participant in something like this?

I've always said that as great a movie as Part II is, it was rushed to be made and it suffered because of that. Many things weren't thought out properly and the result was some glaring "errors".

Well, you're right, Vito--II has far more ambiguities than GF. Ending with Michael sitting on his deck with the gunshot reverberating, then the flashback, doesn't really bring closure. And I don't think either FFC or Paramount were envisioning III at that point.
I think SC is right--haste to complete the film. From time to time people here have unearthed many, many different scripts and scenes for II. I bet there are several different endings somewhere in Paramount's vaults.

I am pretty satisfied with II. There was alot of material for FFC to draw on and alot of questions to be answered that viewers had that were generated by I. FFC had to make decisions on film content regardless of how much time he had to complete it. Otherwise, it would become an HBO series. Remember, it was already 4 hours.

Funny thing is, today it would be an HBO series. When you have that much material to cover, it just makes more sense to take your time with it.

I think there's something to what SC posted. The film was rushed. But then, so was Part III, and that was an almost complete disaster. So in my opinion, GF 2 was the greatest "rushed" film of all time .

I think the plot holes in GF2 are accidental. And I believe they made it too complicated. Especially Roth's role remains unclear.
In GF1 it's clear: A villain (Sollozzo) appears, and his (drug) interests do conflict with Vito's. The arch villain Barzini uses Sollozzo. A war starts.
In GF2, the arch villain is Roth. But we never really know what he's doing: The drapes, the connections to the Rosatos, his relationship to Pentangeli (aka Clemenza), luring Michael to Cuba, then having Fredo come to Cuba.
Even after having watched the movie, we're in a greater dark than Fredo ever was.
Oh, I almost forgot: I love "The Godfather 2"

I always thought that part I and Part III were rushed. For part II FFC demanded full authority, which, If I'm correct, was granted to him. That meant he decided how long the production would take. Considering all the research they made for writing the script, all the different places they went to shoot scenes and all the effort they put in desinging the sets, suggests they had plenty of time.

Appropos of nothing in this excellent thread I just wanted to point out another strange error in II. Connie tells Anthony that Michael wants to take him to Reno "right now," but Michael doesn't go to Reno, he stays inside and watches his brother get shot by what had to be the loudest bullet ever fired. Is this how Anthony knew Michael killed Fredo?

I like to think that he just pieced it together. Last thing he knew he was with his friendly uncle Fredo and not so friendly Mr. Neri. Maybe over time he found out what Neri was...

Madonne! What could possibly lead you to think that GFI was rushed? It is one of those films by which all others are judged. Rushed? Where? How?

I meant that the production of these two films was rushed.

Still, rushed how? What in the production of GFI evidences even the merest whiff of rushed?

Deadlines, pressure from the top, budget limitations etc. Just read one of the books about the production of the films to find out yourself.

FFC was completely in charge of the production of the second film and there wasn't interference from the top, in fact he got full cooperation and got a blanco cheque for the budget. So give me a reason why GF2 was rushed?

I think that at least some portion of the ambiguity was probably intentional. Coppola at this time was also involved with The Conversation, which he acknowledged was influenced by Antonioni's "Blowup." These are films steeped in intentional ambiguity.

I've thought for a while that what we really know for sure about the Michael-Fredo-Roth story is contained in just a few scenes (the "you lied to me," "Johnny Ola brought me here, and "I'm smaht," scenes) that border on parody. If you lift them out, pretty much any interpretation of GF2 would be possible, including that Michael had set up a phony hit attempt as a pretext for getting rid of enemies that existed only in his own mind.

Indeed GFII is a much heavier meal to digest than GFI; the back and forth of flashbacks are unearthing, the deep psychological insight on how Vito became the Godfather, how Michael manipulates everybody, and trust nobody, and the dilemma between the survival instinct driving the beast, and the mirage of civility that he so desperately seeks...

I must admit, I didn't get it the first time I saw it, I didn't fully get it the second time, but I got everything the third time; to me, there are no plot holes.

There are holes in how we receive the plot, not the plot itself, I believe! The time constraints meant that the plot is not spoon-fed to us, but we must deduct, analyze, and fill-in the gaps - easy to do now with DVD (pause, rewind, listen again), must have been very difficult when it was first released.

To conclude: I like the way the Godfather movies make me work to keep up with the plot; they engage me, involve me, and captivate me through eliminating the complacency of stating the obvious.

We're discussing part II the most so I think any flaws or weaknesses with the script fixed themselves and only made the film a deeper rabbit hole to explore with each viewing.