The Godfather‘s status as the pinnacle version of cinematic achievement on the big screen has been long debated, but not many film professors would deny that it deserves to at least be in the conversation. The 2007 edition of the American Film Institute‘s poll of the greatest films of all-time listed The Godfather as #2 behind Citizen Kane, and it was also listed at the #2 spot on IMDb‘s user-generated list behind The Shawshank Redemption. Different critical bodies and film societies have held various polls over the years, and The Godfather has been highly ranked on honored publications such as the British Film Institute, the Sight & Sound critic’s poll, and Empire magazine. It’s one of the few films that every cinephile needs to see at least once in their lifetime in order to understand the history of the medium.
The discussion of what deserves the same honor on the television side had been equally fierce, as the medium developed into a rival of cinema thanks to the “peak TV” era that began at the beginning of the 21st century. Hollywood executives turned to become more reliant on blockbusters, cinematic universes, and stories about superheroes. Anyone looking for more serious, nuanced dramatic storytelling would have to turn to prestige television; movie fans were no longer what Succession’s Logan Roy (Brian Cox) would refer to as “serious people.” Now that Succession has established itself as The Godfather of modern television, it only makes sense that Jeremy Strong’s portrayal of Kendall Roy shares a lot in common with the character of Michael Corleone.
The Godfather and Successions’ All-Time Status
The work that Francis Ford Coppola did on The Godfather and its 1974 sequel The Godfather: Part II came as the pivotal achievement of the 1970s era of Hollywood. The “New Hollywood” generation allowed filmmakers such as Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, George Lucas, Brian De Palma, John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, and William Friedkin to explore more complex themes during an era of social change within the country. Patriotism had declined in the United States in the wake of major political movements and news events, and Hollywood offered commentary on the Vietnam War, the Watergate Scandal, the series of political assassinations, the surveillance state, and the war on drugs. The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II were the ultimate American tragedy, and deservedly each won the Academy Award for Best Picture as a testament to cinema’s ability to reflect on reality.
However, the innovations that were so common in the 1970s had become absent from the film industry by the dawn of the new century; studios favored the search for rising profits over artistic excellence. Television shows became the place where 70s anti-heroes like Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or Gene Hackman’s Detective Popeye Doyle from The French Connection would have lived. 21st Century TV offered no shortage of great anti-heroes, as viewers learned to both love and loathe characters such as Mad Men’s Don Draper (Jon Hamm), Breaking Bad’s Walter White (Bryan Cranston), Better Call Saul’s Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), Mr. Robot’s Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), The Sopranos’s Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), The Americans’s Phillip Jeffries (Matthew Rhys), Boardwalk Empire’s Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), and even Will Arnett’s vocal performance as the titular star of Bojack Horseman.
If there was any social theme that was as important in the 21st Century as the problems that New Hollywood was addressing, it was the all-consuming nature of greed. If issues such as media dominance, American greed, the ruthlessness of capitalism, a post-truth society, political fascism, and white supremacy terrified you, Succession was scarier than anything in The Conjuring universe. No character embodied these themes in quite the same way as Strong’s role as Kendall, a child who thinks that the world owes him an empire.
A Tragic New York Hero
Both Michael and Kendall live within a seat of power that places them at the top of the Big Apple’s social infrastructure. Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is “The Godfather,” and serves as one of the most powerful figures within the New York mafia scene. When an attempted assassination attempt takes him out of commission, Vito must choose a replacement who can lead his family into the future. The tragedy of the story is that Michael begins to emulate all the qualities about his father that he had detested, from his greed to his murderous ways. Vito’s death forces Michael to become the same ruthless criminal that his father had represented.
A virtually identical story arc takes place over the course of Succession; Logan becomes incapacitated by an illness, and must choose a replacement CEO at his news media empire of RoyStar, which had been under public scrutiny for its abusive history and negative impact on American democracy and media. While his daughter Shiv (Sarah Snook), his younger son Roman (Kiernan Culkin), Shiv’s husband Tom (Matthew Macfayden), his wacky grandnephew Greg (Nicholas Braun) all vie to be Logan’s replacement, it’s Kendall who thinks that he can fix his father’s ways, even if he proves to be just as guilty of the greed and heartlessness of his father. The fact that Kendall fails to become his father’s replacement somehow makes hist story even more heartbreaking.
A Not Entirely Sympathetic Character
Even though The Godfather: Part III tried to depict a more empathetic version of Michael, nothing in the first two films suggests that he is anything but the same terrifying “Godfather” that we saw a young Vito (Robert De Niro) become in The Godfather: Part II. Both Kendall and Michael try hard to convince themselves that they are “different” than their fathers, and that they are trying to pave a new era for their families. By the time of The Godfather trilogy’s concussion and the series finale of Succession, their failures couldn’t be any more apparent.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
