What do The Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia and Casblanca. have in common? All three movies were recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as the Best Picture of their year (1972, 1962 & 1943, respectively). All three are classics, considered among the finest motion pictures ever made. The three pictures made the Top 5 in the American Film Institute’s 100 Years…100 Movies list in 1998.
All three also were cited by President-elect Barack Obama as being his favorites when he was asked, in a pre-election TV interview by Katie Couric, what his favorite movie was.
In response to the question, Obama went into an impersonation of Marlon Brando to explain his love of The Godfather.
“My favorite has to be the opening scene of the first Godfather where, you know, the caretaker comes in, and you know, Marlon Brando is sitting there and saying, ‘You disrespected me and now you want a favor’. It’s the tone for the whole movie.”
Obama’s mimicry of the mumbling master of Method Acting was quite good. However, he got the other character wrong. The man asking a favor of The Godfather was an undertaker who will later bury his son, much as Barack Obama played undertaker to the Presidential ambitions of Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
The fatherless Barack Obama likely was attracted to the movie due to its strong father figure, Don Vito Corleone, who places his family above all else. The movie also is political, as the Don lives in a world where politicians are bought and sold and deals are struck between the mob bosses, matters of life and death for the people who will be effected by their “businesses” such as narcotics.
It’s nothing personal, it’s only business,” is a constant refrain in the movie as men are sent to their deaths in the constant turf battles that is the day-to-day stuff of organized crime. Nothing personal. This, too, is evocative of the blood sport that is Presidential politics. Barack Obama frequently dismissed the vitriolic attacks of his rivals, such as Hillary Clinton, as not being personal, but part of the business of politics.
“There’s the combination of Old World gentility and ritual with this savagery underneath, and it’s all about family. It’s a great movie,” Obama told Couric. He then declared that another favorite was Lawrence of Arabia, which he declared was a “great movie.”
Lawrence of Arabia deals with politics, too, the politics of the Middle East, a subject that soon will be one of the major burdens of Obama’s administration. It also deals with colonialism, a subject close to Obama’s soul as his father was a Kenyan, born during the British colonial period. It also deals with the politics of the military, a field that Obama will have to master as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces.
The existential aspect of Lawrence of Arabia must have attracted Obama. For T.E. Lawrence, like Barack Obama, was a self-defined man. T.E. Lawrence, who was born illegitimate, did not have a father, per se, like Obama. And during the period covered by the movie, when he leads the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War One, Lawrence creates a new persona for himself.
An existentialist himself, the President-elect of the United States, who is of mixed race and originally called himself “Barry” Obama, chose to identify himself as African American as he made his entry into adulthood. He is self-defined. Obama also lead a popular revolt, against the status quo of American politics.
After mentioning Lawrence of Arabia, Barack Obama then cited the movie helped make Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman into cinema legends.
“Who doesn’t love Casablanca?” Obama asked rhetorically.
“I asked for one,” a laughing Katie Couric said.
“Hey, I’m a movie guy,” Obama explained. “I can rattle off a bunch of movies.”
The Godfather (1972)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and featring great performances by Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone and James Caan, John Cale, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino as his sons, The Godfather was unique in that it was a serious film with great critical cachet that also proved to be be a box office block buster. After its release in April 1972, the film quickly surpassed The Sound of Music as the highest grossing film of all time. (Its record subsequently was eclipsed by Jaws in 1975, which itself was eclipsed by Star Wars, both of which were a different breed of film.)
Based on the eponymous 1969 pulp novel by Mario Puzo, The Godfather racked up three Oscars at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony, which became infamous when Marlon Brando rejected his Best Actor gong to protest Hollywood’s treatment of the American Indian. Coppola and Puzo were honored for Best Adapted Screenplay.
For years, The Godfather was ranked #1 on the Internet Movie Database in terms of users’ votes on scale of 1-10.It recently dropped to #2, bested only by The Shawshank Redemption, a film made a generation after The Godfather that has received a great deal of critical acclaim. Both movies have a rating of 9.1.
In 2008, the American Film Insitute issued its Top 10 Lists in 10 Movie Genres. The Godfather was the top film in the Gangster Movie Genre. It and its sequel, The Godfather Part II, were ranked #4 on the British Film Institute’s prestigious Sight & Sound Critics’ Top 10 Poll.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
‘Lawrence of Arabia was the first film I saw that made me want to be a moviemaker,” Steven Spielberg said at the time of the 1988 restoration of the classic film. ”It was in Phoenix, I was 13 or 14 at the time, and it was overwhelming.”
David Lean’s masterpiece has been recognized as one of the crowning achievements of cinema since its release nearly half-a-century ago. It is one of the most literate films ever made and one of the few films that tackles politics and doesn’t insult, bore or alienate its audience.
Winner of seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director (David Lean), Editing and Original Score, Lawrence of Arabia currently is ranked #37 on the Internet Movie Database and was ranked #1 on the AFI’s Top Epic Genre Movies.
Casablanca (1942)
Ranked #11 on the Internet Movie Database, Casablanca is considered one of the great classics of the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Many critics and film historians cite it as THE great movie of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Casablanca won Oscars for Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Screenplay. Following his career breakthrough in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca is the movie that launched Humphrey Bogart into superstar status. It is a central part of the canon of films that made Bogie a legend.
Links:
Internet Movie Database: Casblanca; Lawrence of Arabia; The Godfather
Roger Ebert Reviews Casblanca; Lawrence of Arabia; The Godfather
Reference:
- YouTube [Video] CBS News – Katie Couric Interview with Barack Obama www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bz9iXernY4
