The Godfather Part II returns to Spain's La 2 and reopens the debate

The Godfather Part II on La 2: the sequel many rank above the original

There is a recurring paradox in classic cinema: the film much of the critics' canon places at the top of film history airs free on television while its most devoted fans hoard it on remastered DVDs. The second part of The Godfather returns to La 2, with barely any ad breaks, and reopens a debate that never ages: does the sequel surpass the original? The moment someone asks the question out loud, it turns into a fight.

Why Part II is considered superior to Part I

The argument that wins trinc is structural. The first film is a very good movie, it is conceded, but the second does something more complex: it tells two stories at once — Michael's rise and the young Vito — and keeps them balanced, in harmony, without one breaking the other. That equilibrium is what is pointed to as the leap in quality.

The emotional weight matters too. Viewers already feel some affection for characters who here turn harder in every sense: the tension with Kate, the loss of the son, Fredo's betrayal. The film stops being just a gangster story and becomes a family tragedy. There is a breakdown of specific scenes — the stretch of Vito's youth, the settling of scores with Fanucci — that works better told than summarized; that is the gap between those who remember the film and those who have dissected it shot by shot.

The plot questions nobody fully settles

Even after several viewings, certain knots stay unclear. The most cited one: why, when they go after Pentangeli, do they say they come on Michael's behalf, if Michael does not seem to have ordered anything. The explanation that circulates points to the communion party, where Pentangeli demands killing the Rosatto brothers and Michael refuses because he has an open business deal with Hyman Roth, who in turn protects them. Hence Pentangeli interprets the attack as an order from Michael himself.

Another reading holds that it is the other families seeking to turn Pentangeli against Michael. And for the real origin of the assassination attempt there is a more solid clue: in Cuba, at the venue they visit, Fredo lets something slip. He mentions in front of Michael that Hyman Roth does not socialize there, when just before Roth and Johnny Ola had pretended not to know each other. That slip is what lights the fuse. Nobody closes the circle entirely, and perhaps that is why the film withstands rewatching.

From Coppola's cinema to the German school

The conversation does not stay in Corleone. From The Godfather it jumps to the Dollars trilogy, to Taxi Driver and to the old Central European school: Metropolis, Nosferatu and the figure of Fritz Lang, who is championed as an unqualified great. The menu is rounded off with the most unsettling cinema of the German school, the kind that, like Nekromantik, leaves you shaken for a couple of weeks but keeps calling you back.

Part III airs Monday and the verdict remains open

The programming continues and the third part looms for the trinc Monday. And there the puzzlement returns: it is hard to see why it is so maligned. The defense is not unanimous, but it holds with the same logic as the case for rewatching: the saga is enjoyed whole or not enjoyed at all. Meanwhile, the screening runs until four in the morning with a handful of ads, because on the public channel classic cinema fits in with almost no advertising.

Does Part II hold the throne many concede to it, or is it selective memory that has been sanding down the seams of the first?