Stránky

Friday 5 April 2013

Musical Project: Best Supporting Actor 1972: James Caan - The Godfather

Watching The Godfather again mad me a bit surprised. I had some opinion about all of the supporting performances (not just nominated) and I've changed my mind about many of them. So did I about James Caan.
Right now I should say what I thought about him. I really liked him. Though I didn't remember exactly his performance, I knew he did a great job. After watching The Godfather again today, I don't adore his performance so much. The character of Sonny, that he plays, is very unrealisticly written. His reactions are quite ridiculous. In a moment he's angry and in a second he's supposed to laugh. Though Caan does what he is able to, it's still not enough to make this character just a bit more realistic.
Another thing I should mention is his (non-)likableness.  I believe the character of Sonny was supposed to be likable and I should care about him. Somehow I didn't. It may be my guilt, but I has very natural feelings to him. In translation, I didn't give a damn about him.
But not to be just negative, I need to say he wonderfully portrayed anger. For instance, in his best scene, in which he fights his good brother (who happens to be not so good) the anger is palpable. But it's not just case of this scene, he's been realisticly angry in more scenes.
The chances of winning an Oscar: I think he was fourth, just before Albert...

3 comments:

  1. I disagree. I thought he played him as a guy with a serious temper who could become angry on dime and I thought he did this extremely well. I also don't think he was suppose to be all that likable actually, but I thought he expressed well the sympathetic qualities in Sonny in regards to how deep down he cared a lot about his family.

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    1. I thought you would. As I said, I had very similar feelings about him before. This time I just wasn't captured by his performance.
      But I agree with you about the family and how much he cared about it. That was very well portrayed by him.

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  2. James Caan portrayed Sonny perfectly. His part called for him to be short tempered, angry and being prepped to take over the family. At the same time, he also showed a loving, caring and good natured side of his character. Don't forget he is playing a gangster from the 1940's, and he nailed it.

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