The Godfather is an incontrovertible demonstration of the continued vitality and artistic power of two things in films whose resources had increasingly been thought to be exhausted: of densely plotted, linear narrative, and of naturalism—social observation and the accumulation of authenticating detail—as a method. And it possesses, moreover, that special excitement and authority available to a film which is both a work of artistic seriousness and one of truly popular appeal, a mass entertainment made without pandering or condescension.

The Godfather is all these things and more, with such immense skill and assurance that I feel almost impatient with my own inability to enjoy it more, to escape some nagging dissatisfaction. The basis of that dissatisfaction is perhaps best expressed by the compliment which has been paid to the film by one of its many admirers: that it is the "Gone with the Wind of gangster...