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So, in honor of Kenny’s book (and of De Niro being De Niro), we comprised a list of De Niro’s 11 best and 10 worst performances. You’ll notice that his best performances mostly occurred in the early part of his career (“when his gift seemed to burn brightest,” Kenny points out), while his worst turns are more recent. Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments section.
He’s calm, calculating. His face is so smooth and clean and still when he kills the miserly Don who rules his neighborhood, it’s like a cosmetic mask hiding the gangster underneath. He’s essentially playing Marlon Brando playing Don Corleone, which adds another layer to his performance. He can’t veer too far from what Brando established in the first film, but he’s also playing a younger man, the man who would become Don Corleone. (Apparently De Niro learned three dialects of Sicilian for the role, because he’s Robert De Niro and one dialect isn’t immersive enough.) According to Kenny, Coppola later admitted that casting De Niro was “risky,” and modern interpretations of the film don’t fully appreciate how bizarre and scary it was to have De Niro play the part originated by Brando. “I like Bob…I just don’t know if he lieks himself,” said Coppola, reminiscing on De Niro’s unwavering dedication (he skipped the Oscar ceremony at which he won Best Supporting Actor in order to work in Italy with Bernardo Bertolucci. As Kenny points out, the genius of De Niro’s performance as Corleone is that, for a while, he actually convinces you that the future Don really is slow-witted, like the other characters in the film seem to think. But De Niro, like Brando, plays Vito Corleone as a man who plots and ploys quietly and internally—a careful man, careful and considerate and calibrated, antipodal to his hot-headed son Sonny (James Caan), but not as ruthlessly paranoid as Michael (Al Pacino). It’s a genuinely unique role in a career rife with iconic characters.
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