The Godfather Analysis.

The Godfather Analysis.

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather tells the story of the lives of Vito Corleone, and the story of the Corleone crime family of New York, as an analogy for the pre- and post-World War II gang scene. Drawing inspiration from the real Five Families made up of Lucchese, Gambino, Bonano, Genovese and Colombo crime families of New York, Coppola and Marlon Brando, the actor who portrays Vito Corleone managed to produce a movie about the importance of family, the presence of tradition and stone aged morals, masculinity and femininity, the rise and fall of bosses and their empires, the gaining and loss of power, the weakness of the American Dream.

Through a series of three films, the last of which considered to be the weakest entry in the trilogy, and the film that wasn't nominated for an academy award unlike the first 2. Coppola masterfully crafts a convincing tale of loss, gain, and loss again through his expert portrayal of the characters from Mario Puzo’s masterpiece. Simply put, The Godfather Part II, The Godfather Part III, and I.

The first film begins with a scene in Vito Corleone’s study, where he and his oldest son Santino “Sonny” Corleone, are talking to a man detailing the humialating attacks experienced by his daughter at the hands of a non-Italian boy and his friend. This labelling and casual racism is consistent throughout the course of the franchise and simply coats the film with age and tradition that is associated with Italian American heritage. The scene continues as Vito berates the man for only coming to him because he cannot refuse a request; after all, it is well known that no self-respecting Sicilian man denies the request of anyone on the day of his daughter’s wedding. Constanzia “Connie” Corleone is marrying a friend of Sonny’s, though it’s later shown that the man is vicious, unfaithful, disrespectful, abuser and power-hungry; we also learn that Vito, once again due to tradition, cannot intercede in his only daughter’s marriage because of Sicilian morals and values.

Through another piece of dialogue, we learn that Vito is distrustful and uninterested in the small time criminal, Carlo Rizzi, because he is not off Sicilian heritage.

Sicilian men, in Vito’s eyes are real Italians; they love their families above all, their businesses are kept away from their personal home lives, and nothing is more important than the safety of the family, even if this family consists of gangsters, kingpins, and their underlings (Capos, Soldats, and Consiglieres). 

The Sicilian men we see in the films are cruel, dangerous and conceited, and we wonder what, if anything, Vito sees in his countrymen. Even his oldest son, who has already been chosen as the next Capo di tutti Capi (boss of all bosses) once Vito retires or dies, is nothing short of amoral; he continuously cheats on his wife with a mistress we see him get with on the day of his sister’s wedding, which is very ironic, whilst one marriage is happening another marriage is breaking.

This loyalty and dependability on one’s family is what drives Vito, even though none of his sons or daughters express a similar form of loyalty to their own families; it doesn’t help that his children have learned from the negative influences Vito has around him at all times, but they’re not very pleasant to their parents, even though they seem to carry around their father’s moral codes and values at all times. Michael Corleone, once his father steps down as Don Corleone and his brother dies at the hands of another Sicilian crime family, goes on a killing spree, killing anyone and everyone who could potentially be a threat to the “Legalization” and expansion of the Corleone family and then outright states that the family (whether it be his wife and children, or the Corleones) is the most important part of his life and decision. He concludes Part I by ordering the assassination of some of Vito’s best capos, all in the name of the prosperity of the family.

Family is the driving force in The Godfather. Michael is frankly the opposite of his father: he’s a boy who grew up with everything, and his father lost his family at the age of nine and was forced to claw his way up into the criminal underworld of the growing Italian gang-scene; known formally as La Cosa Nostra. Michael was the youngest male among three males, while Vito had no family and was therefore his own teacher and father figure; Michael is a business-minded Don, while Vito spent his entire life gathering favours and contracting “Friends” into helping him. That’s their most separating factor: Vito treats the people he works and affiliates with as friends, mingling with them and interacting with them on a personal level to the greatest degree that his lawyers and advisors will allow it.

The ultimate difference is that Vito seems to regard anyone who owes him a favour, or anyone who treats him to coffee in their home as family, while Michael has no family. He discusses more murder with the ex-Consigliere-turned-Corleone-lawyer Tom Hagen, who was an orphan adopted by Sonny in the boys’ youth, and produces the line “I don’t feel the need to wipe everyone out, Tom. Just my enemies.”

At this point, Michael Corleone is out of enemies; no single family poses any sign of a threat, his greatest foes have all been slayed, all the right people have been bribed, yet in his single-minded view of conquer and expansion, Michael fails to see the irony in eliminating anyone when everyone’s already dead. It’s even more powerful when you combine it with the knowledge that manifests itself as Vito’s views on avoiding war, and the importance of discussion, mediation in order to avoid the needless deaths of those caught in the middle of gang warfare. Vito is an old man at this point, and has lived a life filled with fear and his non-violent approach is understandable when compared to Michael’s reckless battle cries, but Michael refuses to see the pointlessness in his battles. He’s already won, but in his mind he’s only just begun.

Of course these characters are brought to life because of their old aged morality; they aren’t meant to be extremely evil or perfectly moral characters, but as grey compilations of what could be and what is. Vito Corleone, we later learn in Part II, is not the moral family man that his old-age makes him out to be; in his younger days he was as wreckless as his sons, though in a more refined and classical approach. He promises his friends to arrange results, and finds a way to actualize each promise. He’s vicious, but only when he needs to be, something he emphasizes in part one where the mafia committee has a meeting just after his sons death. He’s vindictive, but only when he knows he’s arranged every piece in the right order, and only when he knows he can’t lose. Dealing with the Sicilian Don that killed his family (Don Fannuci) , Vito waits for power and money in America, before returning to Italy and seizing revenge. Vito was a man but flair, style, and enough intelligence to know when to stop, a trait his sons never seemed to inherit.

It’s difficult to outline the exact point that the tone of the series shifts, but it’s around the time that Michael returns from Sicily and approaches his future wife, and mother of his two children, Kay; it’s at this point that the story becomes less about the work of Vito’s life, and more about his fall, and more about Michael’s rise. Part I details the fall of Vito, and the rise of Michael, while Part II attempts to piece together unknown facts of Vito’s young life. Part II is about the fall of Michael, and the early rise of Vito, and the juxtaposition isn’t obvious until Michael loses his family and Vito finally gains closure from his parent's death. I didn’t realize that their lives were being so carefully juxtaposed until it fell on me how similar their stories are, and how different their failures were.

Ultimately, Vito failed because he relied too much on his family, and his death in the garden with his grandson is a fitting way to end the life of a man who spent his entire life working for his children, for his family, for his underlings, and for his legacy. Michael’s death, alone with nothing but his dog, was the perfect way to end the life of a man who spent his entire life fighting for his independence and for himself; it’s also the perfect way to end the life of a man who was never truly together until he was separated from his family and their concerns.

The true end of the series, excluding Michael’s expected death in Part III, ends in the opposite way that Part I begins. Instead of Vito, Michael is alone with nothing but his thoughts, and instead of being surrounded by members of the family and his son, Michael is left solitary with nothing but a cigarette. Michael has always been alone, and his desires and thoughts have never been understood; Michael was the missing child, and was dubbed the so-called “Black sheep” of the Corleone family. Throughout the films, it seemed that the family always uttered the phrase “Where’s Michael” because he never really seemed to have a presence in the family. He never really wanted to be part of the family in the first place, hence the now infamous quote from Part III, “They keep pulling me back in.”

Part II ends with a surprise party for Vito, who is celebrating on the same day that the Japanese Forces bomb Pearl Harbour. The Corleone boys are discussing politics while Connie is introduced to Sonny’s friend Carlo for the first time. It’s also the same day that Michael went against Vito’s wishes to enlist. As the patriarch enters the home and the guests move to surprise him, Michael is the only member left at the table. Part II ends as the antithesis to Part I’s beginning. Ultimately, however, Michael is still missing from the celebration, and the entire family has been affected by Michael’s decisions and actions. Truthfully, there’s nothing more important than family, and that’s an inevitability that neither Michael, or anyone, can ever truly escape; "the family", our families, more or less determine every aspect of our future except for the futures themselves.