Vincent Bertolini-Felice / 3.11.24 / "If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it's that you can kill anyone."
-Michael Corleone
Other than the fabled tale of Romulus and Remus, ancient Romans had no true origin story to speak of.
The tail detailing two natives Italians, cast out of their rightful land, raised by a She-Wolf, only to birth a great nation on the tomb of one of history’s most revered fratricide is a uniquely Roman tale to summate a culture baptized in fire.
One myth that rivals that in idiosyncrasy to the Roman Empire could be the story of the Trojan Aeneas. Amidst the burning wreck of the ancient city Troy, one of the forgotten Nobles of the Iliad was delivered a prophecy that he would develop a city to be made great by his descendants.
We see the reality of this plot when his search for stability and peace among the Carthaginian people leaves a wake of fire with more than mythical implications for history. In his tryst with the Carthaginian Queen, Dido, he betrays this long-foretold prophecy, and is obligated to abandon his new home among the Northern Africans.
The method in which Aeneas chooses to do so is less than admirable. Rather than explain the intricacies of the Roman Pantheon that necessitated his sudden leave from his new wife; he opts for a more abrupt exit, gathering his men and fleeing in the dark of the night.
The ensuing internal turmoil of Dido resulted in her suicide and a permanent feud between the Carthaginians and the descendants of Aeneas. The moral of the story, while reflecting poorly on the Romans, is an interesting dichotomy Virgil would establish that constantly dictates the fragile balance of most modern lives.
The majority of life today is about striking a challenging balance between what we are obligated to do for our competing scales of survival and that which we desire to pursue. The concept of survival varies rather drastically and often is the end result of the expected reality of the individual. Survival is the standard; survival is the norm and the preservation of that norm, and often times can be in stark contrast of desire. A reality all too familiar for many is one in which duty sacrifices desire.
A modern retelling of Aeneas’ plight as seen through a fellow Italian is through Mario Puzo’s protagonist of Michael Corleone.
The youngest child of Corleone Crime Family boss, Vito Corleone, Michael (played by Al Pacino) was not raised with aspirations of ascending the ladder of the criminal world and succeeded his father in his empire. Kept far from the bubble of the illicit activities that plagued his upbringing, Michael’s childhood was one free of the harsh reality of his family’s true work. His lack of interest in the “family business” was replaced by political aspirations academic excellence, even attending Dartmouth.
On his father’s birthday in 1941, December 7th, 1941; the day of infamy in which the U.S. admitted themselves into the Second World War, Michael announced to his family he would choose to enter the Marines in defense of his nation.
Michael’s story returns on the day of his sister’s wedding. Now heralded as a war hero, he is re-exposed to the reality of his family's life in his continual interaction with the mobsters that compose the majority of attendants at this wedding. Following his re-integration into his family’s life in New York, his father is promptly shot by a budding drug dealer, Virgil Sollozzo’s men following a failed proposal with Vito Corleone and an attempt to infiltrate his business by the hand of Vito’s top enforcer Luca Brasi.
Following a dinner with his girlfriend Kay, Michael decides to visit his father in the hospital. Only to find the small clinic housing the Don, entirely abandoned. In an eerie scene in which Michael traverses the narrow and dimly lit halls only to find the entire place freshly cleared. The repetitive and dulcet tones of music from the Gramaphone add to the confusion as the only patient left in the hospital is the sickly father of Michael.
Michael promptly wheels his father into a hidden room and calls his brother Sonny to inform him of the state of the hospital. When a neighborhood friend of Vito’s, Enzo, a local baker, arrives to the hospital to wish well and visit Vito arrives soon after Michael hides his father. He ushers Enzo outside and tells him to wait there.
As Vito comes to a brief consciousness, aware of the situation he is in, he visibly grimaces. For the entirety of the movie, we see Vito as the one in control of every situation he is in. He dictates every scene with a sense of confidence and self-control that makes him feel larger than life in his sheer presence. In the hospital scene, he has no control, we see the allegory between Vito’s life and the concept of Power being in Michael’s hands. When Michael states, “I’m with you, pop. I’m with you”, we see his first shift in character. The confidence and control he carries in the situation makes it apparent Michael is the one made to be Vito’s successor.
Michael cleverly stands outside with Enzo the baker, positioning themselves in a manner to front as bodyguards for Vito. When Sollozzo’s men drive by to scan the perimeter of their future hit, they are scared off by Michael feigning a firearm, and drive off. Following this encounter, Michael is met by corrupt Police captain, Mark McCluskey. McCluskey and his men are on Sollozzo’s payroll and arrive at the hospital to rough up Michael and clear the scene for Sollozzo’s men to finish the job. Michael takes a beating from the Police Captain before being saved by Corleone Family Consigliere Tom Hagan and more Corleone soldiers rushing into the hospital to protect their boss.
While we see an initial shift in character, the solidification of the degradation into the heartless magnate Michael becomes is seen when Sollozzo proposes a peace negotiation be made through Michael.
While the family weighs both the implications of making peace with Sollozzo and bringing Michael into the family business in the troubling times following his father’s attempted assassination attempt. Michael’s older brother Sonny, serving as the interim Don, chastises Michael for proposing to use the meeting as a vessel to take out both Sollozzo and McCluskey in one sweep as both a show of the family’s reach and to prevent any further attempts on Vito.
However, Michael, with advocation from Tom Hagan, and Corleone family boss, Peter Clemenza, decides on Michael’s plan. An informant within McCluskey’s office finds the location of the meeting and Clemenza travels to the Bronx to tape a gun to the back of one of the toilets at the small Italian restaurant.
In a lengthy scene in which we see a disconnected Michael struggle to fully partake in conversation with Sollozzo, the simple power of Pacino’s facial expression and body language convey someone attempting to grasp the reality of what they are condemned to do. Michael extends this further disconnect when he finds the gun in the bathroom and slaps himself on the head, almost a final attempt to bring himself back into the reality of the situation.
Following a brief conversation with Sollozzo in which Michael fails to take in a word, his blank, dejected stare conveying a total loss of personhood. Director Francis Ford Coppola's choice to have dialogue between Virgil Sollozzo and Michael transpire only in Italian, with no subtitles. It forces the audience to briefly feel a fraction of the loss and disconnect that Michael felt in the moment. The height of this comes when Sollozzo speaks at a rapid pace as the shot further zooms on Michael staring into space only for the tension to be broken by a nearby waiter.
Micheal abruptly stands from the table and shoots Sollozzo and the Police Captain in the head. The words told to him by Clemenza earlier, “Always drop the gun”, ring in his head as he stares at what he’s done wide eyed, before abruptly walking off, dropping the gun seconds before he walks out the door to show the power of the family to leave a scene so contaminated.
Throughout the course of a 10-minute scene, we see Michael’s life trajectory change entirely. The wide-eyed college kid, army man, and scholar has become what he grew up working to avoid. The man with aspirations of the only interaction with his family simply being a social formality has become the newest inductee into the world the Corleone's worked to push Michael as far away from as possible.
Throughout the remainder of the movie, the path is paved for Michael to succeed his father and become the man he was always intended to be. Following his brother, Sonny’s death, Michael is called back to duty to fulfill the role intended for his brash older brother.
The final scene of the movie serves as the antithesis of Michael in the beginning of the movie. The first scene in which we are met with a freshly home war hero with a flashing smile, eager to spend time with his family, but urging his girlfriend he loves he is nothing like the rest of his family in pursuit. The antiparallel is played in the conclusion, as Michael stands in a church to affirm his commitment to God, Michael’s men carry out a series of hits intended to curb all their enemies and reposition the Corleone's as the leader of the Five Families of New York, and Michael as the Capo dei Capi, or Boss of All Bosses. The scenes juxtaposing Michael’s austere and vapid words affirming his avoidance of all evils, with bloodshed of biblical proportions shows how far he has changed and what has been lost.
The closing shots of the movie see Kay, now Michael’s wife, question him in his involvement in killing Connie’s husband as retribution for his role in the death of Sonny. Michael, devoid of expression, calmly denies his role, Kay believes him and embraces Michael. Only to stare hesitantly back at Michael’s study, in which Clemenza and other underbosses affirm their loyalty to Michael, and Michael’s bodyguard, Al Neri shuts the door on her.
The shutting of the door reflecting Kay’s loss of a part of Michael, and the loss of the man she once loved. The cool and dark hallway paralleled to the warm feel of Michael’s office intended to reflect where his heart lies, the former love that graced the light of his heart had been reduced to the shadows. He had lost love for her, he had truly lost love for everything and instead was consumed by his duty to the family.
We don’t truly see how far Michael has come until the end of The Godfather 2. After Vito’s death by heart attack in the first Godfather, and his mother’s death in the 2nd, Michael has his brother Fredo killed for his betrayal of the family and aid of a hostile enemy, almost resulting in Michael’s death. After having removed Kay from his life for her growing hatred of Michael, Michael sits alone in his study, taken back to his father’s 50th birthday on December 7th, 1941. A scene in which he announces his aspirations to join the Marines, only to be chastised by Sonny and Tom for defying the will of the family to fast track him to a path in Law or Politics, only to aid the family.
As Vito arrives home and the family floods into the off-screen front room to sing for the unseen Vito, Michael is given compassion and support from his Fredo. Michael is alone. He succumbed to the power and the duty he was thrust to by sake of his last name. He loses himself and any semblance of a past life. The slow degradation into the cruel mastermind he was made to be is seen in the waning moments of the second movie. The family his father worked to build has not just survived, it has thrived, yet it cost him the family he was born into and once loved.
Just as Aeneas had to abandon the woman who reminded him, he could feel the emotion of love, heartlessly, for the pursuit of a prophecy dispensed upon him by his demigod nature, only to further cement his disconnect from the person he once was by slaughtering his enemy in vain and solidifying his throne. Michael was thrust into a similar position, facing the downfall of his family in business and existence, did all in his power to protect those close to him, only to become so enticed by the power given to him, he would lose the purpose of his original actions. As the juxtaposition of Baby Michael waves goodbye to Sicily, we see the dejected Michael alone, the allegory of Michael choosing to wave goodbye to his home sees Michael lose that home.
The heart of the story, told once 2000 years ago by ancient hands whose conception of reality was a patriotic dedication to the five hundred square mile provincial city that dictated every facet of waking life, to the fictional narrative of a man thrust into degradation of spirit written by a man reflecting the costs of American capitalism, has survived to serve as a worthy dictation of modern life.
The transcendence of the story of The Godfather, and the often-unaddressed transcendent narrative comes from Coppola’s depiction of the cost to be alive. The sacrifices that Michael and Aeneas made, while lost to the majority of common citizens, are not incomparable. The loss of love, the loss of purpose, and the loss of drive are all things entirely familiar to so many.
While very few are thrust into situations that necessitate such decisions that comprise our life degrade our very essence, we often are forced to make decisions that sacrifice our passion and stability for the sake of what we are compelled to do by a duty. The origin of that duty, varies drastically, but an important characteristic that makes Michael Corleone somone we oddly see ourselves in. Despite the cruel and unfeeling disconnect by Michael, we understand his actions, we may even try to rationalize them. Despite Aeneas’ evident sins, we know that he is compelled, and find parts of his devotion to what he is obliged to, admirable.
Coppola described the story of The Godfather as the American Dream. It’s an ode to family, while everyone is aware of the nature of that family, we find ourselves drawn to the Corleone’s, we find ourselves in love with this American Dream. The rat race that we pity ourselves for subjecting to has invaded our subconscious, and created a character that parallels a transcendent dichotomy of life. What we are called to do can cost us our hope, our love, our life.
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