Michael Corleone: My father is no different than any powerful man,
any man with power, like a president or senator.
Kay Adams: Do you know how naive you
sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed.
Michael Corleone: Oh. Who's being naive, Kay?
The movie, The
Godfather, came out in U.S.
theaters in March of 1972. Two months later, the nation would later learn, the
Democratic National committee offices in the Watergate building were broken
into and the stage was set for the eventual resignation of President Nixon.
One might argue that the film was a manifestation of a
cultural trend towards empathizing with enemies and suspecting ones own leaders.
In 1967, Martin Luther King had come out against the Vietnam War and argued in
his speech, A Time to Break the Silence that
one owed it to their enemies to consider their views. “Perhaps the more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak
for those who have been designated as our enemies,” he said,
“Here is the true meaning and value
of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of
view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his
view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are
mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who
are called the opposition.”
In the Godfather, we get to practice this advice. Mario Puzo
and Francis Ford Copula explore the world of some of America’s most notorious
law-breakers and give us what might be regarded as a sympathetic portrayal. “I
have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them, as you can see.” Says
Mafia family leader, Don Corleone. “They talk when they should listen.” We can
imagine the words of this thug being spoken by our doting grandfathers. These
are killers perhaps, but they are family men. “Fredo, you're my older brother,
and I love you,” says Michael Corleone, “But don't ever take sides with anyone
against the family again. Ever.” Don Corleone wants to know if those in his organization
are good family men “because a man who doesn't spend time with his family can
never be a real man.”
This was an age when it became possible for the Viet Cong to
be considered decent people, driven to violence by the need to take care of their
families. It was an age when it became possible to believe that one’s own
President was a crook. This was a time when the line between good and evil got
seriously blurred and where it became more and more difficult to assert that it
ran down the middle of some ethnic, religious, or national divide. “Noth
Vietnamese are bad. South Vietnamese are good.” This was not going to fly any
more. When Michael Corleone insists that his father “is no different than any
powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator” you might argue
that he is suggesting that the difference between Ho Chi Mihn and Richard Nixon
was not as substantial as one might think. Further, one could argue that each
and every American who supported violence on the scale of the Vietnam War (for
the sake of their families) was not entirely innocent either?
Does the fact that you are doing something for your family –
for your clan – for your people legitimatize any violence that you commit? Should
this violence, so long as it serves the interests of your family be condoned? The Godfather’s final scene puts us in
the place of Michael Corleone’s wife as she must decide what to do with her
husband’s ascension to the leadership of the Corleone family. Like Richard
Nixon who had swept into office on the promise of ending the Vietnam War and
bringing about a lasting peace among warring “clans” Michael Corleone had
promised her that the Corleone family business would be “clean” and legitimate
within five years.
And yet, Michael’s first act is to “take out” all his rivals
– the heads of the five families of the New
York mob. His second is to have his brother-in-law
strangled for his disloyalty and for setting up Michael Corleone’s brother’s
murder. Michael’s sister accuses him of ordering the assassination in front of
Michael’s wife.
Here is the final scene between Michael and his wife Kay
Michael: All right. This one time I'll let you ask me about my affairs.
Kay: Is it true? Is it?
Michael: No.
[Kay smiles and walks into his arms]
Kay: I guess we both need a drink, huh?
[Kay goes to the kitchen to fix a drink, but sees Peter Clemenza, Rocco
Lampone and Al Neri enter Michael's office]
Clemenza: Don Corleone.
[Clemenza kisses Michael's hand, and Neri shuts the door in her face... ]
Kay must decide now if she will accept the lie. If she will
believe that her husband, Michael Corleone, is different from his father. I
have no doubt that Copula intends for his viewers to consider that they were
standing in the same place with respect to Nixon and Vietnam. It is brilliant really. The
irony is that Michael Corleone is not one who will allow himself to be lied to
as he desires his wife to agree to doing. “Only don't tell me that you're
innocent,” he says to his brother-in-law before having him strangled, “because
it insults my intelligence and it makes me very angry.”
I can picture the scene in my mind where Richard Nixon
stands in front of the nation’s television cameras and says “I am not a crook.”
Nixon. Michael Corleone. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Tom Hagen (The
Consigliari). It all relates if I don’t miss my guess. “You think you know your
husband?” Connie Corleone asks Michael’s wife, accusingly. “you think you know
your husband?”
This was going to be the age of distrusting authority and
exploring the possible rightness of those once defined as enemies.
Cinema doing what it does best.
Question for Comment:
Have you ever agreed to be lied to? Why?
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