The Godfather

The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, dir; 175 mins; 1972)
One of the great things about watching The Godfather again after all these years is the film’s memorable lines, many of which have become such a part of popular culture that one may have forgotten their place in this film. In fact, one may even think them the property of some inane romantic comedy. The lines, of course, are The Godfather and the sheer joy of hearing them again is much of the experience of this film (or something like Casablanca).
For me, the other memorable part of The Godfather is the wonderful scene near the end of the film which intercuts the baptism of Michael Corleone’s nephew and Michael’s acceptance of the role as this child’s godfather with the various vengeful reprisals that eliminate the Corleone family’s enemies. Those acts are, of course, also what makes Michael Corleone into the Godfather.
That the film begins to intercut this violence with the moment in the baptism when Michael renounces Satan is a wonderful touch, for Michael has done no such thing. Instead, these intercut scenes display the climax of Michael’s degradation (can there be a climax to degradation?). As the film begins, Michael is a returning war hero, and his father isolates him from the family’s business so that Michael can be a more legitimate, powerful figure—a senator or a governor. Violent attacks on the family because Don Corleone will not participate in the burgeoning drug trade and the ineptness of Michael’s two brothers eventually force Michael into the family business as the new Don. It is a slow, but seemingly inevitable process.
It is also a process that implicates us as viewers. It is difficult not to sympathize with the Corleone family (although the older Don is a more sympathetic character than Michael). It is difficult not to share their desire for vengeance after their family is assaulted. The FBI and the local police are ineffectual. The politicians and judges are for sale. By contrast, the family has a code, and that code is not drastically different from that of many cinematic heroes and, therefore, from the code to which many of us may aspire. The film, then, is not simply about Michael’s degradation. It is about the degradation of all of us (after WW2?). It also, like Aeschylus and more modern revenge tragedies, is also about the horror of vengeance. It raises the question whether vengeance preserves or destroys the family and us all.
Accordingly, the film is also about our fascination with evil. In films from the period of The Godfather’s setting, titillation with evil eventually gave way to an endorsement of contemporary public mores. The evil were judged, even if the good did not triumph. The Godfather is a degradation of a different color. In the film’s final scene, Michael has come of age, he has taken his (God)father’s place. His enemies have been routed. His wife, who represents naiveté, if not innocence or the good, is completely in the dark. She is pathetic, little more than a fool (and not a holy fool at that). We are left with evil.