Few movies can claim to be as deeply embedded in American pop-cultural fabric as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. In an age of franchise-building cinema, famously described by Martin Scorcese as “theme park movies”, The Godfather is something of a shining, grail-like repository representing the best of a bygone cinematic era. A reminder of an era where an R-Rated gangster movie could go on to achieve superlative box office and critical success. The film went on to create a subset of filmmaking which remains Oscar-bait till date. Not only did it restore Marlon Brando’s status as the ultimate leading man, it ensured that the central cast dominated movie screens for decades, while inspiring a new generation of filmmakers. As far as the likes of Scorcese, Quentin Tarantino and Sam Mendes are concerned, they all owe their undying allegiance to Don Vito Corleone.
The Idea of America
The Godfather may evoke images of tommy guns, fedoras, severed horse heads (fake ones, thankfully) and almost constant bloodletting. But it’s far from just a chronicle of the scourge of organized crime that gripped mid-twentieth century America. With its underlying themes of family, loyalty and an individual’s descent into an amoral hellscape of his own making, the film is ultimately the story about the American dream and its varying inter-generational effects.
The first installment of what became a trilogy began with a patriarch at the height of his power and influence on society, surveying his kingdom. All seems well in Don Vito Corleone’s world as he sits in his office, radiating magnanimity and power. One can be fooled into thinking that Vito is the protagonist of the film. But while Vito Corleone looms large over the entire trilogy, the true crucible of the film and the trilogy’s many themes and motifs is his youngest son, and the unlikeliest of antagonists: Michael Corleone.
In the relay race that is the mob business, Michael is handed the baton unwittingly. He was Vito’s chance at legitimizing his reputation and white washing the laundry list of misdeeds that got him to a position of privilege. However, he finds that a violent past is much harder to erase, and that blood literally begets blood. Very often, your own. In Michael, the story finds its metaphor not just for the American dream, but for America itself, whose violent origins continue to bleed through the cracks of its façade of being the last true bastion of freedom and liberty. The fact that the movie opens with Amerigo Bonasera saying “I believe in America” tells you, in retrospect, that the film is a scathing indictment of the American dream.
Catholic Themes
The overarching themes of Catholicism in The Godfather trilogy are fairly evident. Vito Corleone is almost godlike, and is in fact referred to as “The Godfather” while Michael is a metaphor for Lucifer, the fallen angel whose descent to hell transforms him into Satan. Where Vito is both benevolent and wrathful, Michael, in attempting to expand the empire in a post-Vito era, only has wrath to offer. His cold gaze and chilling ambition is a constant reminder of the differences between him and his father. Where Vito was both feared and loved, Michael commands only dread even when it comes to his own family. Pride, lust, envy and wrath are constantly present in a landscape littered with sin.
Michael’s ultimate failure lies in the fact that he is not Vito. He doesn’t possess the warmth, generosity of spirit and the gregariousness which made a young immigrant Vito a natural leader and the first among equals. Michael’s chilling transformation from a war hero to the devil himself is clearly referenced when the camera pans on Pacino’s face at his son’s baptism, with the priest uttering the words “I will renounce Satan” in the background. The scene is juxtaposed against the series of assassinations being carried out in the city on Michael’s behest while the baptism goes on. Where Vito, an immigrant, holds family sacred, Michael, an American, commits the ultimate sin of fratricide, by killing his younger brother, and ensuring his own doom. Where Vito passes away in an Eden-like garden, playing with his grandson and mourned by a family he created entirely by himself, Michael dies alone in a barren estate. The sins of the father visited upon the son.
Changing idea of masculinity
The Godfather also, for the longest time, established certain modes of masculinity, many of which lie outdated today and changed throughout the movie. Men dominate the plot of the film for the most part, with women having little to no agency. Anyone who bears the title of Godfather has complete authority over his family and friends, a price they pay for the protection and refuge he provides from a world that is just as deceptive and ruthless as his own, just not overtly so.
But the movie series progresses to show women taking greater control over their destiny. Chief among them Michael’s wife Kay Adams, who gets an abortion, horrified at the idea of bringing another life into the world where Michael is king. Kay also represents change, in that she is the Corleone family’s first attempt at being culturally “white”. Kay is the first non-Italian member (not counting Tom Hagen, the adopted Irish-American son of Vito) of the family and so brings a different set of values to the table. Her assertion of independence finally culminates in her leaving Michael for good – an act unthinkable for the likes of Vito’s wife.
In other ways, it’s also an indictment of toxic masculinity. Sonny Corleone, the son who took Vito’s strength but lacks his guile, paid the ultimate price for his hair-trigger temper when he rushed to confront the abusive husband of his sister. Sonny’s virility and his tendency to talk with his fists, while occasionally useful, ultimately proved to disqualify him from becoming Godfather. Michael on the other hand, who inherited the temperance and strategic mind of his father, let his ambition run wild and his need to exert total control finally resulted in him losing his beloved daughter in Godfather III and dying a sad, lonely death.
Technical Brilliance
The Godfather represents not only masterful storytelling on the part of Coppola and Mario Puzo, the author of the book on which the movie is based, it also endures because of its true cinematic artistry in a way that movies like Todd Phillips' Joker and more recently Matt Reeves’ The Batman can only piggyback on. Cinematographer Gordon Willis kept the characters bathed in a heady mix of light and dark using visuals to convey the constant inner moral conflict informing the actions of its main characters. Lighting was also used to depict the distinction between good and evil, and the gray areas that most of the characters, including mob wife Kay Adams, operate in. When we are introduced to Michael, it’s under a sunlit sky. A strapping young military man, a college-educated war hero with his beautiful white Anglo-Saxon partner at his arm. A morally upright representation of what Vito hopes for his family.
At the end of the film, Michael is draped in shadows, surrounded by his associates in a poorly lit room, his transformation into a ruthless gangster complete, with Vito’s dream disappearing into the ether. Other central characters like Tom Hagen are constantly battling with light and dark - he is constantly subservient to his sense of duty towards the family that took him in.
The Godfather will continue to be a film school staple for another half a century because its analysis of human nature, of the deep-set desire for retributive justice, social-upward mobility and power are themes that all people can relate to. As a layered and perfectly paced piece of storytelling, The Godfather and its sequels (yes, even Godfather III) remain peerless.
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