The Godfather

(Francis Ford Coppola; 1972)

The Godfather is told entirely within a closed world. That’s why we sympathize with characters that are essentially evil. The story by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola is a brilliant conjuring act, inciting us to consider the Mafia entirely on its own terms. Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) emerges as a sympathetic and even admirable character; during the entire film, this lifelong professional criminal does nothing that, in context, we can really disapprove of. We see not a single actual civilian victim of organized crime. No woman trapped into prostitution. No lives wrecked by gambling. No victims of theft, fraud, or protection rackets. The only police officer with a significant speaking role is corrupt.

The story views the Mafia from the inside. That is its secret, its charm, its spell; in a way it has shaped the public perception of the Mafia ever since. The real world is replaced by an authoritarian patriarchy where power and justice flow from the Godfather, and the only villains are traitors. There is one commandment, spoken by Michael (Al Pacino): “Don’t ever take sides against the family.”

What is important is loyalty to the family. Much is said in the movie about trusting a man’s world, but honesty is nothing compared to loyalty. Michael doesn’t even trust Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) with the secret that he plans to murder the heads of the other families. The famous “baptism massacre” is tough, virtuoso filmmaking. The baptism provides him with an airtight alibi, and he becomes a godfather in both senses at the same time.

Vito Corleone is the moral center of the film. He is old, wise, an opposed to dealing in drugs. He understands that society is not alarmed by “liquor, gambling…..even women.” But drugs are a dirty business to Don Vito, and one of the movie’s best scenes is the Mafia summit in which he argues his point. The implication is that in the Godfather’s world there would be no drugs, only “victimless crimes,” and justice would be dispatched evenly and swiftly.

I want to point out how cleverly Coppola structures his film to create sympathy for his heroes. The Mafia is not a benevolent and protective organization, and the Corleone family is only marginally better than the others. Yet when the old man falls dead, we feel that a giant has passed. Gordon’s Willis’s cinematography is celebrated for its atmospheric, expressive shadows; his style earned him the nickname “the Prince of Darkness.” Coppola populates his dark interior spaces with remarkable faces. Those in the front line – Brando, Pacino, Caan, Duvall – are attractive in one way or another, but he actors who play their associates are chosen for their fleshy, thickly lined face – for huge jaws and deeply set eyes.

The Brando performance is justly famous and often imitated. We know all about his puffy cheeks and his use of props like the kitten in the opening scene. Those are actors’ devices. Brando uses them but does not depend on them. He embodies the character so convincingly that at the end, when he warns his on two or three times that “the man that comes to you to set up a meeting – that’s the traitor,” we are not thinking of acting at all. We are thinking that the don is growing old and repeating himself, but we are also thinking that he is probably absolutely right.

The screenplay of The Godfather follows no formulas except for the classic structure in which power passes between the generations. The writing is subtly constructed to set up events later on in the film. Coppola went to Italy to find Nino Rota, composer of many Fellini films, to score the picture. Hearing the sadness and nostalgia of the movie’s main theme, I realized what the movie was telling us: Things would have turned out better if we had only listened to the Godfather.