This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of The Godfather.
The "greatness" of The Godfather has long been an indisputable fact. How great it is, people have explained it from all aspects such as historical, social, cultural, and film techniques.
It can be said that "The Godfather" set the tone for all subsequent gangster films, "it became an eternal model and model for gangster stories" (Dai Jinhua).
But what's great about it is that it's not just a gangster movie about violence, intrigue, and the law of the jungle. On top of the gangster story, it is also a story of male growth, a family history of immigrants, and a fable against the American dream.
Great works are reflexive.
The Godfather series (especially the first two) had a profound impact on organized crime groups in the real world.
There are many anecdotes circulating:
After watching Marlon Brando's performance, the character archetype of the old godfather, Vido Corleone, invited him to dinner at home, which frightened Brando not lightly;
In 2015, the notorious Italian mafia boss Vittorio Casamonica died. At the funeral scene, the band played the soundtrack of "The Godfather", while there were also low-flying helicopters throwing rose petals at the crowd;
Funeral scene
In addition, after the release of "The Godfather", many gangster members rushed to imitate the words and deeds of the new and old godfathers in the film to cover up their rudeness and stupidity that they did not have much culture...
The more the real gangsters love, imitate, and defend The Godfather, the more they reflect the reflexivity of The Godfather.
It is said that one of the reasons that prompted Coppola to shoot the second part of "The Godfather" (as we all know, Coppola's taking over "The Godfather" was not entirely voluntary) was that he heard that some viewers felt deeply remorseful after seeing the first ending when the crowd kissed Mike, and decided to continue filming the crime and punishment of the story.
As a result, we see Mike, who is on a family mission, gradually become a gloomy and cold gang leader from a kind and upright American citizen, and ends up alone after a long-cherished wish in his life.
The Godfather is a tragedy through and through. Its tragic root lies in the irreconcilable contradiction between the so-called "wisdom of life", "philosophy of life" and "conspiracy power" presented at the surface of the story and the values that support the protagonist's actions in the story.
The more Mike, the second generation of godfathers, wanted to protect the family, the more he pushed the family members into the abyss; the more he tried to get the family business on track, the more the whole family fell into the quagmire of crime.
In the context of the opposite of the end and the means, the more you struggle, the more you sink. In the end, the godfather who built a huge black empire, his life became a desperate fight.
This reflexivity runs through the film and lays a deep foundation for this epic series spanning seventy years.
We often see statements on the Internet that "The Godfather is the Bible for men."
Or we can understand it this way, precisely because it is almost impossible for a real person to be a standard saint that the Church Father is analogous to the Bible.
I believe that many male audiences who have been obsessed with gangster movies and "The Godfather" since childhood will have a feeling that watching "The Godfather" in teenagers, youth and even after entering middle age, they are not watching the same movie at all.
When we are young, we are easily seduced by the unquestionable golden phrases in the movie, such as "give you a reason you can't refuse", "Women and children can be carefree, men can't", "Men who don't take care of their families are not men at all".
These lines, full of male overtones and heroism, are enough to seduce a young man into challenging the world. Or, to put it more colloquially, they are well suited to young people.
Ironically, the Godfather trilogy eventually overturned these golden phrases it had created as a whole. Watching "The Godfather" again as an adult, it is like a close-up shot slowly pulling away, the scene in the eyes changes from the protagonist to the entire family group portrait, and finally looking at the entire era, you will find that even if the body is as great as the godfather, it is still unable to resist the powerlessness of the individual, unable to resist the fate of his tricks and destruction.
And what supports the "godfather" and destroys the "godfather" at the same time is the "family".
Capturing the concept of family ethics in the mafia narrative was Coppola's pioneering effort. Until then, no one had dared to associate "family" with gangsters. But after The Godfather, "family" became an important element in shaping mafia members/criminal characters. Latecomers around the world continue to rewrite or localize the motif of "Gangsters and Families", including many excellent Hong Kong films that are familiar to domestic audiences (such as "Infernal Affairs 2").
Don't underestimate the reflexivity and focus on "family" in The Godfather. After revisiting the trilogy, I am convinced that the combination of these two points makes "The Godfather" go beyond the gangster genre films, but also beyond the limitations of the times, and even break through the shackles of regions, circles and so on, which are necessary conditions for the birth of classics.
Even in today's China, as long as you live in an environment with a large ethnic group, your life experiences about "family" may resonate with "The Godfather".
If you or your parents have ever tried to maintain the family as the head of the family (the so-called "pillar of support"), the resonance may be even stronger.
And Coppola cleverly associated this universal emotion with the social culture of a specific historical period in the United States, so that even if you don't understand what the American dream behind it is, you can still experience glory and heartbreak, and then go back and try to understand what kind of forces are manipulating it.
01
The birth of the "Godfather"
Let's go back to that eternal beginning.
"I believe in America, and America brings me wealth." The first thing the audience sees is a black curtain, the line sounds, and then a few seconds later, a face looking directly at the screen slowly emerges.
This is the funeral home owner asking for help from the local mafia leader, the "godfather" Victor Corleone. In this monologue, the owner of the funeral home, who is also an Italian Sicilian immigrant with the "godfather", tells the whole process of his hard work and prosperity, trying to become a standard law-abiding American citizen, but not being protected by American law.
As the camera gradually pulls back, the viewer discovers that the black part of the picture comes from the back of the godfather in a black suit.
The old godfather, Victor Corleone, scrutinizes the funeral home owner and controls his life and death.
He quietly guided the funeral home owner to gradually submit to his authority, but called it "my friend".
When the funeral home owner bows his head and kisses the back of the "godfather's" hand, one of the themes of the movie has already emerged .
It's a story about an Italian immigrant of the last century chasing the American dream, and the key is that he must choose to identify with some kind of order in order to save himself.
When he fled from violent and oppressive southern Europe to the North American continent, freedom, democracy, and peace were his entire hopes. But when he really followed this belief, he found that this road did not work. As a result, he once again returned to the underground order constructed by violent crime and sought refuge.
Within the Corleone Empire founded by the old godfathers, institutions and hierarchies were well organized, and their network of contacts spread throughout the American political circles of the time. They helped civilians of Italian descent who came to their aid, and also used these opportunities to connect with the american world on earth.
Just one dialogue systematically explains the isomorphic relationship between the American Mafia and the American rule of law society at the beginning of the end of World War II. This is the backdrop to the entire Godfather trilogy. We must understand this relationship in order to truly enter the world of the "Godfathers."
The two generations of godfathers in the film— Victor and his youngest son Mike — are so humane because of their strong intrinsic drive in every move.
What drove the old godfather to become the "godfather" stemmed from the injustices he suffered in the early days of America's struggle. Just as the owner of the funeral home is a good citizen but cannot resist the abuse of the hooligans, "The Godfather 2" tells in detail the history of the old godfather's family, which is also the story of a good citizen who is forced to raise a gun to protect his wife and children in an environment lacking legality and justice. Victor's ambition and talent gave him unlimited possibilities to pursue his dreams, so that he could rely on violent crimes to regain "fairness" and "justice".
Robert De Niro plays the old godfather of his youth
But unlike the immigrants who pursued the individual struggles of the American Puritan tradition, the old godfather, Victor Corleone, was a pure-blooded Italian Sicilian. This doomed his "American Dream", which is fundamentally different from the noodles of the same gang leader in "Once Upon a Time in America" (the underworld in the film is a Jewish gangster, the same door as Mike's nemesis Hayman Ross in "The Godfather 2"), or Gatsby's "American Dream" in "The Great Gatsby".
Family and family ties were the homeland complexes that were highly valued by the first Italian-American immigrants.
For various historical reasons, Sicily has been invaded by foreign tribes since the eighth century BC, so the local people are fierce, pay great attention to unity, accustomed to family-style social settlements, and attach great importance to family honor.
Before the old godfather fled to New York as a child, the whole family was bloodied by the local mafia, and he survived the sacrifice of his mother and relatives and friends. The gratitude and desire to protect the family members is engraved in the blood of the old godfather.
So what we see at the beginning of the movie is the wedding of the old godfather's daughter – Sicilians don't reject anyone at their daughter's wedding.
This wedding of the Sicilian daughter lasted thirty minutes and left a name in the history of the film. It establishes the unshakable "patriarchy" of the old godfather in the family, and also establishes the unshakable centrality of the "family" in the "Godfather" series.
What we see in The Godfather is an underground world parallel to a society governed by the rule of law that is working together with its strong and self-consistent logic to keep American society running, but in the world of the old godfather, there is a stronger family logic that rules everything.
This was unthinkable in the gangster genre before The Godfather, but after The Godfather, it became the universal language.
02
A clash of dual values
The intergenerational change between the old godfather Victor and the second generation godfather Mike is both a transfer of power in the underground order and a succession of Corleone family responsibilities.
And this inheritance is similar to the light of the Oriental family, and it is also the place where "The Godfather" first touched us.
In this environment where any relationship is at risk of betrayal, Victor's relationship with his son Mike is almost the only one that is solid.
When we are already familiar with the end of Mike's life and then go back to watch Marlon Brando's performance repeatedly, we will be moved by many details.
The turning point in the first plot is that the old godfather refuses to sell drugs with other gangster families, and is assassinated. The old godfather was shot several times and was discharged home, scanned for a week, and did not see Mike.
When he learned that Mike had killed for the safety of him and his entire family, the old godfather closed his eyes in pain and shook his head weakly. At that moment, the old godfather realized that the force majeure of fate was dragging his most cherished young son into darkness.
And in this young son, the old godfather pinned the most contradictory "wishful thinking":
He hopes that Mike can "get out of the mud and not stain" and become a big man in the earthly world, not only to get rid of the crimes he has committed from himself, but also to help other family members wash white together and become a truly visible American citizen.
But from the moment Mike shot the drug dealer on behalf of the family, the old godfather's American dream of mixing fatherhood and family mission collapsed in half.
At the end of the first part of "The Godfather", in the much-talked-about father-son parting scene, the strong premonition of time and the signs of aging that are not enough are presented at the same time on the old godfather, which is heartbreaking.
But the saddest thing is that the old godfather always apologized to his young son who originally had a bright future. In the final dialogue, he took care of the left and right, and he turned against his personality like gold, talked about drinking, talked about his little grandson, and incoherently told him, all just to hide the helplessness in his heart.
"Time is running out." The old godfather accurately foresaw the changes of the times with the eyes of the tyrants.
The above-ground and underground will soon cease to be compatible with each other, and the isomorphic relationship between the family and the mafia cause will eventually be broken.
The life of the old godfather came to an end at a turning point in the times. What he didn't know was that the imminent predicament of Mike was more dangerous than he had imagined.
The root of this dilemma once again comes from the family.
The second generation of godfather Mike has a dual identity, first of all, he is a second generation of Sicilian immigrants, influenced by his father, coupled with his own escape experience in Sicily, he accepts his hometown and his father's family concept.
But at the same time, he was born in the United States, grew up in the United States, and received an American elite education, and as a result, he married a typical American wife, Kay.
Kay is a completely different woman from Mike's mother, the wife of the old godfather.
In the history of the old godfather,his wife played the role of absolute fidelity and obedience, which was determined by Sicilian tradition. But in Mike's marriage to Kay, this unconditional trust and obedience no longer exists.
As an equally highly educated intellectual woman, Kay naturally could not always be guided by her husband's view of good and evil, as Mike's mother did.
Her skepticism about Mike's values continues from the first to the end of the second. In the end, Kay completely negated Mike by abdicating himself. This behavior completely angered Mike, who slapped Kai hard, noting that this was probably the only time in Mike's life that he had completely lost control of his emotions and hurt someone.
Kay to Mike, just as the young Mike, who has not yet set foot in the family business, is to the old godfather, the former is the innocence that the latter once had but has lost forever, and it is also the positive of the American dream that the latter has pursued all his life.
They are always righteous and pure, with an unworldly innocence and courage, providing comfort and hope for the latter in the darkness.
Kay, an always innocent and single-minded woman, would eventually "betray" her husband in the form of an abortion, which MacWanwan did not expect, and it was also unstoppable by the old godfather's calculations.
In the face of the encirclement and suppression of other underworld families, as well as the current situation at home and abroad, Mack was still unfazed. But beyond his expectations, the upheaval of the times that threatened his "patriarchal" status was able to start with his marriage.
This is also the forerunner of The Godfather.
In fact, the seeds of the breakdown of Mike's marriage with Kai have long been secretly planted in the film:
The film features two weddings in great fanfare, one for Connie, the daughter of the old godfather, and the other for Mike's traditional Sicilian wedding in Sicily with his first wife.
The wedding of Mike and Kay does not appear in the film, which seems to hint at the attitude of the Corleone family, an Italian immigrant, towards Kay, the American daughter-in-law.
They never really blended.
Coppola keenly captures the deeper dynamics of "times have changed."
Whether it is the gangsters involved in drugs or the gradual improvement of the legal system in American society, all of them are only appearances. The development of modern human rights concepts hastened the disintegration of the traditional extended family, and the individual pursuits of family members are no longer linked to the interests of the extended family as a whole, which is the real reason for crushing Mike, a mafia leader.
Following his father's instructions, Mike tries to protect his family in his own way, and thinks he is moving toward the American Dream. As everyone knows, the traditional way Sicilian men protect their families has become a nightmare that constrains the personality development of modern American family members.
Mike, who tries to balance tradition and modernity, is doomed to failure. His wife chose to leave voluntarily because he could not share the spiritual world with him, and his son always lived in the shadow of his father killing his uncle.
A moment of warmth between Mike's brother Fredo and his nephew
He no longer became a solid support for the whole family like his father, but instead, the family could only live what they thought was happy and normal if they desperately ran away from him.
Mike fought all his life for the bright side of the American dream, but his soul remained forever on the dirty side of the American dream.
03
An elegy for the loss of patriarchy
The relationship between the traditional extended family and family members presented by Coppola in "The Godfather" is so real and delicate that fifty years later, the relationship between these characters in the film is still tireless.
This, of course, depends on Coppola's status as an Italian immigrant.
Prior to this, Hollywood's classic gangster films, such as "Enemy of the People" and "Little Caesar", although they all told the stories of mafia members, but no creator had deeply explored the internal structure of the families of these Italian immigrants.
They are simply lone wolves that challenge mainstream society, are romanticized and then ruthlessly eliminated.
It was Coppola who used her real life experience to create a fuller flesh and blood for this group of terrible-looking mafia. They have the warmth of the family, and thus they have many worldly entanglements. As we all know, the more worldly desires there are, the more the actions of the characters will stand up to scrutiny, and the emotions in the story will be fuller and longer.
Throughout Mike's life, killing his brother Fredo, who had betrayed him, was always a knot in his heart that he could not forgive himself.
This is not only because Ferredo is his older brother, "my father's son", but it can be seen from many details in the film that Mike's relationship with Fredo may be the closest among the siblings in the family.
The end of The Godfather 2 is a memory of Mike. He remembered the decision to announce to his brothers and sisters that he had joined the army and serve the country, and everyone was extremely puzzled, only Fredo shook his hand and expressed his support.
At the beginning of "The Godfather", Mike takes Kai to his sister's wedding, the whole family behaves not salty, and only Fredo comes over to greet Kai affectionately and welcomes her on behalf of the family.
After the scene where the whole family gathered around the old godfather's bedside to welcome him home from the hospital, the crowd dispersed, and only Fredo, alone, entered his father's room again, sat down silently, and stared wordlessly at his weak father.
He may be the most cowardly and incompetent of the old godfather's children, and he may also be the family's most vulnerable weakness to be broken. For these reasons, for the benefit of the entire family, Mike had countless reasons to get rid of him.
However, he may also be the most tender person in the family, bringing the most relief and happiness to the other members.
Fredo's guilty and sad gaze as he gazed at his father was almost identical to the sadness and self-blame he had when he was still infantile, and the sadness and self-blame that his father had revealed when he was still infantile.
The father and son are full of love for each other, and form a deep look at each other in different time and space.
Regarding the candlelight in the depths of human nature, there are still some moving fragments in the film that are easy to ignore. For example, after Kay's divorce, she carries Mike to the house to see the children, and Connie is on the side to give her the wind.
As the time for Mike to return home approaches, Connie keeps urging Kai to leave. As she parted, Connie kept encouraging her little nephew to come forward and kiss her mother, and finally hugged Kai tightly.
This embrace made me deeply empathize with the women in the mafia family who were excluded by men, and the vicissitudes and warmth of "the same fallen people at the end of the world" in them have long transcended blood relations, and are a rare bridge between traditional and modern family concepts.
It is such details that make the "family" in the mouth of the old godfather come to fruition, making us believe that such a family is worth protecting. Therefore, when the family is torn apart, we can feel the pain of the heart with Mike.
It can be said that these warm moments about family affection are the last legacy left by the old godfather to the Corleone family.
Of course, these are only a small part of the legacy, and the rest is still fatal to Mike and the rest of the family.
Mike's biological son resolutely rejected the political path his father had arranged for him, and he chose to become a singer, completely breaking away from the sins of the Corleone family.
In the third part, Mike has to accept this reality and eventually reconciles with his son. Of course, the reconciliation presupposes the son's career in the field of art and the premiere of the opera "Country Knight" in his hometown in Italy. This great premise of returning home is almost the only way for fathers and sons to reconcile all over the world.
After watching the performance, Mike said excitedly: "In the future, when people mention the Corleone family, they will think of this song." ”
Perhaps the moment he said this, Mike remembered his father's apology for what he wanted to say.
He would remember his father's sighing words, "Time is running out, Mike."
And he thought that he had finally fulfilled his father's instructions, thinking that after a lifetime of going around, he still touched the green light on the other side.
Immediately, the young daughter he loved the most died in his arms.
For Mike, there was nothing more brutal about the tragic death of his daughter. He spent his life protecting his family, but eventually ended with the loss of his family.
Mike's spiritual pillar, with the meaning of the old godfather's lifelong struggle, disappears at the end of the film and ends in a white expanse.
However, this outright tragedy has an unusually powerful appeal to modern audiences.
We clearly no longer believe in the traditional family concept of family mission, we are keen on free will, individual liberation, we are gradually accustomed to living an atomic life in a big city far from the homeland, we fully understand and support Kai's departure from Mike, we can rationally criticize the patriarchal system that the old godfather and Mike followed.
But we still have great sympathy and nostalgia for the "godfather" and the whole set of family logic behind it.
Perhaps, in that traditional patriarchal world of kinship, we see something beyond individualism—
It is a strong sense of responsibility forced out of extremely harsh circumstances, a spirit of dedication that bursts out in a situation where there is no way out, and a desperate and romantic outpouring of masculinity in a particular historical period.
Everything was like the pear that the young old godfather had brought back for his wife after he lost his job.
Despite being wrapped in a rough newspaper, it still triggered the wife's laughter.
And for the old godfather, the beginning of the American dream was only to make this moment of happiness a little longer, a little longer.
Resources:
"52 Times Life - Dai Jinhua Master Film Class" Dai Jinhua
"The Back of the American Story: Society, Culture and History in Gangster Movies" Li Yang
"The Reshaping and Reinvention of Gangster Movies: From Italian Mafia Movies and Culture" Hong Fan
"Hollywood Mafia-themed Film Research" Du Yongkang
"Italian Cultural Characteristics in American Gangster Films" Gu Bo
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