Hi everybody, and welcome to Mark Overanalyses Film, the podcast where I overanalyse a different film every episode. Today, I’ll be looking at The Godfather, a film that people should really give a chance. 

The Godfather was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and he cowrote the script along with Mario Puzo, who wrote the original novel. Now, there’s a couple of things I need to say out loud right here at the start. One: I was never really a Godfather guy. I couldn’t really explain why not, but I wasn’t. To some extent, I’m still not. At least not in the way that many are. I’ve seen people say that Michael’s is the most dramatic arc in cinema history and I just don’t really see it! In part, this podcast is an examination of why that might be or what I might be missing. Two: I found it a challenging film to dissect and found myself — to my horror — disagreeing with the structure laid out by John Yorke in his excellent book Into The Woods. Which feels a little like me making a podcast where I outline what Al Pacino gets wrong about acting. Or shouting.
So, with all that said, first, I’ll look at the fundamental features of the protagonist, and then I’ll go through the main story beats by looking at the sequences of the film. As I do so, I’ll highlight how and why my interpretation appears to differ from the alternative / correct one outlined by John Yorke. At the end, I’ll talk about the main things I learned along the way.

Ok, so, without further ado, let’s get into the 5 Questions about the protagonist.

The 5 Questions

Question 1: Whose story is it? 

Honestly, right out the gate, this was harder for me to answer than I thought. Because it’s clearly Michael’s movie. Right? Right. The change that the character undergoes is the story of the film. However, Vito Corleone plays a larger part than I initially realised. So, who is Michael Corleone? In 1945, he’s a war hero and son to Mafia Godfather Vito Corleone. When we first meet him, he’s insistent that he wants no part of the family business. But we’re about to spend several years with him, and that might change.

Question 2: What is his life dream?

‘Life dream’ here refers to what it is that the protagonist wants before the story really begins. When we first meet Michael, he suggests that he wants to stay outside the family business and be legitimate. I have to say though, from my extensive re-viewing, I am convinced that Michael’s main concern at the start of the film is: to be his own man. Being honest or ‘keeping his soul’ just doesn’t have that much to do with it in my view. 

Question 3: What is his Want?

Want in this case refers specifically to what the character is trying to achieve in Act II of the film, from the moment they start the new adventure or journey until the point where they seem most defeated. A Want in film, therefore, is generally a SMART goal. That is to say, it is Specific, Measurable, Achievable (just about), Relevant, and Time bound. 

Now, this is where I really start to diverge a bit from a lot of thought. If we were to focus on Michael, it would surely be some version of “Michael wants to protect Vito and his family”. In this reading, Act II begins with Michael finding out Vito has been shot and rushing home, and it ends when Vito dies from a heart attack. 

BUT. That is not where I am going to draw the start and end of Act II here. As far as I’m concerned, the shape of The Godfather is provided by the question of “Will Vito (and/or the Corleones) be able to stop the mafia getting involved with drugs?” That question begins at minute 33, and ends at minute 127, when Vito meets Solozzo to refuse him and then meets the other Dons to acquiesce. Why I believe this to constitute Act II, I’ll discuss in greater detail throughout. But I think Act II, and therefore the film overall, is actually given shape by Vito’s Want.

Question 4: What is his Need?

The protagonist’s ‘need’, in this instance, is the human quality or piece of wisdom that the character lacks at the beginning of the story. And whatever about the Want, the Need is very much Michael’s. But I have to say, I’ve found it a little hard to pin down exactly what it is, and I’ll get into why that is a little later. For now though, let’s cover some of the basics. What is Michael’s fundamental journey? Well, when we begin our story, Michael is not even at the wedding yet. He’s with Kay. When our story ends, the door is closed on Kay as Michael is hailed as Godfather of his family. But what causes this change? How is Michael’s nature fundamentally changed through the story? For my money, it’s either a ruthless cynicism, or a cynical ruthlessness! In the archaic meaning of the term, ‘ruth’ means a feeling of pity, distress, or grief. Personally, I think it’s debatable whether or not Michael is a psychopath, and therefore whether he has any empathy to begin with, but he certainly doesn’t by the end of the film.

Question 5: Do they get what they want and/or what they need?

As far as I’m concerned, Vito’s relatively benign want is not achieved, while Michael’s absolutely not benign need is. I think that’s why The Godfather feels cynical, but I wouldn’t really describe it as depressing or defeating, not in the way that Bicycle Thieves or Grave of The Fireflies is. And I think that’s because our protagonist achieves his need, even if it’s a dark cynical one; rather than that he fails to achieve a moral need.  

Ok, now that I’ve attempted to answer the 5 key questions, let’s have a look at The Godfather’s sequences. 

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The Sequences

A sequence is a combination of scenes that are tied together by having a single overriding dramatic question or tension, and they tend to be between 10 and 15 minutes in length. A good way to think about it is that every 10-15 minutes, the audience should be on some level asking themselves a different dramatic question. In the average 2 hour film, there is normally, but not always, 8 sequences. The Godfather, however, is actually a leisurely 2 hours and 45 minutes long, and I’m going to say there are 10 sequences. You could talk me into 11 or 12, but I’m going with 10! 

There’s one other note I should possibly add here. Normally a screenplay transposes onto film as 1 minute per page. So, a 120 page screenplay would be roughly 120 minutes long. But The Godfather’s screenplay is actually only 123 pages, so it is significantly shorter than the film. Consulting the screenplay really helped me with the sequence and act breakdown, but it’s also worth noting just how leisurely the pacing of The Godfather is, and how it almost lulls the viewer.

Act I normally contains 2 sequences and I’m going to say that’s the case here. Sequence I is generally some version of “life as it is”, and The Godfather has one of the best opening sequences of all time. In order to introduce a world, a lifestyle, and a whole family, Coppola and Puzo begin with a wedding. But while the wedding is on-going, we begin in near total darkness, and one of the all-time opening lines: “I believe in America.” Where does this film get off starting with a line like that?! How does it pull it off?! Anyways, it does, and we discover that Don Vito Corleone is a man who can make things happen, provided you show him ‘respect’. We quickly learn that this is his daughter’s wedding day and he must accept requests because, well, Sicilians have some pretty eccentric traditions. This lulling quality I referred to starts immediately. However the film does it, it’s throwing information at the viewer, but it’s easy to not notice. We see that Michael hasn’t turned up yet, and that Vito won’t take a family photo without him. A quick suggestion that there’s a favourite child. We meet so many characters: the family, Clemenza, Tessio, Don Barzini. We learn that Sonny is having an affair and that Michael, when he does arrive, is dating Kay. This is just the first of many ways in which Michael will show that he is his own man, as Kay is notably not Italian at this most Italian of settings.

Now I’m going to make my first perhaps unusual cut here. I think sequence II begins in the middle of the wedding, as from minute 17, I’m wondering one thing: Will the Don and Tom fix Johnny’s problem? Now, something that my former tutor Mary Kate O’Flanagan once told us is that sequences always ‘belong’ to one character. The first belongs to Vito. It starts in his office, and moves outside when he moves outside. Even when Michael arrives, we see that Vito is watching it through his blinds. 

But then there’s an interesting shift, cos the second sequence for my money is Tom’s. We’re shortly going to follow him to Hollywood, but even now we’re really moving around with him, rather than Vito. It begins with him making a kind of bet with The Godfather about whether or not Johnny is in trouble. They go outside, and Tom is proven right. Tom is then sent to find Sonny. We see Johnny’s discussion with Vito mainly from Tom’s point of view, and then of course, Tom is told that he’s flying to California tonight. 

Now, during all this, we also have the real introduction of Michael, where he stakes out his starting position: “That’s my family Kay, that’s not me.” I’ll come back to this moment much later, because I think it’s part of the reason why I misunderstood The Godfather for a long time.

Anyways, right before we leave the wedding, we have mention of the Inciting Incident: the event without which our story as it is would not happen. And The Godfather has one of those interesting “not actually during the film” inciting incidents, at least in my book. The thing which causes this story to happen is that Solozzo has called looking for a meeting with the Don, and we know this because Tom, who owns the sequence, tells Vito in minute 24. So, this is where the Inciting Incident meets the story directly. 

At that, we follow Tom to California, where he makes Woltz an offer he can’t refuse, in what might be pound for pound the most iconic 5 minutes in film history. One quick question though: how do they get the horse’s head in Woltz’s bed without anyone, including Woltz, noticing? It’s under the sheets!! Who did that? Light-on-their-feet Clemenza and Paulie?! 

Anyways, I think this brings Act I to an end, as Act II brings the moment of transition and definitive change not just for the Corleones, but for how the mafia would operate in the US. And so we begin with Sequence III: the first attempts to solve the problem. This problem is introduced in the first scene: our “What’s the plan?” scene. Vito meets with Solozzo after getting counsel from his consigliere and his next in line. Now, this straight away sets up something else as well: the difference between Tom and Sonny. Tom is looking at the future of the mafia, Sonny can just stop eating for long enough to mutter “There’s a lotta money in that white powder”. Despite the fact that both consultants recommend saying yes, in the meeting Vito turns down the offer made by Solozzo. The overall question for Act II then becomes some version of “Will the Corleones be able to stay out of the drug business?”, but our sequence III tension is much more immediate: “Will Vito find out what Solozzo might be up to?” He sends out Luca Brasi to find out, but here they are outmaneouvred, with Luca murdered and Vito getting hit as he buys oranges — the symbol of death in The Godfather. 

And so we enter the 4th sequence of the film, which is the first of two sequences before the midpoint which we can consider “Greater attempts to solve the problem”. So, Vito has been shot, and Michael finds out and rushes home. Now, this moment, when Michael finds out and rushes home is considered by many to be the beginning of Act II, and that the hospital would represent his first unconscious move towards his need. I’m going to count this as his first unconscious move though, because he really wants in from this moment. When he gets home, it’s Sonny and Tom that are keeping him out. There’s a deleted scene here that shows both Michael’s piqued interest and his keenness of mind. Sonny asks him to leave when he first comes in but Michael insists on staying. Sonny then asks him if he thinks Clemenza or Paulie is the traitor, and Michael correctly guesses Paulie before Sonny reveals that he’s just confirmed it. The film, though, doesn’t really need this scene, and we still get the important elements in the next scene when Michael is asking if they’re going to go after everyone and Sonny tells him to stay out of it. Again, I think we see here that Michael is plenty interested in his family business. The real change to come will be Michael finding his way in.

Now there’s more iconic stuff going on here, Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes, Paulie getting whacked, and Clemenza telling Rocco to “leave the gun, take the connoli”. What follows this Clemenza-orchestrated murder is Michael literally being invited inside by Clemenza. He takes a call from Kay but won’t tell her he loves her in front of the guys. Just a heads up Kay, this might be an early warning sign that this guy is more concerned about being respected in the mafia than he is in you! What follows here is an important few moments. Sonny treats him like a kid and Michael has little choice but to accept it. He then hangs out with Kay… and to my mind at least he seems really bored. She wants to join him and he’s telling her he’s, y’know, got work in the morning, he really should get an early night, and he just sleeps better when she’s in another state. 

Honestly, to my mind, Kay as a character is somewhere between a mystery and just a straight up flaw in this film. I just never really get a great sense of her as a character and/or why she’d be interested in Michael. I’d love to see a scene with her and Connie here, and her character being expressed in some way. Even just to show me “Ok, this is why she’s so wide of the mark in judging Michael”. 

Anyways, Michael will go from bored here to exhilerated in the next scene, when he discovers that Vito has been left unguarded at the hospital and he has to take charge. And there’s lots of stuff here to note: first, he takes charge immediately. Second, Younger sibling alert: he gets pissed off when Sonny suggests that he might panic. Third, crucially, he tells Vito “I’m with you now Pop.” Fourth, when he lights Enzo the Baker’s cigarette, he notices that while Enzo’s hands are shaking, his are perfectly still. He’s good at this, and that’s unusual. Finally, he stands up to all comers, including Captain McCluskey, who gives Michael a reason to kill him. Now again, one could easily say that this is Michael’s first unconscious move towards his need, but I think this is what John Yorke would term “experimenting with knowledge” before the key breakthrough which is soon to come. 

Regardless, this all means that they’ve protected Vito from attempts to finish him off. The following morning, Michael arrives at the Corleone mall and discovers that Sonny has started a war, and so we enter sequence V now, with the question: Can they kill Solozzo? 

And the next scene is one of the most important in the entire film. Sonny is clearly loving the war. Tom is clearly concerned about business and pissing off the other families. Now, if you look at the blocking of this scene, when Michael begins speaking, he holds the centre of the room. Tom is in the background, and Sonny ahead of him. If you look up Stephen Fry talking about Star Trek and Nietzschian analysis of Greek Tragedy, he explains how Kirk was the captain and the hero because on the one hand he had the ultra rational Spock, and on the other the hyper-emotional Bones. Kirk was able to marry these two, and that’s what made him the best. This is classic character design. You personify traits or arguments, and also weaknesses in the characters around the protagonist. And it’s the same for Michael here. Tom is too logical, too diffident. Sonny is too hot-headed, too impulsive. Michael can marry Tom’s pragmatism with Sonny’s killer instinct. That’s how we know he’s the best of them. It’s how the story tells us. And in this scene, Michael exists in the middle of these 2, where he holds the centre of the room. Just like Captain Kirk! “It’s…not personal Sonny, it’s…strictly business!” It also should be noted that his own particular trait comes to the fore: there’s a ruthlessness here. This is cold blooded calculation. 

Now that the calculation’s been made, it’s time to put it into action. And this leads to probably the most iconic midpoint of all time — or the character’s first conscious move towards their need — because Michael is about to kill Solozzo and McCluskey in an incredible scene that immediately entered the cinematic lexicon. One note on this: trains in films almost always signify destiny. I’m not sure why, something to do with being on tracks I guess. And this scene is soundtracked by train sounds. The first of these is heard at an interesting moment. Right before Michael leaves the toilet where he’s picked up the gun, he pauses. You might notice that there’s a saloon door in the foreground, and one in the background, and Michael has stopped between the two. He’s in a liminal space, about to change his life and possibly even his very nature forever. The train sounds, and he exits, embracing his destiny. The call of destiny gets louder and louder at the table until he embraces it, and makes his first conscious move towards his need by killing both men.

Now, I’m going to count the next 15 minutes as one sequence: the honeymoon sequence, where the character is acting in accordance with their need and things are generally going well, but really there are two mini-sequences. 

First, we have Vito returning home, so again, things are looking up, because Michael has embraced his need and killed the threat to the family. But this first mini-sequence is really about Sonny and Carlo. Sonny kicks Carlo out of the room to brief the recovering Vito. And immediately downstairs we see Carlo sulking then telling Connie to shut up. This. Fucking. Guy. Unfortunately though, while things are looking up, Sonny isn’t learning any lessons, and he now wants to go after Tattaglia. His unwillingness to change will soon be the death of him. And while Michael will court Carlo and lull him into a false sense of security, Sonny throws his weight around on Carlo at the dinner table. If he hadn’t, well, who knows? So, there’s been a mini tension here: will Sonny let Carlo into the inner workings of the family business? And the answer is no. 

But at that, we’re off to yet another contender for most iconic sequence of all time, as Michael wanders around Sicily. And it’s worth noting here that the whole concept is that he’s acting in accordance with his need, so what is he doing? Literally journeying to the heart of Corleone. As the one and only Billy Wilder said: “Make the subtleties obvious.” And on this journey, while he pines for home, he discovers something else: Apollonia. And you can see how sure of himself and assertive Michael is now. He remains defiant of those who try to protect him, but also makes a sudden decision to marry a girl, and it should be noted she’s about 16 here, that he’s just seen. Another deleted scene note here: before Vito is shot, Kay suggests to Michael getting married first, then telling his family after, and Michael says he can’t do that. Well, it appears things have changed. One more thing here, Michael has separated himself from those closest to him and in doing so become more dominant to those around him because of an act of ruthless violence. And this is exactly what he will do once again in the resolution. 

Now, again, I’m going to differ here from a lot of conventional thought. Some would say that the Honeymoon period encapsulates all of Sicily, but I think it ends here, with Michael and Apollonia courting. And that’s because I think we’re now entering Sequence VII, the first of two that act as a bridge from the honeymoon to the lowpoint, with a new tension: “Will Sonny kill Carlo?”

So, as I said earlier, sequences kind of ‘belong’ to individual characters, and this one is Sonny’s. It starts with him leaving his tryst and discovering that Connie’s been beaten. In retaliation, Sonny beats the crap out of Carlo. He says as he leaves “You touch my sister again, I’ll kill ya.” Now Sonny has already been told not to interfere in the marriage, so it’s quite probable that his mistake is that he’s careless, but also that he does something that his father wouldn’t.

But who is doing something his father would do? Michael. He’s having a very traditional marriage in Sicily. At the same time, Kay is trying to get back in touch with him. Now, no offence to Kay, but this is a call away from his need really and a sign of trouble. As we’ve seen and will see, how close he and Kay are is a barometer of how much Michael is embracing his need, his family’s ways. 

Anyways, this sequence is about to reach its denouement, as Carlo — fucking Carlo — beats Connie savagely. Connie, sadly, plays the part she’s meant to and calls Sonny. Sonny races off and, well, you won’t be seeing him no more.

So will Sonny kill Carlo? No. Instead, Sonny gets killed. And so we enter a new sequence, number 8 now. And it’s worth noting here that the last sequence of Act II, like the first sequence of Act II, belongs to Vito. And the question becomes: Will Vito be able to make the peace? To tell us this is his sequence, he appears out of bed for the first time and finds out about Sonny. He calls in the favour that he earned in the very first scene of the film, and organises a meeting of the families. Meanwhile, over in Sicily, well, you won’t be seeing Apollonia no more. Things are really getting dire for the Corleones now. 

And so, we finish Act II with the meeting of the families, and Vito, who refused to offer protection to drug dealing by the mafia in the first scene of Act II, is now forced to do so in order to end the war and to bring Michael home. On the way home, he reveals to Tom that he now knows that Barzini is the one orchestrating the moves against them. Barzini, who we’ve just seen at the head of the table in the previous scene. So, Sonny is dead. Apollonia is dead. Drugs are now part of the mafia business. Vito Corleone has been outmanouevred. And Michael is returning from bucolic Sicily to a weakened, depleted family home. Things are bad, and so we enter Act III.

There are many things that The Godfather has in common with Goodfellas, but one similarity that always bothered me with both is the slightly jarring move into Act III. Here, there’s no shotgun blast of cocaine energy, but rather suddenly it’s over a year later and Michael is now dressed like The Penguin. Generally, act III has 2 sequences, the false resolution and the true resolution, and here we’re in sequence 9 now: the false resolution. And so, Michael is moving closer to Kay again. On top of that, Michael is now head of the family, but Vito is still The Godfather. So Michael is still not really considered credible. Not really. And he appears weak to Clemenza and Tessio here. They want to fight, and he won’t. And it looks like the Corleones are running away to Nevada. And to add insult to injury, Tom is out and Carlo is coming in. Fucking Carlo. It’s not looking great. 

Then Michael travels to Nevada, where again he’s disrespected. Now it’s worth noting how loyal Tom continues to be here, and if I ever get around to doing Godfather Part II, I will certainly dedicate a section to Tom and Michael. For now though, I’ll just say that it reminds of a great / terrible / terrifying quote from Roger Ailes: “I only understand friendship or scorched Earth.” Well, to my mind, Michael only understands complete supplication or a challenge to his authority. As Tom is the only one now that really falls between these two, well, he tries to drive him to one or the other. 

But for now, Fredo completely misreads Michael, Moe Greene disrespects him, and just like Clemenza and Tessio did in the previous scene, Fredo tries to go over Michael’s head right in front of him. So, when Michael warns him to never take sides against the family again, there’s a double warning here. Michael is asserting his own dominance. As a youngest sibling, let me say I can imagine Michael feeling like he’s got a fight on to be taken completely seriously. But at that, things begin to turn a little. Kay asks Michael if he’ll be Godfather to Connie and Carlo’s child, and we have another iconic scene: where Vito essentially tells Michael he loves him, but also we have definitive evidence that they’re really planning something, and Michael is the one putting Vito at ease. At that, Vito’s time is up, and he dies playing with his grandson in his mini-vineyard. It’s an idealised death as Vito is an idealised figure throughout. But his death signals that while Michael is now really in charge, he’s also on his own, and we wonder if Michael can really survive his enemies, and so we move into Sequence X, the true resolution.

At the funeral, Michael is approached by Tessio, who accidentally reveals himself to be the traitor in doing so. And you can see here that he’s still keeping Tom out of the loop, as he tells him he’ll meet with the heads of the five families after the baptism.

Ok, how many times have I said iconic already? Well, we’re at the baptism scene. And Michael now acts in accordance with his need, embraces the hypocrisy of the Corleone heritage, and ruthlessly wipes out all his enemies while apparently renouncing Satan… maybe cos he’s got an eye on his gig. Of course taking down Satan would be difficult, but if history has taught us anything… well, you know. Now, with Tessio and the heads of the other families taken out, there’s one final matter to attend to. And this is the really interesting one. Now as far as I understand it, murder is allowed but interfering in a marriage is not. But what if you murder to interfere in a marriage?? Michael arranges for Carlo to stay behind, then compels him to come clean about double-crossing the family, then has him murdered. This triggers Connie to accuse him of waiting for Vito to die so that he could kill Carlo, and this is an interesting question. I’m inclined to think Vito must have known about this. I can’t imagine him standing by as Michael planned on making Carlo his right hand man in Nevada. And yet, the clear difference between Vito and Michael, and Michael’s clear flaw, is his coldness. That he’s too ruthless. He does not have the human touch or real flame for family that his father had, and this is what will really spoil in Part II. So perhaps Connie is right. Perhaps Vito thought the plan was to banish Carlo to Nevada, but, personally, I doubt it somehow. Either way though, Carlo’s murder is the murder that we really feel separates Michael from Vito. It appears to have been Michael’s plan and there’s a sense that even if Vito were aware of it, perhaps Vito couldn’t have brought himself to do it. 

And that brings us to our final moments, the most — sorry — iconic final moments in cinematic history. Kay asks Michael if what Connie has accused him of is true. Having fully embraced his ruthless need in lying to — and truly emotionally cutting ties with — his wife Kay, Michael is rewarded. 34 minutes ago, during the false resolution, Clemenza tried to undermine his authority by going over his head. Now, in the final moments, as Kay is locked out of Michael’s real life, Clemenza kisses the hand of Don Corleone.

Epilogue

So, this is the part where I talk about two things that piqued my interest in analysing the film. There are so many things to talk about in The Godfather. But unfortunately, I have to try and wrap my head around exactly what I’m missing, so I’d like to go head on at why I’ve struggled with this film for so long.

As I said at the start, The Godfather always left me a bit cold. Even while I could see that it obviously has much to recommend it, I just don’t love it the way so many do. 

And, I have to say, this ultimately has to come down to Michael. I know this is probably heresy, but I just don’t find him that compelling. I always thought everything after Sicily is a bit flat. I realise now that that is our segway into Act III, or when Michael becomes head of the family. Now as I’ve detailed throughout this podcast, there are normally 2 sequences in Act III: the false resolution and the true resolution. In the false resolution, Michael is acting head, and he is not respected. Clemenza, Tessio, and Fredo all try to go around him to get Vito to overrule him, and Moe Greene is very Moe Greene to Michael in a way that he probably wouldn’t be to Vito. The false resolution then ends with Vito’s death, when Michael asserts his authority and power through a violent, cynical ruthlessness.

Now, I hadn’t really recognised this as a false resolution before, and it did make me appreciate The Godfather more, at least as a straight genre film. But I still think it’s just not that interesting character-wise. And I think that’s because as far as I’m concerned, Michael is a ruthless bastard from the midpoint on. The first half of the film does a great job of ma pping Michael’s change. He starts off outside the family. When the family is threatened, he realises that he wants to be with them. Then, he realises that he’s good at this by evading lethal violence in the hospital. Then he murders Solozzo and McCluskey to protect his family. But once that’s done, there is just no real conflict within Michael after that. Even his marriage proposal is “I can marry your daughter or I can kill you”, to which the Dad responds “Well fix my braces, come over Sunday!” When he returns, I don’t believe a word he says to Kay when he lands back in her life. I also think that’s arguably the worst scene in the film. “Hi Kay. I’m back. I’ve decided to marry you. Good? Ok, get in the car, we’re having children.” Now it does seem as though Michael is planning on retreating from mafia life to try and go legitimate. But his plan to go legitimate is “Step 1: Offer to buy Moe Greene. Step 2: Assassinate Moe Greene.” In sum, Michael’s obstacles to his need are external, not internal. He has no doubts or qualms about what he’s doing to my mind. I think this might explain to some extent why I struggled a bit to pinpoint his exact need. Now none of that makes The Godfather a bad film by any means, but it might explain why it’s never been a personal all-time favourite.

But having said all of that, I still think The Godfather is, y’know, pretty damn good. And I’d love to talk about any number of things which The Godfather does exceptionally. But I’m going to limit myself to what I find most interesting: what message that The Godfather’s 3 act story structure conveys. Francis Ford Coppola has said that every film he’s made can be summed up in one word, and for The Godfather it is, of course, succession. There are two interesting ways that this is expressed meta-textually, as well as through the direct events of the story. First of all, as I mentioned at the start, the Want is Vito’s. And this is what drives and is answered by Act II, before that gives way to Michael’s need, which is the question of the whole film really, and is only resolved at the very end of Act III. This is succession. Further, these two need to be connected to each other, and this is really the story of the Corleone family. So, Michael’s need is to be ruthless. Well, in sequence III, Vito tries to deal. Solozzo himself says that the old man was slipping and that he couldn’t have gotten to him 10 years ago. The message is Vito was not ruthless enough. Then, when Solozzo tries to finish Vito off, Michael defends against it, then plans his own act of ruthless violence, then — at the all important midpoint — acts on it. This leads us to our honeymoon sequence, which is ended by the counterargument: Sonny goes to commit violence but is careless, not cold blooded enough, and gets murdered because of it. That sets the Corleones back, and the low point comes when Michael lets his guard down and suffers an act of violence at the hands of Fabrizio, and Vito once again deals rather than engage in a war. The fact that this then leads into a false resolution where it seems the Corleones are avoiding violence only to result in a true resolution of targetted mass violence, gives our entire story its shape. Deal - attacked - survive - plan- targetted attack - killed because of passion - deal again because of weakness - running away/secret planning - completely ruthless act of mass violence to ‘win’. So you might notice that these sequences and important moments belong to different characters, yet all feed into the same argument — Michael’s need. This gives the story unity despite its many characters, and creates this sense that Michael is the result of that which has come before him.   

But also, there’s a grander succession story here. There’s the story of a changing time in the mafia in America. Act I tells the story of the before time. It’s kind of romantic. It’s about family. It’s directly tied to Italian heritage. Violence is indirect. We’re basically told Woltz kinda has it coming. Then Act II comes, with the introduction of drugs and the coming of modernity. Vito’s mission is to protect his family from this. He fails. And this leads to Act III. The next generation is in charge, and with the old ways gone, their heritage goes too. The old ways can’t survive the drug wars, so they’re moving out of New York and moving to Nevada, into the Casino business. Now, just how far removed they will become from their roots will be expounded upon at great length in Part II, but the implication is clear here. And so the three act structure of The Godfather is Before — Change — After. Which is of course the essential 3 act structure of anything. But it’s rarely so clearly generational. The fact that Michael’s “after” is colder than Vito’s “Before”, and that his need is to be cold and ruthless leaves us with a cold feeling. The structure of The Godfather in this way tells us the message of the film: that the times are colder and more ruthless. And The Godfather states its message explicitly, as deep into the moment of change, with Sonny dead and Michael now the heir apparent, with the old ways on their last legs, with drugs becoming more prevalent, the violence becoming more fierce, avarice becoming more prominant, Don Tommasino tells us what The Godfather tells us: “Times are changing for the worse.”

This has been Mark Overanalyses Film on The Godfather. In the next episode, I’ll be doing something slightly different and taking the same analytical approach to a series of television: Fleabag’s Season 2. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, rate, follow, recommend, and whatever else it is that’s good for this kind of thing! A special thanks to Mary Kate O’Flanagan who taught m everything I know about film, including these methods. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourselves, and see you soon.