Had production gone according to plan, The Godfather would have been the big Christmas release of 1971. But as fate would have it, unforeseen delays pushed its world premiere in New York to March 14, 1972—to the eve of Easter.
We now know that it was a stroke of serendipity. As brought to screen by director Francis Ford Coppola and author Mario Puzo, The Godfather was a remarkable artistic achievement that resurrected not just American filmmaking, which had been wallowing in crises throughout the 1950s and 1960s because of a variety of factors, but also spawned cult-like fan clubs of filmmakers, technicians, students and general viewers across the world. In the 50 years since its release, the film has inspired not just numerous remakes and retellings (the Malayalam hit Bheeshma Parvam being the most recent), but also obscure cinematic references and delightful Easter eggs in films that are vastly different in tone, texture and theme (the new Batman movie, for instance).
It is fair to say that The Godfather has so broken barriers that it has become a global cultural touchstone. What is not as apparent, though, is whether people have really come to fully appreciate its continued worth as a delightful primer to the philosophy of cynicism. To be sure, the film’s plot and most of its main characters convey an almost doctrinal distrust in people and their motives and actions, and some of the characters even justify their existence—which they understand is grotesque to others—in words that are both detached and oddly accurate, but also designed to provoke. The Godfather is, if anything, a rich and varied album of characters and moments that offer valuable lessons in putting cynicism to practice.
Case in point: the conversation between Michael Corleone and Kay Adams as they go for a stroll after being finally reunited. By this point in the film, Michael is in line to succeed his father, Don Vito Corleone, as the head of the crime family, and he is trying to explain Don Vito’s motives and deeds with a straight face to his future, non-Italian wife. “My father is no different than any other powerful man,” explains Michael. “Like any man who is responsible for other people—like a senator or a president.” Kay smiles—she appears both indulgent and dismissive—and says, “You know how naive you sound, Michael? Senators and presidents don’t have men killed.” Silenced momentarily, Michael cannot but gaze at her intently before he says, “Who’s being naive here, Kay?”
There are moments in The Godfather that can well be compiled into an enjoyable, even if trivial, guidebook to leading a very happy life as a stone-cold cynic. Here is presenting five of them, in honour of the five decades that the Corleones have graced our screens. These are lessons on offer that, well, you can’t refuse.
1. Beware having the fruits of your labour
Sombre blacks, greys and browns dominate the palette of The Godfather. The most prominent among the few bright objects that occasionally liven up the film’s moody canvas are oranges. Big, bright and shiny oranges that dominate entire shots sometimes.
The vibe they exude throughout the film, however, can hardly be termed salubrious. Bright oranges roll across a wintry street as Don Vito collapses after being shot multiple times. Another character unknowingly imperils himself as he negotiates a deal while sitting on a dining table dominated by a big bowl of oranges. And, an orange rind is the last thing the don puts in is mouth before he dies of heart attack.
Lesson: The fruits of your labour can be delicious; they can also be deadly.
2. Go to church, become a good gangster
The Godfather has a masterfully symbolic denouement that shows two very different kind of baptisms. The first is the Catholic kind, in which Michael stands in solemnly in a cavernous church as godfather to his sister’s son. The second is a baptism by bloodbath, in which Michael’s henchmen riddles his enemies with bullets. “Do you renounce Satan?” the priest asks Michael. Shots of people being murdered are intercut, before Michael replies, “I do renounce him.”
The vital role that the church plays in the plot mechanics of The Godfather cannot be overstated. The crime empire of the Corleones is shored up by both blood relationships and an intricate web of social contracts consecrated by the church. The baptism sequence underlines this—at the end of it, Michael has not only become a godfather to a child, he has become the Godfather of his people.
Lesson: The difference between organised religion and organised crime is bridgeable.
3. The proof of the Italian pudding is not in the eating
A lot of wining and dining goes on in The Godfather. But most of the dining, at least, is presented as strangely mirthless. Throughout the film, Corleone’s men are shown consuming loads of spaghetti and ravioli as they wait to make their moves during the bloody gang war. A cannoli is carefully retrieved by a caporegime for later consumption from beside a dead body. Michael and Kay have a silent, ominous dinner together in a hotel room before they abruptly part ways. Even the restaurants in the film appear foreboding. Two of them become scenes of violent, pre-meditated killings.
The wining, too, is hardly pleasant. “I like to drink wine more than I used to,” says Don Vito nonchalantly, right after informing Michael that he will be assassinated at a meeting that would ostensibly be called to broker peace between the warring families.
The one playful scene involving Italian food in the whole picture is when the cannoli-loving caporegime busies himself in the kitchen, teases the idling Michael about his girlfriend, and then gives him a demonstration on how to cook for 20 people. “You start with a little bit of oil,” he says. “Then fry some garlic. Then you thrown in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it and make sure it doesn’t stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. Add a little bit of wine, and a little bit of sugar… and that’s my trick!”
The brief tutorial dies with the entry of Michael’s hot-headed elder brother Santino, who says, “Cut the crap.”
The lesson, which The Godfather may not have intended to offer but still ably demonstrates, is that the complicated work involved in preparing an Italian dish can be more enjoyable than actually eating it. Risotto, anyone?
4. Women at the wheel can wreck your peace
Michael would not have become a mafia boss had he not made the grave mistake of teaching his first wife how to drive. “It’s safer to teach you English!” cries Michael after letting his Sicilian wife, Appollonia, drive round the house. Later, Michael orders his aide Fabrizio to get the car ready for a long journey. “Are you driving yourself, boss? Is your wife coming with you?” asks Fabrizio. Michael says no, so Fabrizio goes on and plants a bomb in the car. As he prepares to start the journey, Michael figures out that Fabrizio had crossed over to the enemy side, and that getting into the car and turning the ignition on would kill him. The person who ends up dying in the blast is the adorably carefree Appollonia, who had been waiting at the wheel to take Michael by surprise by driving him to his destination.
Just as it painfully dawns on Michael that the car is a death trap, Appollonia spots him waiting, honks the horn happily and turns on the ignition. And blown to smithereens is the peaceful life Michael had built in Sicily.
Lesson: Even feared gangsters can be ruined by wives who love to drive.
5. Olive oil can be dangerous
Fact: As much as 80 per cent of Italian olive oil exports is dodgy, mainly because of Corleone-like mafia rings who relabel cheap olive pomace oil as the more expensive ‘extra-virgin’ variety and then ship it to foreign markets. It’s a scam that the police in Italy regularly deals with even today. And historically, the growth of Calabrian and Sicilian mafia are inextricably linked to the olive oil trade.
As Mario Puzo wrote, Don Vito himself made his fortune by setting up the Genco Pura Olive Oil Company in the 1920s, which served as both legitimate business and a useful front for his criminal activities. “The Corleone family is thinking of giving up all its interests in the olive oil business and settling out here,” says Michael in the latter half of The Godfather, in which he struggles hard to extricate his family from the oily New York underworld and replant it in the arid gambling paradise of Nevada. His plan: Make the Corleone fortune fully legitimate by laundering and investing it in casinos in Las Vegas. It is the big move that leads up to in the baptism-bloodbath in the end.
Lesson: The next time you visit the supermarket and see extra-virgin olive oil at discounted prices, remember why Michael wanted to exit the business. And remember that you are about to gamble.
There are, after all, offers you can refuse.
