OPINION:
On its 50th anniversary, tributes to “The Godfather” keep rolling in.
Granted, all three films are visually stunning, especially the first. The acting is superb. The score is haunting and the dialogue is memorable.
But “The Godfather” is also profoundly anti-American, as well as a milestone in the transition from the cowboy hero to the gangster anti-hero.
It starts with the opening scene, where Bonasera the undertaker declares: “I believe in America. America has made my fortune. I raised my daughter in the American fashion.”
The rest of the scene explains why his faith in America was misplaced. Two young men beat his daughter savagely when she resisted their advances. At trial, they received suspended sentences. The incredulous Bonasera tells his wife, “For justice, we must go to Don Corleone.”
The corruption of American society is the theme that runs through all three “Godfather” films.
The courts are corrupt. The police are corrupt. Capt. McCluskey is on the take and is willing to arrange the Don’s murder for a price.
Politicians are corrupt. The drug kingpin Sollozzo says the Don carries them around in his pocket “like so many nickels and dimes.” Even the church is corrupt. In “Godfather III,” the archbishop who controls the Vatican bank wants a bailout from the Corleones to support their takeover of another financial institution.
In “Godfather I,” when Michael goes to New Hampshire to persuade Kay to marry him, he tells her: “My father’s no different from any other powerful man. Any man who’s responsible for other people. Like a senator or president.” Kay responds that presidents and senators don’t have men killed. Michael replies, “Now who’s being naive.”
“The Godfather” tells us repeatedly: Only your tribe offers you any degree of protection. (“And then, if an honest man such as yourself should make enemies, they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you.”)
The theme of all three films is that America is based on hypocrisy, greed, theft and violence.
As a young immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York, Vito Corleone turns to a life of crime, supposedly because there’s no other way to support his wife and children.
Returning from World War II a hero, the college-educated Michael Corleone doesn’t want to go into the family business. But with the Don lying gravely wounded in a hospital bed, the only way to save the old man’s life is to kill Sollozzo and the police captain who guards him.
When he returns from Sicily — with his brother Sonny dead and his father in physical and mental decline — what could be more natural than that Michael should become the next Godfather.
But by taking over the family business to protect his family, Michael ultimately destroys his family.
He first kills his brother-in-law Carlo for an act of betrayal, then his older brother, the ineffectual Fredo, for another betrayal. His wife divorces him, and he sets in motion events that lead to his daughter’s death.
“The Godfather” was also a milestone.
The ’60s marked the rise of the gangster film and the decline of the cowboy movie, a staple of American cinema since the era of silent film. The cowboy was an individualist, the gangster an anarchist. The cowboy had a code of honor which included protecting the weak. The gangster knew only the law of the jungle.
“The Godfather” opens at the end of World War II, one of the most optimistic times in American history. But the movie itself was made in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, one of the most pessimistic times in our history. Its theme fits the era perfectly.
Today we’ve gone far beyond the anti-Americanism of the “Godfather” films. In the “Age of Woke,” we’re told that America has always been based on racial exploitation (“The 1619 Project”), a deep-seated animus toward outsiders, rape of the environment and neo-colonialism.
Every era has its mythology. For my father’s generation, it was the patriotism of John Wayne movies, like “Back to Bataan.” For Boomers, it was “Daniel Boone” and “The Alamo.”
For Generation X, it was “The Godfather,” “Platoon,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “Dances With Wolves.” In the latter, the U.S. military is composed of sadistic killers or helpless shmoos. Little wonder that after Korea, we lost almost every war we fought, even less that we are led by a man who believes America is distinguished by systematic racism.
“The Godfather” should be mourned, not celebrated. It was one more prominent marker in the graveyard of American patriotism.
• Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer and syndicated columnist.
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