Michael Corleone and the Meaning of Solitude
The Godfather films, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, are about many things — the immigrant experience in America, the country’s transition to mass market capitalism, the rise and decline of American organized crime — but, to me, what makes them most compelling, what makes them the great masterpieces of American cinema, is the tragic arc of the man at the center of both films: Michael Corleone (Al Pacino, before he became a caricature of himself).
Michael begins the Godfather saga as a decorated war veteran, hoping to distance himself from his father Vito’s (Marlon Brando) organized crime empire and enter civilian life. But in the combined seven hours of runtime between the two films, Michael transforms into one of the most brutal mafia dons to ever appear on screen: a cold-hearted, calculating killer who says things like “If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone,” and “I don’t feel like I have to wipe everybody out. Just my enemies.” What part of Michael’s personality facilitates this progression, and what makes him such a compelling figure?
In the final scene of The Godfather Part II, we flashback to a young Michael Corleone, freshly out of college, sitting alone at his father’s dinner table, deliberately sipping his wine and smoking his cigarette. What jumps out, in Michael’s eyes and mannerisms, is a distinct loneliness, the sort of loneliness that stems from strict rationality and self-possession. Indeed, the table is set for his family, as it is his father’s birthday, and in the background the family sings “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” as the patriarch enters the home. Yet Michael remains alone, having betrayed his father by drafting into the Marines following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Michael is strong, intelligent and completely his own man, but destined to be separate, apart from the world and his family, even when he assumes the role of Don of the Corleone crime family.
This contrast between loneliness and family life is the central theme pervading both Godfather films (Coppola, in a 1996 interview, discusses this theme and how it relates to his childhood). Both films’ main plots begin at large family gatherings — a wedding in Part I, a first communion in Part II — cutting between the joy and lightness of celebration outside, and the darkness and heaviness of the Don’s office, where Vito (in Part I) and Michael (in Part II) take requests and conduct business for their crime empire. Yet both films end with Michael alienated from his family: In Part I, it is the famous shot of his office door shutting on his wife, Kay (Diane Keaton). In Part II, it is young, still-innocent Michael sitting alone at the dinner table, transitioning into older, corrupted Michael, sitting alone on a bench with a vacant stare.
The Godfather films are best known for the myriad iconic lines and moments that have embedded themselves in American culture: “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” “Keep your friends close, and enemies closer.” “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” “Look how they massacred my boy!” “Never take sides against the family again.” “I’m smart, not like everyone says!” It is hard to count the amount of times I heard these lines before I even knew about The Godfather’s existence.
However, when actually watching the films, the moments that are most striking are those of comparative silence. The disconsonant rattle of subway tracks as the camera zooms in on Michael’s contorted, anxiety-riddled face before he carries out his first hit. A solitary Michael skulking around his Nevada residence upon his return from Cuba in Part II, finding no one to greet him. Michael standing alone in his office, massaging his temples as his enemies are eliminated. These are the scenes that have burrowed their way into my mind, the ones that make Michael Corleone the most compelling character in film history.
But could Michael have avoided his fate? Could he have chosen family over solitude, empathy over brutality? Indeed, a third of The Godfather Part II is dedicated to Vito Corleone’s origins as a “hood legend” figure before he built the Corleone family into a crime empire. Young Vito (Robert De Niro) is just as brutal and calculating as Michael, but possesses a softness, reciprocity and family and community orientation that Michael does not have. Vito runs a crime family, Michael runs a crime corporation. Perhaps if Michael had been more like Vito, then he could have grown the Corleone empire without losing his soul.
Only Coppola seems to indicate, through the final scene of Part II, that Michael’s inclination towards solitude precluded him from being more like his father. Michael was destined to be alone, and this ability to retreat into himself ultimately led him into darkness, estranged from any sense of love, compassion or family.
Some may disagree with my interpretation. Indeed, once when discussing the films with my father, he contested that Michael’s main flaw was not recognizing that he had a choice, that he could have changed his fate. But this interpretation, while defensible, misses a key fact about the nature of loneliness. Those like Michael, who are allured by solitude, who possess a desire to retreat into themselves, cannot merely choose to shed that element of their personality. Perhaps loneliness can be suppressed, but only for so long until it rears its ugly head and re-emerges stronger than ever. In Part II, after the flashback to young Michael sitting alone at the dinner table, the shot dissolves into a close-up of present Michael, left empty and completely alone atop his crime empire. The solitude he displays as a young man sows the seeds for the tragedy of his middle age.
This sort of loneliness can be beautiful and important. It is what brings humans above the level of pure social creatures, what inspires genius among our species. Many great artists, inventors, scientists, philosophers and businessmen possess a similar drive towards solitude, to retreat into themselves and be “above the fray.” But, as the tragedy of Michael Corleone illustrates, there is also a darkness embedded in the drive to solitude, and a real danger when this instinct is left unchecked and directed towards bad ends. Thomas Mann, in the novella “Death in Venice,” writes: “Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous–to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.” Too much separation can make you lose your soul.
Loneliness is an eternal human attribute. Solitary characters leaving their family and community for a personal ambition is perhaps the oldest theme in storytelling, spanning from Abraham to Odysseus to Siddhartha. Michael Corleone is a misogynist, a crime lord, a murderer. But when he sits alone at that dinner table, I cannot help but relate to and empathize with him. Yes, Michael’s particular loneliness is contextualized by his specific life circumstances; but the image itself — of a man alienated from his family, of the discontinuity between self-possession and human connection — is universal. Such careful attention to universal themes is what makes the Godfather films timeless classics, and what brings me back to them again and again.
Photo Caption: Such careful attention to universal themes is what makes the Godfather films timeless classics, and what brings me back to them again and again
Photo Credit: Liev Markovich
