The movie the Godfather part 1 and 2
- Thread starter ICWestfan
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Hagen is a lawyer on staff. It seems odd to say it, but he gives a little legitimacy to the family. I'm racking my brain about #3. Hagen wasn't in it, but Duvall was alive. Was that explained?
I don't know why Michael married a teacher other than to guess she was supposed to provide a moral counterpoint, then a battle of self conflict as she is pulled into the life.
I don't know why Michael married a teacher other than to guess she was supposed to provide a moral counterpoint, then a battle of self conflict as she is pulled into the life.
Tom Hagen was the “adopted” brother of Mike, Sonny and Fredo. He is an attorney and the consigliere of the Corleone Family. The Consigliere is a high ranking advisor on the Don.
Maybe I over thought this. DId you mean purely his role as an advisor? Well, that is consigliere. I was thinking grander, and how he affected the family. He was useful in doing legitimate deals that the other family members couldn't engage in. I kind of wondered did you mean his storyline effect.
Actually all that you mention. I get the role, just how it played in the film. I didn't read the book. Tom's role seems...contrived and I see no value in it.
A
anon_8rcdnbko1jbe0
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Toms death was briefly mentioned in 3 and of course his lineage was pointed to via his priest son. (Duvall and the studio could not agree on $ for 3)
As far as marrying a teacher - no significance in Kays profession imo but the idea that Michael knew family was everything and he was going back to someone who knew him and the family. Not as much of an outsider. Too bad on Apollonia. Cute and knew the "Sicilian Thing" a hell of a lot more than Kay!
Hagen is to Vito a key advisor in the "old way" and to Michael he's working to legitimize the family empire for their move to Nevada. As a character he also has the perfect balance of personality of all the corleone men.
Kay represents the "new way" contrasting to the traditional family that Michael grew up in. She is a white outspoken working woman entering a family where the women were supposed to be submissive and powerless.
Kay represents the "new way" contrasting to the traditional family that Michael grew up in. She is a white outspoken working woman entering a family where the women were supposed to be submissive and powerless.
Tom saved Sonny's life when they were young. Tom was a street kid and Sonny came down his alley and got in trouble with a guy. Tom got him out of it - I don't remember if he killed the guy or not - and he and Sonny became inseparable. Vito took him in mirroring the way Vito had been taken in when he was a young boy. I really think he trusted Tom more than his own sons.
Kay I've always seen as a plot device. She and Michael were a thing in college when Michael had no intention of going into the "family business" but it's hard to see Michael going back to her after Apollonia was killed. He's neck-deep in the family by then and to bring her in from the outside just never sat quite right. I think she's there to provide some conflict....maybe to show how once you're in it's nearly impossible to get out. And she never does.
OT-
Part II has one of the greatest smack downs in film history. Its the Roth/Michael scene where Roth reminds Michael about the death of Moe Green. Pure awesomeness.
Part II has one of the greatest smack downs in film history. Its the Roth/Michael scene where Roth reminds Michael about the death of Moe Green. Pure awesomeness.
I agree with this, but I also think Kay provides a measuring stick to show just how much Michael has changed over the course of the movie. He goes from not wanting to be in the family business to becoming a ruthless, murderous Don. And he goes from being a gentle, loving boyfriend to, by the end, being a cold, manipulative, controlling husband. It would be easy, without the relationship with Kay, to believe that Michael was still a kind, caring man who was forced into this life and protecting his family. But by his relationship with Kay, you see that his actions are not altruistic, but instead are very much motivated by self interest.
That's just always been my take.
Here is my guess:
"I was forty-five years old and tired of being an artist. Besides, I owed $20,000 to relatives, finance companies, banks and assorted bookmakers and shylocks. It was really time to grow up and sell out as Lenny Bruce once advised. So I told me editors OK, I'll write a book about the Mafia....", Mario Puzo.
Tom Hagen was part of the education Puzo offered about "The Family". You could be only so much a part if you weren't a part. Hagen is an example of that.
A school teacher? She could have been a nurse, a secretary. How many jobs for women could Puzo have come up with back then that were plausible? The question may be why did Michael marry outside the "family"? Because he was being kept out of the "family". Puzo is showing the attempts to go legit.
"I was forty-five years old and tired of being an artist. Besides, I owed $20,000 to relatives, finance companies, banks and assorted bookmakers and shylocks. It was really time to grow up and sell out as Lenny Bruce once advised. So I told me editors OK, I'll write a book about the Mafia....", Mario Puzo.
Tom Hagen was part of the education Puzo offered about "The Family". You could be only so much a part if you weren't a part. Hagen is an example of that.
A school teacher? She could have been a nurse, a secretary. How many jobs for women could Puzo have come up with back then that were plausible? The question may be why did Michael marry outside the "family"? Because he was being kept out of the "family". Puzo is showing the attempts to go legit.
I agree with this 100%. But by the time he marries her he's in the business...even reluctantly. It just never sat right with me that he pulled her into that life knowing she had to be kept in the dark about his life. It felt like it was contrived to show exactly what you pointed out.
Trying to remember here, Vito wanted Michael to be the realization of the American dream. Served in the Army, went to college, wanted him to become a Congressmen, marry an American girl. He never wanted "the life" for Michael. He wanted Michael being the one pulling the strings. Michael's life represents the struggle of the entire family to become American.
Another reason Godfather 3 was such a mess as Michael got the family all wrapped up in a business deal with a European conglomerate with the Vatican as a majority shareholder in an attempt to make the family legitimate. In order to become "legitimate" the family had to return to the Old World as it they couldn't do it in the New World. Doesn't make sense and doesn't fit with Vito's journey and legacy. Or maybe that was the point, the New World is just as corrupt as the Old World with the politicians being the crooks that hold the strings.
Another reason Godfather 3 was such a mess as Michael got the family all wrapped up in a business deal with a European conglomerate with the Vatican as a majority shareholder in an attempt to make the family legitimate. In order to become "legitimate" the family had to return to the Old World as it they couldn't do it in the New World. Doesn't make sense and doesn't fit with Vito's journey and legacy. Or maybe that was the point, the New World is just as corrupt as the Old World with the politicians being the crooks that hold the strings.
Maybe it was as simple as not wanting to introduce and flesh out a new character.
I love this exchange
Jack Woltz: I don't care how many dago, wop, guinea, greaseball goombas come out of the woodwork.
Tom Hagen: I'm German-Irish.
Jack Woltz: Well, let me tell you something, my kraut-mick friend. I'm gonna make so much trouble for you you won't know what hit you!
Tom Hagen: Mr. Woltz, I'm a lawyer. I am not threatened.
Jack Woltz: I don't care how many dago, wop, guinea, greaseball goombas come out of the woodwork.
Tom Hagen: I'm German-Irish.
Jack Woltz: Well, let me tell you something, my kraut-mick friend. I'm gonna make so much trouble for you you won't know what hit you!
Tom Hagen: Mr. Woltz, I'm a lawyer. I am not threatened.
I don't get mesmerized by movies often, but original Godfather was an absolute spellbinder for me. Read the novel a few years later and same thing.
I know.....CSB
I know.....CSB
Fun fact: the hot lead actress from the Clooney movie, The American, Violante Placido, is Apollonia's real life daughter. Well done.
My sarcasm meter is broken so I'll take this as a legit question. Yes.
Just to add more to this. Tom is the consigliere, which is an informal role largely popularized by The Godfather. This is where it fits in the power structure.
Generally, they have no soldiers reporting to them, and they usually are not considered an aspirant or candidate to the boss. They are generally more conservative mobsters who look to stay out of the spotlight and keep a low profile. They aren't part of any crews. The idea is that they can be an independent arbiter/advisor of issues and conflicts, as they aren't directly tied into or dependent on any particular faction. They were considered the one person that was allowed or even expected to question/criticize the boss when needed, and the one exception to the rule of unquestioned loyalty.
The idea of Tom being a non-Italian, and therefore non-made mafia member, as consigliere is an innovation and license taken by The Godfather. That was not something that would happen in real life, and it frankly wasn't a particularly defined position before the Godfather anyway.
In the beginning of the first movie, Vito is the Boss, Sonny is the Underboss, Tom is the Consigliere, and Clemenza and Tessio are Capos. Everyone else is soldiers. Michael is nothing.
Fredo is a Capo mostly in title only but without any substantial or serious role. He likely has a small crew and some minor businesses.
Before Tom, Vito had Genco as his consigliere. Genco is dead before Godfather 1, but appears prominently in flashbacks in Godfather 2. As others have said, Tom is considered more of a business consigliere, a lawyer, key in Vito's dream of being respectable, and Michael's dream of being fully legitimate. He is not considered a "wartime consigliere", and Sonny himself complains about that, "Pop had Genco, look what I got" when Tom advises against hitting back immediately on the attempt on Vito.
That is not to say Tom is "clean" by any means, but he is more about the modern day gangsterism of corruption, politics, lawyers, influence, and money and less about raw violence. Tom is the same kind of dirty lawyer and fixer that Vito and Michael believe corporations and politicians have, and will allow them to play the dirty game at that level. As such, while Tom is not isolated from the violent side of the family, they do keep him at arms length from that side. Which Tom has mixed feelings about, as it is the one thing that keeps him from feeling true Corleone and different from Vito's biological sons.
That's why Michael removes Tom from his consigliere role before his push against his enemies at the end of GF1. Michael knows he has to revert to the old school violence to settle the dispute with the families. He doesn't want Tom to be connected to that, as he has to protect Tom's reputation and ability to function in "legit" circles if Michael is going to make his move to legitimacy. Tom is hurt by that, but in GF2, Tom is back in a similar role as business/political consigliere to Michael.
I agree with both of you.
But I think the main reason for Michael's fixation on Kate, who he doesn't even seem to hold much affection for as the films progress, is that Kate is the symbol to himself that he is still the same guy he was at the beginning of GF1.
His entire story to Kate is the story he tells himself. He is not a mobster, he is not his father or Sonny. He is merely doing the things he is FORCED to do in order to take the family legit. Yes, he's playing the hand he's being dealt...by other families, corrupt cops, dirty politicians, etc. The films make a point to show how everything is dirty and corrupt, so Michael feels like he's merely playing by the rules of the game. But he's not a gangster, or a criminal, or a "mobster." He's a businessman.
Kate is 100% key to that lie he tells himself that he's different than his brother and father and the old bosses. She is the human embodiment that as long as she is with him, that means he has not changed. Maybe a little more wise to the ways of the real world, but he hasn't changed.
Of course, we know as viewers how absurd that is, that he's changed thoroughly, and he's as much as a gangster as any of them, and maybe more so...he has less humanity than his father and is colder and less honest than Sonny. The relationship with Kate illustrates that - its clearly toxic, but its his only (bogus) connection to who he wants to believe he still is.
I haven't watched it in a while, but one of my big problem with GF3 is it kind of lost the thread on some of these ideas, and Pacino really didn't play Michael as an extension of the same character at all. The silly kissy face stuff that Michael does trying to win Kate back or whatever...that is not the same Michael. And that extends to the whole thing.
I get that there might not have been more to tell without pivoting on Michael a little bit, because the end of GF2 really closes the loop. It's the full arc of Michael, it's the end of the real story, which is Michael's tragic journey.
But that just tells me...don't make the movie. Should have made a movie of the time between GF2's flashbacks, and GF1's opening. More Vito...not more Michael.
Yeah, I think I'll watch 3 again. There were a lot of weaknesses to it, and the byzantine confusion of the business deal you described was certainly one of them.
I feel like what you are describing is an interesting point I hadn't thought of.
I don't think that Vito considered "legitimate" as a necessary precursor to "respectable". I think Vito thought that a mafia family was morally indistinguishable from other institutions...corporations, Hollywood, politicians, the law...he thought of their family as just another institution that bent the rules to their favor and got what they wanted through force. Vito envisioned a day when a family like his was on par with other institutions, that there could be a President Michael Corleone from a mafia family as much there could be a president from a banking family or a political dynasty.
But I don't think Vito shared Michael's dream of the family becoming a "legitimate", i.e. legal enterprise. I think that Vito already considered the family legitimate, as long as it operated by a certain code and took care of its own. The obsession with being fully legal, by the terms of America's law and institutions, I think was solely Michael's. Maybe that is his fatal flaw. He couldn't be his father, because he couldn't accept who they were, and what he was. He was obviously brilliant, and could have been a exceptional and beloved boss like his father, but his obsession with American "legitimacy" betrayed that.
There's probably something to be explored there about the fruitlessness of the "American dream", as Michael defined it, for immigrants and that the rules are stacked against really joining the club. As talented and intelligent as he was, trying to do so broke him.
Cot damn Lee Strasburg was awesome in that role.
Q1: Lots of great answers already provided in this thread.
Q2: No satisfactory answers provided so far. It's simple, though. So simple I'm shocked nobody has figured it out.
Michael is just hot for teacher.
h
I think Godfather 3 could have been great it just faltered in its execution, that and Sofia Coppola as Mary. There are some tweaks, cast changes, etc. that could have been made to really elevate that movie. I think the foundation was there with a lot of interesting themes that we are touching on here. Oh, and it had one of the most memorable lines in all of the Godfather series...
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