"That's My Family, Kay. It's Not Me." (Natasha)

    I have a solitary qualm with The Godfather Parts I & II, one that has no effect on my intense obsession with the single greatest movie duo of all time.  Including the future.  The qualm is:  How did Vito end up with sons like Santino and Fredo?  The reality that Vito and his only remarkable son reject, and reject desperately, is that Mike, the youngest, is also the only son capable of replacing his father. But how did Vito, the sole surviving Andolini of Corleone, killer of tyrants and savior of Italian immigrants, get two such failed heirs before Michael could redeem the brood?

    I love James Caan’s Sonny as much as the next bridesmaid.  His entrapment and brutal assassination are devastating. For many reasons, Sonny is appealing despite his uncouthness. His anger inspires anger in us; his vengeance becomes our purpose, too. I remember the scene of Sonny's death as the most upsetting I've ever seen. (I always skip over it when I watch Part I.)  But he is doubtless an inapt successor to the omnipotent Corleone patriarch, especially after Robert DeNiro explains the Don’s beginnings in Part II (and really, whose genes brought forth those hirsute shoulders?).

    Vito claims he always expected Sonny would inherit the family business, the political connections, that whole underworld estate; yet at the height of the Don’s reign he is still silencing his kid in public, upbraiding him in private and rejecting his every plan, be it money-making or murderous.  Sonny is more than aggressive, he is warlike, but he lacks the tactical mind and self-control that would guide his vengeful passion. He is a soldier who can't take orders, a hitman doing a businessman's job.  When Sonny is gunned down on his way to enact a hasty and violent plan--which we are deeply invested in--we are reminded that his life, not his death, kept him from the head of the Five Families' table.

    Fredo is another matter entirely.  Vito can't even define what it is that's wrong with him. He has always been a problem, as evidenced by everything he has ever done. His troubling bout of pneumonia as an infant vaguely informs everything from his clumsy failure to shoot his father's assailants to his debasing vice addiction in Las Vegas. John Cazale imbues Vito's forgotten son with as much pathetic, alcoholic, high-pitched, balding insecurity as we can stand without making us really hate Fredo.  Rather, we disdain him. Respect will never be granted him, and it is sad to watch him demand it explicitly.

    At first, he is untrustworthy purely because he is incompetent--he cannot even grip a gun tight enough to fire it.  When the patriarch finally does fall, Fredo has no more patient relatives to "assist." He is sent away to Las Vegas, ostensibly to protect him from assassination attempts that really only threaten the real Corleone power, Mike. Moe Greene admittedly took him off the Corleone family's hands to alleviate the burden Fredo created.  In Nevada, he grows to be untrustworthy because he believes anyone who promises him a cut of their profits and he cannot stand up for himself against those who would challenge the Corleone family. Michael even warns him, "I love you. But don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again.  Ever."

    Fredo cannot stand being Michael's underling and Michael cannot stand Fredo's inexplicable stupidity, his unbridled behavior or his dangerously fickle loyalty. Their relationship ends up so strained that Fredo starts aiding Michael's would-be assassins in plots against the new Don Corleone, the ultimate betrayal of the family and of familial connections altogether.  And he still wonders why he was "stepped over" for the role of head of the family, exclaiming, "I can handle things! I'm smart!  Not like everybody says!"  (My family quotes that line often, so any tragic quality in it has disappeared for me.)

    So how did the endearing and mysterious young Vito come to raise two boys so unfit for the task of being his sons? His orphan childhood and early immigration left him alone in a strange place. If he raised himself, why could he not raise Santino and Fredo better? Perhaps Michael had the benefit of Vito's previous failure.

    But still, what do you do about those first two?

 

 

~ Natasha Hirschfeld

Comments

[weencecoday]

The important answer :)