Defending The Godfather

This might be unnecessary. The Godfather is widely recognized as one of the greatest American films. Perhaps even one the greatest films -- period. It certainly doesn't need me, a little-known fantasy author with a limited blog readership, to rise to its defense. But I'm going to anyway.

I was reading the newspaper the other day and I came across one of those human interest stories that runs from time to time. You know the kind I mean, it isn't really news, and much of the time it isn't all that interesting, either. It always goes something like this : "local boy/girl rises above adversity to accomplish something you don't actually care about but we need to fill space in the Arts and Life section."

That's written, by the way, as someone who was once the subject of just such an article when my first novel was published. Not sure too many folks in Cleveland really cared about it, but it was nice that the Plain Dealer ran a story.

Anyway, the one I read this week involved an NBA ref from New Jersey (which is probably why I read it in the first place) who at one time worked as an undercover agent infiltrating the mob in my home state. His undercover name was actually something like John Covert. Seems like an absurd name, I know, but he claims in the story that the word "covert" wasn't widely known in the 1970s. I'll take that on faith. Other than perhaps Meyer Lansky, mobsters aren't generally known for their intelligence.

At some point in the interview, the guy was asked how realistic mob portrayals are in the movies, based on his first-hand experience. This is a question that gets asked of everyone who's been on the inside, like Joe Pistone and Henry Hill. And they all say the same thing. Goodfellas is pretty much right on, and this NBA/Covert guy said The Departed was pretty close too. Then they always go on to say that The Godfather was total Hollywood nonsense. Every time. Everyone wants to take a shot at Vito and the Corleones.

By all accounts, there's no argument to be had on that point, of course. I grew up in New Jersey, and I heard the stories here and there. So and so owed the wrong people money and ended up taking a vacation -- permanently. Or someone else's Dad is "connected." Or we can't eat at that restaurant because it's "mobbed up." There's even a family story about my great-grandfather's bar in New York that was supposedly a hang-out for the local goombahs in the late teens and early twenties. Apparently they felt so comfortable there they used it to do some business (which ended up with some poor soul getting killed) and my great-grandfather sold the place the next day.

Nothing about noble sacrifices and honorable deaths, or even dramatic betrayals and family squabbles. Nothing like what you see in The Godfather.

And my point is this: So what?

The Godfather is not highly regarded because of its purported accuracy. It isn't renowed as a faithful depiction of the mafia, a word that famously isn't even used in the movie itself. The reason The Godfather is so respected has nothing to do with its authenticity -- or lack thereof. The Godfather is epic tragedy. It is to America what King Lear is to England. Or what Oedipus Rex was to Athens.

It's American Shakespeare, American Sophocles. It's the tragedy of power destroying those who wield it, even those who do so with the best of intentions. And just like the Elizabethans or the Greeks, it's about the way power is held and lost at the highest levels -- among kings and princes.

Does it matter that real mobsters didn't behave like Vito Corleone or Michael Corleone?

About as much as it matters whether or not a Greek king ever actually married his mother and killed his father.

Were any Greek kings driven to ruin by their pride and arrogance? Probably, but that isn't the point. Oedipus Rex isn't an attempt to chronicle the way actual Greek kings ruled their city-states. It's a morality tale about the dangers of those behaviors; and what bigger canvas could that lesson be painted on than the world of kings?

That's why I think that criticism of the Godfather for being unrealistic is almost superfluous. Sure, Goodfellas and The Departed more accurately represent how actual mobsters lived, but in a very real way, The Godfather isn't about the mob, at least not any more than Oedipus Rex is about Greek aristocracy. They're both about people, about us.

The Godfather is about the way a good but flawed man goes wrong by trying to do right. The way a man loses his soul by attempting to protect the things he cares about and the ideas he believes in, the way a good man becomes a bad man without realizing it. It's human tragedy of the oldest kind. It happens to be set among the mob because that world is possibly the nearest thing that 20th century America could have offered to compare with the bygone days of hereditary kings, loyal knights and court intrigue -- most of which was probably not as honorable or noble as the stories depict it anyway.

So The Godfather isn't realistic. Big deal. I suspect Hamlet isn't a particularly accurate depiction of ancient Danish princes either.

And it doesn't matter in the least.