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Michael Corleone Fooled An Entire Generation

Character MBA

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For more than fifty years, Michael Corleone has been admired, quoted and imitated as one of cinema’s ultimate symbols of power.
But somewhere along the way, The Godfather became more than a film. It became a cultural reference point, and Michael became an ideal that an entire generation learned to romanticize.

This video goes back through his story to look at the man behind the image, the choices that shaped him, and how one of cinema’s most famous characters became so widely misunderstood.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
00:32 The Michael Corleone People Forget
02:38 The Dangerous Part Was That It Worked
05:40 The Five-Year Plan That Never Ended
08:00 The Cost of Never Being Surprised
10:37 You Can Protect a Family Until There Is No Family Left
14:10 Why We Keep Misreading The Godfather
16:47 The Warning

11 Comments

@christinewarren71 19 hours ago

He was a Marine and a combat veteran. He knew what to do and that he could do what needed to be done before the hospital.

@ftwjohnv882 15 hours ago

no matter how smart, composed, wealthy and powerful you are the world you are moving in always gets after you if you don't have the control.

@jerryc5743 10 hours ago

2:12- Being a Marine during WW2 probably meant he faced near death multiple times. Sidenote: Sonny was likely incorrect about “shooting them a mile away”. Michael may have, on more than one occasion, “got up close and badda bing”.

@mnfowler1 6 hours ago

Michael's relationship to Tom is instructive toward your point. After his enemies attempt to assasinate him, Michael turns to Tom as "the only one I can trust," but eventually he turns on Tom, showing distrust only because Tom can't give him everything that Michael wants all the time, and because Tom has greater restraint than everybody else (which bothered Sonny, too, but seems never to have bothered Vito, who actually seems to have appreciated that quality and used it to give the Corleone crime family a civilized front). "Why do you hurt me?" asks Tom when Michael groundlessly accuses Tom of betrayal and abandonment. Michael can no longer take anyone's loyalty for granted. Tom does not appear in Godfather III because the actor declined, and his absence is explained in the movie by his death, but in a way it makes sense that Tom would no longer be in the picture one way or another, rewarded for his loyalty with ingratitude and abuse.

@bacarandii 4 hours ago

"That's my family, Kay. That's not me." That's the audience's introduction to Michael Corleone, and the rest of the movie (and the trilogy) consists of us watching him disprove his own words. He may have meant them when he originally said them, but there's no question that before the end of "The Godfather" he has become the head of the Corleone family he once tried to disavow. There is no distinction between "Michael" and "Corleone," between the individual and the family, because he becomes the patriarch of that family, whether he likes it or not.

@michaelbonner5604 8 hours ago (edited)

That Heart that Michael Said Fredo broke was already broken and hardened
enough!!! Michaels death is very sad !!!.
It was very personal with Michael...

@drbigmdftnu 11 hours ago

Good points. Narrated well. Sound like Andy Garcia

@Othimbo 2 hours ago

2:05 deep, and now I want to watch the movie.. God knows I love this movie.

@alanparedes2427 2 hours ago

Wasn't Michael transformers when he said "I'm with you now pop"?

@staein 22 hours ago

Cool video! I think the fact of Michael's moral and eudaimonic downfall (his loss of respect for even his closest family which in effect isolates him) remains hidden to people partly because the first movie is easily interpretable as a pretty honorable story in that he steps up for his family and takes on responsibility through a proper hero's journey. The theme of taking the father's place as the head of the family or "business" is derived from an archetypal structure mirrored in human history, and Michael does not hurt his family in the first movie. The moral downfall is here only showed in its genesis or beginning. The intuitive impression of this Roman sort of virtue leaves its mark on the viewer. The problems and contradictions of this life are only shown properly and in their conclusions in the second movie, however some people's perception becomes so clouded by their past impressions that they still see Michael simply as a competent, cool leader. Some, unfortunately, may actually support Michael's actions, even in the second movie. Some say Kay was in the worng, and that she should have been obedient. Or they think that the sort of man that Michael is ought make those choices to murder, maniplulate and calculate; regarding his whole world and all the people and things in it merely as means. Nothing is holy to him. In the Kantian sense, he has no respect for other human beings, and constanlty distances himself from the commands of the moral law by making an exception for himself. This immorality makes him in a way unworthy of of happiness. Some support a properly patriarichal family structure, even as a tyranny.

@derekprospero 16 hours ago

14:27 Even Tony Montana is widely romanticized and hero worshipped. There’s no cautionary tale so obvious that people won’t ignore if you make the character “bad-ass” enough. When the sopranos came out I thought “finally a real deconstruction that shows what scumbags these people are.” But nope, people still worship the power fantasy. It’s pretty sick.