| 1 "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."--Michael Corleone (Al Pacino)
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| 2 Don Corleone: Do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.
| 3 Michael: It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.
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| 4 "Leave the gun, take the cannolis."--Clemenza
| 5 Fredo: [after Moe Greene storms out after an argument] Mike, you don't come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Greene like that!
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| 6 Don Corleone: I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.
| 7 Don Corleone: Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as gift on my daughter's wedding day.
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| 8 "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."--Clemenza (Richard Castellano)
| 9 Don Corleone: What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, then this scum that ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies, then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you.
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| 10 Don Corleone: I'm a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall Michael - if he is to be shot in the head by a police officer, or be found hung dead in a jail cell... or if he should be struck by a bolt of lightning - then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room; and then I do not forgive. But with said, I pledge - on the souls of my grandchildren - that I will not be the one to break the peace that we have made today.
| 11 Don Corleone: I never wanted this for you. I work my whole life - I don't apologize - to take care of my family, and I refused to be a fool, dancing on the string held by all those bigshots. I don't apologize - that's my life - but I thought that, that when it was your time, that you would be the one to hold the string. Senator Corleone; Governor Corleone. Well, it wasn't enough time, Michael. It wasn't enough time.
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| 12 Calo: In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns.
| 13 Michael: [while eating diner with Sollozzo and McCluskey] What I want - what's most important to me - is that I have a guarantee: No more attempts on my father's life.
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| 14 Jack Woltz: Now you listen to me, you smooth talking son-of-a-bitch. Let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is. Johnny Fontane will never get that movie. I don't care how many dago guinea wop greaseball goombahs come out of the woodwork.
| 15 Sonny: Hey, whataya gonna do, nice college boy, eh? Didn't want to get mixed up in the Family business, huh? Now you wanna gun down a police captain. Why? Because he slapped ya in the face a little bit? Hah? What do you think this is the Army, where you shoot 'em a mile away? You've gotta get up close like this and bada-bing. you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit. C'mere...
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| 16 [to his associate, who has killed Paulie in the car]
| 17 Michael: My credit good enough to buy you out?
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| 18 Don Corleone: I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless. But not men.
| 19 Tom Hagen: [after finding out Tessio sold Michael out] Tessio. I always thought it would be Clemenza.
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| 20 Tom Hagen: You know how they're going to come at you?
| 21 [speaking with the father of the girl he plans to marry, and after telling him that he's in hiding from some gangsters]
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| 22 [speaking to himself, practicing his speech]
| 23 [first lines]
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| 24 Kay Adams: Michael, is it true? Did you have Carlo murdered?
| 25 Sonny: Goddamn FBI don't respect nothin'.
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| 26 Jack Woltz: Johnny Fontane never gets that movie. That part is perfect for him, it'll make him a big star, and I'm gonna run him out of the business - and let me tell you why: Johnny Fontane ruined one of Woltz International's most valuable proteges. For five years we had her under training - singing lessons, acting lessons, dancing lessons. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on her, I was gonna make her a big star. And let me be even more frank, just to show you that I'm not a hard-hearted man, and that it's not all dollars and cents: She was beautiful; she was young; she was innocent. She was the greatest piece of ass I've ever had, and I've had 'em all over the world. And then Johnny Fontane comes along with his olive oil voice and guinea charm, and she runs off. She threw it all away just to make me look ridiculous! And a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous!
| 27 Tessio: [realizing that Michael knows he was the traitor] Tom. Can you get me off the hook? You know, for old times sake?
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| 28 Michael: My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
| 29 [after Sonny beats up Carlo Rizzi for hitting Connie]
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| 30 Kay Adams: Michael, you never told me your family knew Johnny Fontane!
| 31 Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
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| 32 Michael: That's my family, Kay. It's not me.
| 33 [after Michael gets off the phone with Kay, clearly too embarrassed to tell her I love you too]
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| 34 Sonny: Hey, listen, I want somebody good - and I mean very good - to plant that gun. I don't want my brother coming out of that toilet with just his dick in his hands, alright?
| 35 Tom Hagen: Now we have the unions, we have the gambling; and they're the best things to have. But narcotics is a thing of the future. And if we don't get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have. I mean not now, but, ah, ten years from now.
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| 36 [Tessio brings in Luca Brasi's bulletproof vest, delivered with a fish inside]
| 37 Capt. McCluskey: I thought I got all you Guinea hoods locked up, what the hell are you doing at this hospital!
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| 38 Emilio Barzini: [during a meeting with the Five Families] Times have changed. It's not like the Old Days, when we can do anything we want. A refusal is not the act of a friend. If Don Corleone had all the judges, and the politicians in New York, then he must share them, or let us others use them. He must let us draw the water from the well. Certainly he can present a bill for such services; after all... we are not Communists.
| 39 Tessio: Can you get me off the hook, Tom? For old times' sake?
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| 40 Don Corleone: Tattaglia's a pimp. He never could've out-fought Santino. But I didn't know until this day that it was Barzini all along.
| 41 Don Corleone: You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you? Or my boy to me?
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| 42 Don Corleone: I never thought you were a bad consiglieri, Tom. I thought Santino was a bad don, rest in peace.
| 43 [Johnny Fontaine is discussing his problems with Woltz]
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| 44 Don Corleone: I like to drink wine more than I used to.
| 45 Tom Hagen: Mr. Corleone never asks a second favor once he's refused the first, understood?
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| 46 [after being asked how he will arrange to buy a hotel from Moe Greene]
| 47 Sollozzo: I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman; blood is a big expense.
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| 48 Michael: Ah, get me Long Beach 4-5620. please
| 49 Sonny: We don't discuss business at the table.
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| 50 Don Corleone: You could act like a man.
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Friday, September 18, 2009
The Best GodFather Quotes for me..
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The Godfather Series- Character Analysis
One of the greatest series ever written was the Godfather series. Even the number 1 movie of all time is The Godfather. I was at my local bookshop today when I noticed that there’s a new series on the Godfather written by a certain Mark Winegardnr (that’s how his name is really spelt). So obviously being a Godfather buff I picked it up, I am yet to read it though but I thought I should write a post on the Godfather character analysis.
When one mentions the Godfather, you have 2 images that stir deep emotions. One is of the father, Don Vito Coreleone, and the other his erstwhile son Micheal Coreleone. I’m not going to spend time talking about the history of the series and if you haven’t seen it, pick it up already :)
What makes the 2 Godfathers different?
Vito Coreleone, or the original Don, is the one potrayed in the center of the first series of the Godfather. He is what I would call a pragmatic unruflled Mafia don. Even his son Michael, despite tremendous successes, loses in such a comparison, as he lacks the one thing that makes Vito the Don to emulate, the warmth, compassion and sheer predictibility of the future. If there was a difference between Micheal and Vito, it would be that of a certain touch of class. Just as the case is between Jordan and Bryant. He is the Godfather par excellence. Establishing himself at a time when class was rare with particular hindsight. I would closely relate this to the Ambani brothers of India. While Dhirubhai played a lot of particular notes and pulled strings, he rose from nothing, he inherited nothing and built everything from scratch. An amazing parallel is Vito. Wise , intelligent, an excellent reader of others' intentions, and a smooth, subtle talker, able to convince with words, not having to rely only on bullets. The most exceptional thing about Vito, and the way in which he most outshines his son, is the manner in which he conducts his personal life. Though a ruthless, violent criminal, Vito is also a warm, loving father and husband, and the paradox of his character is that it is precisely the warmth of his humanity that makes him appear superhuman. In his later years, Vito comes across as relaxed and playful, even mellow and the death scene in which he’s playing with his grand kid even though he’s the Don and chasing them around is what shows him to be not only a great individual but also a pillar of the family / social society.
He was at the top when needed, astute when required and lived a rich, full life and settled into a quiet retirement. You’ll notice that in part 2, where as a younger man, when he is played by Robert De Niro, he is caring and devoted but also silent and intense. It’s the intensity and the insane pauses while thinking that manifest the power in Vito Coreleone. Michael lets his intensity eat away at him, Vito does not. There is never any tension for Vito between the two meanings of "familyâ" (i.e. blood relations and crime family), and he doesn't feel conflicted about what he's doing. His intensity is that of a hard-working man, though one who still manages to come home at the end of the workday to spend time with his family. In short, Vito comes across as both the perfect father and the perfect Godfather, making him a difficult model for all of his children, especially Michael, to imitate.
The Prodigal Son
Micheal on the other hand, is cold-blooded, ruthless, smart, and determined. His ability to think clearly under fire, to be decisive, and to command respect makes him an excellent Godfather as well. One sees fate play a strange card when out of all the Don’s children, the youngest and most unlikely to head the family makes for the best candidate to ascend the throne., Michael was never supposed to get involved in the Mafia. He was supposed to become a senator, perhaps even president. Even when he does begin working for his father, he doesn't seem fully reconciled to the decision. He promises Kay before they marry that the family will become "legitimate" soon. Over twenty years later, in The Godfather Part III, he still seeks this legitimacy. Unlike Vito, who appears at ease in the role of Godfather, Michael is burdened by the responsibility. One senses that he views himself as a sacrificial hero, slaving away for the rest of the family, sacrificing his soul for the well-being of those around him. In many ways, Michael's story is a familiar one in American mythology: that of the immigrantâ's child. He achieves great heights of success, just as his hard-working immigrant parents hoped for him, but at considerable personal cost. In Michael's case, this cost is to his family life, as he loses his wife and children. The difference, is the burden of having to rest on the shoulders of giants. Just as Einstein is remarked to have done one better on Newton, Micheal has done one better than Vito. But Michael is often seen as a classical tragic figure. Immensely talented and powerful, he is undone by tragic flaws: his insatiable desire for vengeance, which creates a web of violence and recrimination that he cannot escape; his illusions of omnipotence, which blind him to the fact that achieving legitimacy is impossible; and his sense of being perpetually at war, which never allows him a moment of rest. In the end, while the Don dies to his family, Michael dies alone. Instead, he brought them only pain and death.
The original Godfather is a romanticized Mafia portrayal, while his son bears that of hardness and bitterness that comes closer to reality.
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Godfather: Trivia You May Not Have Heard Before
The Godfather and its sequels have been subject to much in the way of myths and urban legendry. For instance, although The Godfather won Best Picture at the 1972 Oscars, contrary to popular opinion Francis Ford Coppola did not win Best Director.
That honor went to Bob Fosse for Cabaret. (As should have Best Picture.) Apart from that, there are other more commonly known bits of trivia about The Godfather, but this article will give some information that maybe isn't quite as well known, in addition to some of the more fun bits of knowledge about The Godfather movies that are a bit more well-known.
-Despite the fact that Marlon Brando won his second Best Actor Oscar for playing Don Vito Corleone and died recently with his legacy intact, at the time Brando had been experiencing a pretty long drought. While he had given some interesting performances in films like Burn!, his bottom line was more important. And Brando had not had a hit in over a decade.
-Had it not been for The Godfather, the Brando legend would probably not be what it is now. It is fascinating to consider what the subsequent career of Orson Welles might have been like had Brando turned the role down. Other contenders for the part ranged from the distinctly intriguing idea of Burt Lancaster to the iconic Elmer's glue of Edward G. Robinson (more on him later) to Laurence Olivier who could definitely have played the part, but one cannot help but imagine it would take place in a vastly different movie.
-If Brando had not played Vito Corleone, James Caan's legacy as one of the great unfulfilled acting promises of all time might be different. Apparently, Brando agreed to play Vito Corleone partially on the assurance that Burt Reynolds would not be considered for the part of Sonny Corleone. Bless you, Marlon Brando.
