Analyzing Evil: Michael Corleone From The Godfather

As hard as it was Michael he other no other choice in that life

A big part of what sells Michael's character is Al Pacino. he is able to flawlessly portray the good, innocent man at the start, and the cold criminal at the end.

i never thought of michael as an evil boss the same way i thought of tony soprano or clay morrow from sons of anarchy or jon gotti etc simply for the reason michaels actions always seemed within reason even if on the extreme side,

Santino died first . Then Apollonia.

Disagree from the start,Michael not evil.

Everything you describe is what makes Freddo so dangerous to the family. The evil of murdering his brother makes unfortunately make perfect sense in that regard as horrible as it was.

You should make a video about Vito Corleone. He is as fascinating as Michael.

God bless

Lemme just correct you in saying that Kay didn’t have Michael’s baby “aborted.” Kay had Michael’s baby murdered. Kay had Michael’s baby whacked. Kay had Michael’s baby silenced. Kay had Michael’s baby needlessly killed for her own selfish reasons. Let’s just call it what it is. Perhaps she’s even more evil than Michael is. Michael never legit executed an innocent baby

Michael and the Mafia was not evil. The mafia was a shadow government born of necessity. Sicily was a relatively small island with a larger military importance. Powerful countries overtook and ruled Sicily. The natives formed the Mafia as a means of survival in a country which was ruled by a strong country. The norms of the Mafia were formed as a means of establishing a better life for the Sicilian natives.
Rules like having to be Italian to be a godfather or made man. Rule of not being under the control of those who formally ran the country. Murder was out of control because the Mafia had no legitimate court system. The movie really expresses all these things so well. But leaves out the history of being an island controlled by outsiders. Michael represented the transition from the old country shadow government to integration to the dominate culture and the legit government.

Cottonmouth from Luke Cage please

I CAN RELATE TO MICHAEL,I LOVE MY FATHER, AND IF SOMEONE WAS TRYING TO KILL HIM, I WOULD DO WHATEVER I HAD TO DO TO PROTECT HIM.

Hes not evil,evil does bad things to the innocent... Michael never hurt an innocent

Interesting/informative/entertaining. Part’s of the movie 🎥 were embellished to hold the interest of the movie 🍿 goers. Yes some of the actors/actresses were actual La Cosa Nostra family members/associates & enemies. The 1969 Mario Puzo book was well researched & orchestrated. Ask the next LaCosa Nostra member you do business with!!!

Thank you

Me mua keni ber krim te bjithe dua drejtesi

Fredo definitely deserved to die. He was obviously the weakest link. Fredo definitely would have fucked up and it could have cost the family..

Why kajal man lol

I’ve always seen Michael as Octavian Augustus

This can take a life time to explain😢😢😢

This robotic narration doesn't help. 🥴

III. Should’ve killed off his daughter before she got on screen. She ruined the movie. Nepotism at its worst.

This is the most annoying narration style ever, it sounds like google translate was reading it, BUT my man, the content is pure gold

Fredo got what he deserved. If one of my siblings put my wife and kids at risk, I would do the same to them.

I don’t think there is any differentiation between mafia and government. Both you pay for protection. Both do heinous and awful things. The literal only difference is brainwashing

Tom wasn't Sicilian...he loses! Period! There's no way the other families side with a non-Sicilian consigliere over a Sicilian Don.

Can you discuss Avon Barksdale next?

The problem with the Godfather films is that they dont show any of what the mafia actually did in everyday life.
The only thing we see is powerful men being powerful and ordering the death of unsympathetic traitors and other mafia guys.

I just finished part 2 and cant wait to watch this video but I must watch part 3 first, i just cant be spoiled on anything, I will be back!

Fredo had to go because his personal weaknesses were going to be used to use him against Michael.

Yes, please do the Godfather novel, there are many characters that are not in the film .

His father had always ineded for one of the sons to take over and it really should have been sonny IMO but maybe thats ehat makes ge trilogy so good. A fallen hero who loses his entire self and family to his shadow self in the name of protection. I always thought vitos and sonny ruthlessness as having bounds. Hey would never have killed a direct family member. Michaels was boundless there was a line in the sand michael just skipped right over. I think the killing of mcclusky was the bginning of the end and the last real piece of michael died with appolonia

He was amazing in this movie..A class actor.

Hot take but I dont disagree with Michael killing Fredo. Saying "sorry, i didnt know" is a piss poor excuse when you take into account, Fredo sold his brother out because he felt inferior and jealous. So if the hit by roth had been carried out, Fredo would have been the new head of the family. Would guilt still be weighing heavy on his conscious? Yes. Did Fredo care before Michael found out it was him? No. Fredo signed his death warrant the moment he tried to make a deal with Roth. Its not as if Michael wanted to kill Fredo as he loved his brother but after he tried to have michael killed, michael and fredo were no longer brothers at that point.

I think what ruined Michael was his family. His own intuition early on knew he wasn't meant for that life and he tried to detach himself from it, but it was the choices of others (his father getting shot which his father brought upon himself) and many other events that railed him in and gave him that responsibility. It was the burden of others that weighed on him. It's ironic how his own intention to help his family harmed them in the end, if only he'd had cared more about himself and his own well being than the "family" they wouldn't have been harmed.

In the book the only other dons who are killed are Barzini and Tattagila, the others actually make an appearance in later books.

I've always seen Michael as someone who always had this within him. The book goes into more detail about how he always had the cold and ruthless nature from childhood, but developed a more kind-hearted persona later on, that he was convinced was who he was. He became a war hero, something which was revealed later to be a product of him sending a middle finger to his family rather than a genuine desire to fight for America. And when he came back he went another step further by getting with a girl who wasn't an Italian, to further separate himself from his family and the cycle of crime. Things change once his father was shot. Michael goes to the hospital to help, but truly becomes motivated once he's hit by the cop. The meaning behind his swolen face clearly represents Michael's prior mask of kind-heartedness and earnestness breaking, as we start seeing hints of the real Michael that he wasn't even aware of. Michael proposes to kill Solazzo and McClusky, adopting a colder and more ruthless persona, modeled after the "business, not personal" ideology his family went by. He, of course, struggles between his internal nature and what he's built up and therefore has issues in actually executing them, but he eventually manages to do it before fucking off to Italy. From there, it's quite peculiar how easily Michael seemed to have forgotten everything. In Italy, it seems that Michael borderline forgets about what he did and went through. He gets with another girl basically on first sight after manipulating and threatening her father and basically lives life as if nothing happened, only changing after she dies.

Apallonia can be seen as the representation of a normal life for Michael. She is what Michael wants. The peacefulness. It's why the book shows so much attention to how much he adores her, and how much love he actually had for her. Her death devastates him, and makes him give into that cold and ruthless persona, which can be seen as his shadow. From her on out, he's a full-on slave to this persona and acts accordingly. We never see Michael truly open up or act differently. Even him getting back with Kay is just him projecting his desire for love onto her along with his need for validation that he's still the same Michael. He doesn't love her, at least not in the same way he loved Apallonia. The direction shows this perfectly.

Part 2 fully actualizes the loss of Michael's soul as Michael contradicts all his past statements (business over personal matters, family over everything, etc.). But even then we never truly meet Michael Corleone until his fight with Kay. In his fight with Kay (the representation of his "innocense"), she spells out how much of a slave he is to the cycle of violence his family breeds and slaps him with the truth that she aborted their baby. She would rather abort their baby than risk perpetuating this cycle of crime that Michael is now trapped in and is trapping her in. Michael then cuts her off, fully shutting the door on her and severing his relationship with his past innocense, fully losing his soul. By this point, Michael has lost all his values. He clearly doesn't hold his family > all value as he willingly kills Fredo, nor does he value business > personal matters as he still goes for killing his enemies even when there's no possible way for them to threaten him to begin with. Michael has become nothing more than an empty shell of a man, fully aware of his lack of freedom from his heritage.

I don't think The Godfather is a story about Michael changing from good to evil, but a story of Michael revealing his true character, not only to us and other characters, but also himself, and how he struggles to accept that.

But didn't Michael stage the death of the prostitute with which the Senator was blackmailed? I recall that being the case.

Do Franklin' Saint

Excellent analysis! I have watched the first two movies, but I haven’t seen the third one.

no no no no no no no nooooooooo, I don't really understand why everyone mistakes this. Michael was not free to forgive Fredo he was bound by the rules of a system. which is totalitarianism. killing Fredo makes total sense if you understand totalitarian systems which a mafia family ultimately is. "betrayal is not to be forgiven" is a core rule because if someone gets a pass even if he is a relative then it will start an infestation of corruption in the ranks of the system. Michael didn't do it because of revenge, he did it to make a point that had to be made no matter what, which is " if you betray the family, even if you are the brother of the DON himself' you are done" Michael even tried to keep Fredo alive using their mother as a causes belie but after passing of their mom, there was no excuse any more. the capo regime, captains, and other soldiers expected the punishment of the betrayer. Michael had to make it happen or risk losing the integrity and structure of the mafia organization he was administering.

Dis we really need your sanctimonious "The Mafia is BAD, mmmmmmkay?" nonsense? Try to have a little respect for your audience.

Still the best..Al Pacino..

This is the role that birthed al Pacino career

He wasn't evil but made evil by hos circumstances.

Until he killed his brother. He wasn't evil. That's the moment he became evil. And he knew it. The thing with Michael was he wasn't a bad guy. His a too S were always a reaction. Never the instigator.
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But he knew killing how own brother was evil. That's the incident that broke his soul.

WTF are you smoking? Greco was the most deserving of death. He betrayed Michael twice. The last time putting his wife and kids in danger. If it were me I would have done it myself.