After Don Corleone meets with the heads of the other families and other mafia reps, on the was with Tom Hagen, the Don says “Tattaglia’s a pimp. He never could’ve outfoxed Santino.
But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along”.
How does he know this? Was there a clue I missed? Something from the book? Something from the meeting that ended up on the cutting room floor?
What tipped the Don that it was Barzini?
My interpretation (and that’s all it is) is that when Barzini makes his comments during that big meeting about how Corleone has all the officials in his pocket and is unwilling to share that power with the other families, that somehow that statement and what lies behind it gives Corleone the data to conclude what he does about Barzini.
This interpretation relies on similar devices elsewhere in the three movies. We miss out on the specifics that are revealed in conversation or even more subtly. Thus we have to go along with the conclusions reached without having the needed info to come to the same conclusions ourselves.
It’s part of the writing style that Puzo and Coppola developed. The lore has it that they worked on the story separately and then met to work the details out in the final (?) script. (The “?” refers to the way Coppola works in that he often redoes things at shooting time and has many rewrites along the way.) This is not uncommon in script development. Casablanca and Gone With The Wind were in constant rewrite mode. Ingrid Bergman didn’t know until the end of shooting whether she was supposed to be in love with Rick or Victor, which made the acting rather tentative for her.
One thing I have learned about the great movies is that if you look too closely and try too hard to find logic and rationality in them, they collapse under scrutiny. But that doesn’t seem to stop us from trying to have them be perfect in construction and detail.
Bottom line: “poetic license” is alive and well in the movie classics.
I asked this very question in this thread (second last post), and Sampiro gave me a very straightfoward answer which does make sense.
Another quote (very similar to ‘Barzini all along’) from the Godfather always had me wondering. Michael and Don Corleone are talking in the vineyard and Don Corleone tells his son “after I die, someone you trust will set up a meeting where you will be killed. The one who sets up the meeting is the traitor.”
Wow, where did that phenomenal deduction come from ?
That one always amazed me, too. Seemed pretty convenient that the Godfather has this stunning insight into how all criminal humans think.
Or is that how the Godfather got his power?
I’m sure the transition of power from one generation to the next is never smooth.
Hmm, that one made sense to me. Prior to the baptism scene, Michael is NOT thought of as having his father’s ruthlessness, power and intelligence, not by the other families, not even by the members of his own family–not yet. The Don correctly surmised that his death would lead the other families to conclude that an irresistible opportunity to usurp the power of the greatest family had emerged. And the natural way this would be taken care of was “from the inside.” After all the turmoil and death that resulted from the Turk’s plan to assassinate the Don, something neater and cleaner and more foolproof would be in in order.
Remember, Vito’s death was inarguably a crucial outcome to everyone outside of the Corleone family. He was just too friggin’ smart and powerful. So for the Don to conclude that his death would lead to further Machiavellian shenanigans was not at all a stretch. Little did they know how Michael would rise to the occasion.
What tipped the Don that it was Barzini, was that Barzini, not Tattaglia, led the negotiations, even to the point of making the opening and closing statements for the opposition to the Corleone family:
Tattaglia didn’t even speak until the meeting was declared finished by Barzini.
Well, this one was (to me) kind of self-evident: Who else would be in contact with Barzini if not the traitor? Why would somebody not planning on betraying Michael be talking to Barzini?
I didn’t think it was his knowledge of criminal humans in general so much as his knowledge of Tessio, Clemenza, and Barzini in particular, and the element of “this is how I would do it”. One of the deleted scenes on the DVD takes place after the failed assassination attempt on Vito when Michael interrupts Sonny as
he and Tessio are trying to decide whether to put the bullets into the head of (Vito’s “sick” bodyguard) Pauly or into the head of Clemenza for setting up Vito. Clemenza has long been the Don’s able and loyal lieutenant, but he’s not above serious suspicion because the money, power, and threat of being clipped if you don’t comply can make anybody into a traitor.
Plus, as Michael and Tom agree, Tessio made a very smart business decision. Vito knew that Clemenza and Tessio wanted to start their own family and that they already felt betrayed for the Godfather’s abandonment of them when they wanted to fight back against the gobbling of their territories. He also knew that while they may feel a strong personal loyalty to him (like the comitatus of a king), they wouldn’t feel this type of loyalty to a kid who hadn’t come up through the ranks with them and wasn’t a legend in the mob. One or the other or both would betray Michael to save themself, though which one would be hard to say. (Had this been real life, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that Clemenza himself was in on the treachery but double crossed Tessio when it occurred that Michael could win.)
I’ve heard lots of explanations (the most common being about an illegitimate family he has in Sicily) about the GODFATHER II scene in which Pentangeli makes a full retreat when he sees his brother in the courtroom. Is there an “official” version? On the DVD commentary Coppola is braying about a recipe for turtle soup and linguini or droning on about how he didn’t like the third Congressman from the left’s tie or whatever and doesn’t clear it up.