Watching Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, I came to the realization that Micheal Corleone was a psychopath. It starts at the very start, when he’s telling his girlfriend the “amusing little story” of how his father threatened to kill a man. Once my eyes were opened, I realized that pretty much every action he took was the behavior of a psychopath.
Or am I off base here?
I disagree. Part of what makes the Godfather* compelling is the way it chronicles the corruption of a decent man into an utter monster. If Michael is a psychopath, then he’s already a monster at the beginning of the story, and hasn’t really changed at all by the end of it.
I disagree. He became an evil person. His service to his country, over the opposition of all his family (except Fredo) showed his concern for the wider community. He abandons his humanity in steps, first with killing Sollazo and the police captain, and then with each subsequent action, including the arranged marriage with his first wife.
His first marriage was not “arranged” in the usual sense of the term. Michael and Appolonia were certainly portrayed as being in love in the movie, and it was even more obvious in the book. If she had said “No, I don’t like him,” that would have been the end of it. I’d say his eventual marriage to Kay was calculated and cold.
Arranged is a bit strong, I agree. But do look at the scene again, because the tone of how Michael goes about asking for the lady’s hand in marriage let’s the monster peek through. Michael makes clear to the lady’s father that he is an important mobster without directly saying so.
I actually have the opposite problem with Michael, for reasons debated in this thread.
He starts out the movie far too principled and his descent into a monster is too sudden and unexplained.
It’s a while since I saw the first movie but his story to his girlfriend was intended more to illustrate his contempt for his psycho father rather than to be “amusing” wasn’t it? Or am I misremembering?
I would think that having served in the Marines during WWII, the seeds of what he eventually became were planted long before he whacked the two men in the restaurant. I’m not denigrating the military by any means, but I do think that combat changes a man. No one who went through the Pacific campaign came back the same as when he left; at the very least, Michael must have been somewhat enured to death.
Of course, growing up in the Corleone household must have had some effect on him, but I doubt he thought about killing anyone himself until the war started and he enlisted.
I think Michael’s hint at his importance had more to do with smoothing things over after his bodyguards offended the girl’s father. Michael was establishing trust by letting him in on the fact that Michael was a wanted man and others would pay for information on his whereabouts.
I do not think Michael was a psychopath at the beginning. The attempted murder of his father and his subsequent realization that Vito wasn’t even safe in his own hospital room affected him deeply. It was a gradual process.
Michael Corleone wasn’t a psychopath- he was just a man who grew up in a world where murder and brutality were normal, everyday business.
A surgeon gets used to the sight of blood and guts. Sights that would nauseate other people are routine for a surgeon. To him, cutting open a living human being is “just business.”
Well, to Michael Corleone and his associates, crime is “just business.” Assault, stealing, Killing people… those are all just part of the job. MAYBE a regrettable part of the job (hey, even a surgeon doesn’t WANT to have to remove someone’s leg), but not something to lose sleep over.
I don’t think he was a psychopath and I don’t think he became a “monster” exactly. In his own mind, at least, he remains a ‘good man’: he does not take pleasure in harming others but ‘does what is necessary for the good of the family’.
The Godfather is a tragedy, and the nature of that tragedy is that Michael, for what seemed very good and reasonable reasons at the time, embarks on a series of rationalizations that lead him into becomming exactly what he was trying to escape: he gained his world and lost his soul.
This is an interesting point - when he first offers to kill those two guys in the restaurant, people laugh at him, and he angrily points out that he killed some Japanese soldiers in the war and these mobsters don’t have mortar support or tanks or anything. Sonny says he always figured that Michael had it in him all along.
I think so. When Michael was telling that story to Kay he’s explaining to her what kind of people his family is. Michael is a war hero and wants nothing to do with the family business. It wasn’t until the attempted murder of his father that he deigned to get involved and he only jumped in with both feet when he realized the entire family was in peril. I wouldn’t characterize Michael as innocent at the beginning of the movie but by the end he was certainly the monster he didn’t want to become.
The idea that Michael was a psychopath from the start pretty much subverts the entire message of the story. If Michael were evil from the beginning, his descent would have been inevitable and not a tragedy. Instead he’s a basically good man who is gradually corrupted by events and what seems to be expedient or necessary at the time to protect his family.
He showed great remorse over killing Fredo when talking to the guy in the Vatican (I forget, was that a cardinal, or the actual friggin’ pope, or what?) I don’t believe a psychopath experiences remorse.
*“Tom, don’t let anybody kid you. It’s all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it’s personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That’s what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes? Right? And you know something? Accidents don’t happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.” *
I’m not so sure about that. It didn’t take much in the way of persuasion on Kay’s part to get the story out. He seemed to volunteer the information freely. As if he was stealth bragging.
Now it might have been to impress her with the “That’s my family. It’s not me.” b.s. I doubt it though. He loved his family (as one would) and he took pride in their success. Going off to war was just some youthful rebellion. I think being in combat disabused him of his idealism. It also taught him that life was cheap, especially the life of your enemies.
Unlike his older brothers, Michael was his father’s son in every way. The attempt on his father’s life and the beating he received for trying to protect him in the hospital was the deciding moment and what set his feet on the path he was always meant to follow.
no…no. In a way, kinda, he is crazy.
What sets him off? His PERSONAL realization that his way of life is just as corrupt as his fathers. The guards for his father have been arrested, the police chief punches him in the face.
Michael takes that in an incredibly personal manner. I haven’t seen part 3, but he never did learn that ‘it’s just business’. He also lacks subtlety. That guy he had shot in the eye? He was an asset. and Michael is just going to brush him out of the way? Because he slapped Fredo around? (I say that because Michael brought it up when it should have been irrelevant)
Fredo is family. Was Michael sure that Fredo actually knowingly assisted in having him killed? if not, then forgive your brother FFS. All Michael did was make enemies.
If anything I learned from GoT, it’s don’t make enemies out of your allies.
And as I recall, Vito always saw Michael as the family’s route to respectability. Joining the Marines looked like rebellion to his brothers, but to Michael, it was one element of doing his part to serve his family. When circumstances changed, he served the Corleones in a different way. I don’t think Michael ever has a moral universe larger than his family, and I see the movie as gradually exposing the hollowness within him.
I agree with the OP.
Psychopaths are very good at blending in and faking it so that other people don’t see what’s wrong with them. There’s no reason that his version of faking it wouldn’t be to appear principled and virtuous, and military service is a great way to fake it. After all, if you go a little psycho in the military you are 1) not around the people who know you best and 2) able to blame it on things like stress. In fact, the military service is telling in one particular way for me: where are his war buddies? Does he really have absolutely no contact with the people he served with? I could be reading too much into the absence of this, but it certainly fits the psychopath profile to associate with and use people while it is convenient and then move on when they’re no longer useful.
Michael’s transformation from “nice guy” to “monster” is simply the realization of a psychopath that the nice guy front is no longer necessary to get ahead. In fact, at a certain point, the monster front is the most useful tool for dealing with other people.
Michael’s transition is about as stark as going from fuchsia to shocking pink.