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During the wedding, after Mrs. Godfather sings a verse of a song, an elderly gentleman sings a verse, presumably with racy lyrics, judging by the gestures he makes with his hands. Please translate this into English. Also, what does the gesture of bringing two index fingers mean?
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Why does Michael have a black eye (cheekbone) in Sicily? He doesn’t have it in the restaurant before the shootings, and it seems to develop slowly once in Sicily.
Well, I can’t help you with the song lyrics, but the cheekbone thing is from when that cop hit him. I don’t remember if they explicitly said so in the movie, but in the book, when the cop hit him, it broke his cheekbone, which didn’t heal right and left him slightly disfigured for life. Actually, if i remember correctly, one of the other characters suggests at some point that he have it surgically corrected and he says he doesn’t want to, but I can’t remember why. As for it getting worse in Sicily, I don’t know. Maybe it was just a continuity problem with the film.
I thought he did get it fixed by the same doctor who shaved the warts off Johnny Fontaine’s vocal cords and tightened up what’s her name’s giant vagina. I think I recall Michael finally getting it done to stop his nose always running.
The cheekbone thing could not have been from the cop hitting him. It would have shown up right away (I’ve had a few black eyes, so I know) and as I said, it is not evident in the restaurant scene. I think it is a continuity problem, in fact. But it’s almost as if some scenes were left on the cutting room floor, which might explain the black cheekbone.
In the movie, if I recall correctly, some character (maybe Fredo) does remark, upon Michael’s return, that he had had his face fixed and it looked good. The bruising could be from the (implied) plastic surgery.
Yes, it could. I think it is fair to say, that we don’t know what caused the bruising.
I claim no knowledge of Italian whatsoever. The song is, as you suspected, bawdy. The meaning of the “thrusting” hand gesture is obvious. The index fingers I leave to those versed in Italian vulgarities of the 40’s.
For whatever reason, I’m having trouble editing the above post. This is just to add that you need to scroll to the bottom of the above-linked page for the English translation.
The black eye is from the cop. Michael’s face is messed up in resturant. His jaw is broken, and his face is swollen. But it is only the next day. It takes time for a bruise to come in. He also could have had nerve damage. Not having bruise the next day is not weird.
Wrong. The cop hit Michael in the jaw. There was no noticeable bruising in the jaw area, so why would there be a bruise near the eye? Bruises show up immediately. If Michael didn’t have a black eye (cheekbone) after the cop hit him, why, suddenly, does it show up in Sicily?
Not necessarily. Delayed bruising is very common.
QtM, MD
Alright, I’ll grant you that, not that I am a doctor or anything. But, Michael gets hit by the cop. Then time goes by as he returns to the Long Island home, plans are made for him to take out the cop and the Turk, he does so, then gets shipped off to Sicily, where he has NO noticeable bruises around the cheekbone area, and then, voila, a black cheekbone, after of course him roaming around in the Sicilian countryside. Days, possibly weeks have passed since the cop punched him.
I’ve seen “The Godfather” many times, and I never noticed this discrepancy. Am I missing something? Has this issue been raised before? The future of the legitimacy of the whole Godfather story hangs in the balance. 
Maybe it was from being hit with the thunderbolt.
Nice.
I seem to recall (sorry, no cite) that there was a significant problem with various aspects of the filming in Italy, including makeup difficulties. The black eye could be just one of those.
The corrective surgery, as I recall from the book, happened a long time after that, after he was back in the U. S. of A. and had married Kay, which he did at least a year after returning.