In reading through the Bible recently, I found what struck me as an interesting parallel with the relationship between Don Corleone and Michael in the movie, *The Godfather *(the first one). I’m talking about the succession of Solomon as King of Israel upon the death of his father, King David.
As many of you will recall, in the movie, the Don made a vow to the other families not to seek revenge for his son Sonny’s death in exchange for Michael’s safe return from exile. But he planned for Michael to take over as Don, and, of course, Michael, on assuming power, would not have been bound by the Don’s promise. Presumably, the Don and Michael discussed who would be the subject of revenge when Michael took power.
At 1 Kings 2:1-10, David plots with Solomon for Solomon to take revenge against several of David’s enemies after David’s death:
The mention of Shimei in the above quotation even talks about the vow that David had made to do him no harm. But now David told Solomon to kill Shimei as revenge for his earlier cursing of David.
The rest of the chapter depicts Solomon’ s consolidating his power after the death of his father by having several of David’s enemies killed in quick succession. As I was reading through the passage, it reminded me strongly of the baptism scene in GF1.
So was Puzo a Bible reader? Was the material in GF1 about Michael killing his father’s enemies derivative of the David and Solomon story? What do you think?
P.S. I started this thread in Cafe Society because it concerns a movie. If the mods think it better in another forum, feel free to move it.
Michael’s gang war has a lot of parallels to the Bonano-Luchessi-Gambino gang war of the mid-1960s. That included shifting alliances, treachery within the family, plans for simultaneous hits, Bonano going into exile for a couple of years, and some other details. The big difference in Puzo’s book is that Micahel pulled it all off successfully.
Of course, since Puzo used a quote from Balzac in the novel, there’s no reason he couldn’t have cribbed a points from the Bible, as well.
I misread “Corleone Story” as “Coraline Story” and now upon realizing my error I want to see an adaptation of The Godfather in which Michael discovers a secret door to a nearly identical world except that the people there such as “Other Godfather” have black buttons for eyes.
I don’t know if Puzo got the idea from the Bible, but power politics is power politics. The idea of killing all potential enemies or rivals of a new regime is SOP.
But yes, the parallels are pretty marked. “I promised not to hurt him, but you’re not bound by that promise”. David’s last advice to his son - “here are some people you better kill” including his own half-brother.
I’ve never really gotten behind the idea that Vito and Michael Corleone were playing a long game and plotting eventual revenge years in the future even as Vito negotiated a peace.
I think the point of that was to show the contrast between Vito and Michael. Vito, for all his power, accepted the idea that there were limits. He knew there were things he would never have.
Michael refused to accept this. He rejected the idea that there were any limits to what he could do. On the surface, he was right; Michael ended up with far more power than Vito ever held. But Michael’s refusal to even accept self-imposed limits ended up destroying his life. Michael could never be satisfied with what he had the way Vito had been.
I’ve assumed so. It’s not just that he has his son kill his enemies, but also his trusted lieutenant (Tessio) as Solomon killed David’s (Joab) for favoring another person in the succession (Joab favored Adonijah, Tessio made a deal with Barzini). Joab was killed while clinging to an altar, and an altar was present as Michael was doing his hits. (Okay, that was only in the movie and may have just been coincidence, but…)
This is very clear in the book and referenced in a scene in the extended Godfather saga version. In any case, note the scene where Vito advises Michael on how to tell who the traitor is. While we know that this is just before Vito dies, neither of the characters knows this. They might be thinking that Vito could live another 5 years or more.
In the book they were building a third capo in Rocco Lampone which was unknown to the outside world and even to Clemenza and Tessio. Both of the Corleone’s capos complained about the family becoming weaker and how isolated they would be when the family went to Vegas and became legitimate…Tessio especially going over Michael’s head to Vito. Tom wasn’t supposed to know but he was smart enough to see that people Rocco had were too good and too well paid for what they were supposed to be doing.
Michael also tells Vito that what he is going to do isn’t just for revenge for Sonny and Apollonia which Vito agrees, quoting the old Klingon proverb that revenge is a dish best served cold. He says he will do it a year from now, when Kay has the second baby and Tom is settled in Vegas. Michael says he will kill Barzini, Tattaglia, Fabrizzio and the others even if Vito disagrees. Vito agrees it is Michael’s show now and he is probably too old. But Vito dies before the year is out.
Part of everything is based on the old stories, and Bible is a great source. The oldest stories of every civilization generally contain philosophy and conflict of a primal sort, worthy of adapting to modern circumstances.
