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abstract
This analysis delves into the moral complexities within the film "The Godfather," examining how Don Vito Corleone navigates the tension between legal obligations and his personal ethical code. Through Vito's actions, the essay tries to explore themes of justice, loyalty, and the inherent conflict between law and morality in an unjust society.
“I believe in America,” declares Amerigo Bonasera when he visits the Godfather asking for his help. Bonasera, a funeral director, looks visibly tense. As the dialogues unfold, it is revealed that his daughter had been brutally raped by two non-Italian men. As a good American, he went to the American legal system first, but the American Courts suspended their sentences, and the men didn’t face any punishment at all.
America, like any other State, is not always fair to all its inhabitants. So, some of these wronged inhabitants often come together and form internal mechanisms to deal with injustice—a quasi-state-within-a-state.
It is in the hopes of availing the benefit of this system that Bonasera turns to Don Vito Corleone, requesting him to murder the men responsible for his daughter’s rape. Sitting comfortably in his dimly lit office, the Don replies, “That is not justice.” How could he kill these men when Bonasera’s daughter was still alive? It would not be fair. However, he agrees to make the men suffer as much as Bonasera’s daughter did. And so, on the day of the wedding of Don Vito’s daughter, Bonasera pledged his loyalty to the Godfather.
The Godfather is a seminal film, one that holds a place of extreme importance in the echelons of American cinema. The fact that the director Francis Ford Coppola was able to turn a trashy gangster novel into a thoughtful meditation on the underlying philosophical framework of the Italian-American mafia is no less than a miracle. Coppola went on to create two more Godfather films, with the second often regarded by many as surpassing even the original in its brilliance.
To understand The Godfather, it’s important to consider the circumstances in which it was made. Released in 1972, the film was made during the uncertain times of the Vietnam War, when anti-establishment sentiments were at their peak. The film’s director was a vocal critic of the United States’ involvement in the war. He later directed the film Apocalypse Now (1979) depicting the horrors committed in Vietnam, which ended up winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes. The politics of the auteur inevitably seeps into his work, and this influence is evident in The Godfather.
The story of the films begins in early 1900s America, a time marked by significant division, inequality, and corruption. Many Italian-American immigrants were entering the new land in hopes of better lives, only to struggle with assimilation into the broader population. They faced oppression from the locals and regular exploitation by corrupt police forces.
It is in the backdrop of this suffering, that the mafia gangsters like Vito Corleone emerged. The Godfather was the patriarch of the community who looked after his people so that others couldn’t harm them. Vito had to leave his homeland because his family was killed by a local don who took everything from him, and then in America, another cruel gangster threatens to do the same. So, he kills this Don and becomes a Don himself, but his Don is more of a patriarch than a ruler.
Vito standing up to the local gangsters and corrupt police officials makes him a heroic figure in the community. People get enchanted by this tough Don because he is the only one standing up to injustice. This creates a mafia culture, where the people inside the community aspire to be like the Don, and so join him in this aspiration.
There is a system of reciprocity in Don Vito’s operations. There are certain obligations that his people have to fulfill to benefit from the Godfather’s welfare. For example, Bonasera gets his justice in return for the debt he takes upon himself, there is an inhibited sense of subjecting himself to the Don’s state-within-the-state. This is shown by Bonasera acknowledging Vito as The Godfather.
Vito murders, kidnaps, extorts and facilitates gambling for a living. Despite breaking so many legal obligations, he still comes off as a man of high morals and integrity—someone who refuses to be a fool dancing on the string held by the big shots. Vito’s mafia business is considered something that’s necessary to maintain a respectful existence of the Italian-Americans within the broader American society. Something that he didn’t necessarily want to do, but he had to, for the welfare of his people and his family. So, when Vito breaks his legal obligations to the State to protect the larger interests of his people, it seems fair.1 After all these Italian-American immigrants were getting regularly harassed by local extortionists, and the police were no help. Someone had to do something, and Vito, after unfairly losing his job, rose to the occasion.
When asked to delve into the drug business, however, he outright refuses the offer. While he is fine with gambling, which he rules as a harmless vice, he draws the line at drugs, which is supposed to be the next big thing for the mafia, with great profit margins. This reveals a duality of morals inherent in The Godfather.
Killing, kidnapping, extorting, prostitution, and gambling are fine, but drugs are not because they’re an evil business. For Vito, it is okay to break a few legal obligations if the State is being unjust towards his people. However, he still doesn’t feel right in breaking the moral obligation that he has, even to his detriment.
Tommie Shelby explores this dichotomy of obligations at great length in his book Dark Ghettos. He argues that a citizen’s obligation to the state is contingent upon the state’s commitment to justice. When the State becomes unjust, the citizen may be justified in breaking their civic obligations. For example, consider an African-American man living in a ghetto. He is unfairly treated by society and even the State due to his skin colour. When he is unable to find a job under these circumstances, he might be justified in stealing bread to survive. His act of theft can be seen as a response to the state’s failure to uphold justice and equality.
“However,” Shelby writes, “even if the society is fundamentally unjust…this does not mean that the ghetto poor have no moral duties to one another or to others.”. There is a duty to not cause unnecessary suffering. In the film, the director is clever enough to depict violence as a necessity rather than gratuitous cruelty. We see bad men killing bad men because circumstances compel them to do so. Even the police officer Michael kills in the first film is deeply corrupt and involved in drug rackets. Each evil act has an end, which appears justified within the film’s moral framework.
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Vito not wanting to involve himself in the drugs business appears strange on the surface. If he can murder people, what’s wrong with dealing drugs? Vito considers drugs to be a dirty business. While he says that it will be bad for the mafia in the long run, there is a deeper implication. Drugs ruin innocent lives, and Vito, despite the ruthlessness of his profession, draws a line at something he sees as indiscriminately destructive. He kills bad people, and he does it because, in his twisted code, he is compelled to maintain order through whatever means necessary. However, there’s no compulsion on him to deal drugs. He refuses for moral reasons.
Morality cannot be forced upon a person, it’s an inherent quality that is upheld regardless of external pressures. Despite his transgressions against the law, Vito operates within a personal moral framework that justifies his actions under certain circumstances. His choice to engage in criminal activity stems from a perceived duty to protect and sustain his community within an unjust society. For Vito, these actions, while illegal, are morally permissible as they serve a supposed higher purpose of safeguarding his people and maintaining justice within a corrupt system. So, for him, legal obligations, which are imposed by societal laws, can be broken when deemed necessary, but moral obligations are self-imposed and cannot be externally compelled.
Vito’s refusal to enter the drug business shows the boundary he sets between his morals and his illegal enterprise. Unlike his other criminal activities, which he sees as necessary evils, drugs represent a moral boundary he is unwilling to break. This decision highlights that, despite the pressures upon him as the Don, there are certain moral lines that even he would not cross. His adherence to his moral code, even when it conflicts with economic gain, demonstrates that moral obligations, unlike legal ones, are deeply ingrained and act as a guiding principle that cannot be overridden by external forces. Thus, while legal obligations can be contravened in the face of perceived injustice, moral obligations remain inviolable, reflecting the core of the individual’s ethics, ultimately defining their character.
In the end, Vito Corleone embodies a paradoxical figure: a lawbreaker who maintains a strict, albeit personal, moral code that shapes his decisions and actions. His life exemplifies the idea that while legal obligations can be flexible in the face of perceived injustice, moral obligations are steadfast and unyielding, rooted in the individual’s core beliefs and convictions. Vito’s enduring legacy is not just as a powerful Don but as a man who, amidst a life of organized crime, remained guided by an unwavering personal sense of ethics, earning him the title of The Godfather.
By: Ashish Kumar
Ashish Kumar is a student of law at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. His academic interests span law, literature, political science, history, and cultural studies. Additionally, he has a deep passion for cinema and considers himself an avid film enthusiast.
References
Shelby, Tommie. “Crime.” In Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, 203-27. United States of America: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016.
Malcolm, X., James Baldwin, and Leverne McCummins. The ballot or the bullet. Paul Winley Records, 1987.
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