Irish Examiner View: Lessons to learn from 'The Godfather'

Even 50 years after the release of the iconic mafia film, what it has to say about heritage, family, competition, and capitalism remain relevant to this day.

'The Godfather', starring Marlon Brando, has remained in our memories.

Where is Don Corleone when you need him? We could do with someone making Vladimir Putin an offer he can’t refuse.

Fifty years ago tomorrow, the epic Francis Ford Coppola movie made its world premiere at Loew’s State Theatre in New York.

The Godfather is rated by many as the greatest film of all time. Along with The Godfather II, released in 1974, and The Godfather III in 1990, considered by some to be a lesser offering, it constitutes a powerful trilogy that set the template for all mafia stories to follow including The Sopranos, Goodfellas, and Casino.

But more than a marvellous script, based on Mario Puzo’s best-seller, a wonderful soundtrack, and an ensemble cast of great performers, The Godfather has remained in our memories because it carries lessons for heritage, family, competition, and capitalism which remain relevant to this day. That is why doctoral theses are written about it, and why it is referenced in business schools the world over.

How many politicians and commercial people have, like the Irish-American Tom Hagen, lost their jobs because circumstances have changed and they can’t cut it as a “wartime consigliere”? Or failed because, like Santino Corleone, they can’t control their emotions? Or been excluded, because like Fredo, they have been disloyal?

Hundreds of Facebook groups and YouTube channels chew the cannoli over the significant elements of the film. One describes the ‘10 lessons from The Godfather that everyone needs to know’. 

Paramount Pictures is making the most of the anniversary. Cinemas are showing the three films back to back, and it is overseeing a 10-part drama about the making of the first movie; people may relish the opportunity to fall back into a familiar world where morality is more cut and dried.

The studio purchased the rights to Puzo’s book for $12,500. It has enjoyed a payback that even Genco Olive Oil, the front company that covered all the nefarious activities of the Corleone family, may have appreciated. 

As any made man would say: “It’s just business.”