THE GODFATHER AT 45: Why It Endures.

If The Godfather (1972) had come out a decade earlier than it actually did, audiences would have resisted it. You can imagine viewers asking: How are we supposed to get wrapped up in the internal disputes of this band of amoral brigands and murderers? Who is the good guy here? Doesn’t the film celebrate evil, or at least condone it? Why is Michael Corleone’s depravity rewarded instead of punished at the end?

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By 1972, the sense that America was not necessarily being run on the square had serious traction. The Pentagon Papers had been published the year before. Vietnam seemed to be rife with dishonor. At one point, Kay says that, unlike Vito Corleone, “Senators and presidents don’t have men killed.” It’s a view nearly everyone shared in 1962, but by 1972 the audience’s sympathies were with Michael, who responds that Kay is being naïve.

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