Originally posted by Don Sonny Corleone:
Fredo had to be killed, becuase it show how low Michael had sunk by Part 2. FFC had to show that becuase he complained that after the first one came out, people were complaining to him that nothing bad happened to Michael. They said he was glorifing crime and the Mafia.
That's exactly what I guessed about the source of his script ideas!
But if you are doing a work of art and change principal things in it not because of any internal reason, logic or necessity, but only because some stupid critic told you what should happen to the characters, then it’s not a good work. Not as good as might be. You can’t please everyone. Art can’t please everyone. More than that, who ever said that art must please? Is Bosch pleasing? It must make us think. And at this age, if your work has pretensions on realism, it must contain some realism, at least, so I believe.
Michael would never act so unnaturally, fall so low, make such mistakes, and be unable to stop where necessary. It is out of his character and qualities, and kind noble purpose to punish him as dreadfully as possible does not justify such offence of nature.
BTW, acting so cruelly towards Michael FFC is no better than Michael himself.
What a cold-hearted bastard!
Oscar Wilde in “The importance of being earnest” portrayed a wonderfully pretentious governess, who had written a sickeningly sentimental novel in two volumes, and said with utmost pride that everything there ended well for good characters, and bad for bad ones, and that’s what must be called “Fiction”. Well, it reminds me of Coppola.
Puzo really was a very good writer, even if this novel is the result of his decision to write a hit instead of good literature – you can’t cease to be a good literature writer if you are one already. The novel is not equally good all the way, but most of the parts concerning the general plotline (Corleones) are frequently as close to masterpiece as could be. I always thought it to be easy to separate good literature from bad. Good literature has more conveyed than written in it. The more is said between the lines, the better it is. I also perceived that good literature, as the life itself, is never moralizing. We must not judge, as nobody ever is good or bad. We are, as Austen said, a mixture of evil and good in different proportions. The writer may only show the best possible imitation of reality, trying not to violate the nature of things. And if he finds a side of human nature worth showing – there it begins.
Puzo shows us his reality without preaching or being didactic in any way. He never glorifies crime or Mafia, those saying it simply didn’t read!
He just shows the people he’s writing about, as fairly as possible, even if on the brink of cynicism, and as any good writer never allowing his own self appear more than necessary. His characters reveal themselves naturally in dialogue and deed; they create circumstances and suffer from them – without his comments. They just live in the world, feel pain and happiness, and, as God, he doesn’t meddle, whether to help or punish.
And nobody in his right senses would say that nothing happens to them. Nothing happens to the man who worked and murdered people all his life to see his children happy, when he sees his firstborn son laying riddled with bullets? Nothing happened to the man whose beloved wife and her unborn child are blown to pieces in front of him? To the man, whose lie to his wife ruins their long built happiness forever, even if she stays with him for God’s sake? Because their intercourse as Puzo shows it reveals that the most important thing, their mutual trust, is lost.
He shows tragedies without snot, more strengthening will and character, than destroying; pain borne manly, not yelling and tearing hair off. He shows us strong people, and they outlive those tragedies as strong people, accepting responsibility. They don’t talk about it, they don’t complain. They are not sentimental; emotions are unnecessary stuff for the men of deed. They are made from a different material than film directors and other honest citizens. Being clever, they did not expect that the life they chose would be full of flowers and butterflies. They stand against anything for the sake of what is dear for them, and when they cannot do anything more, they have strength to accept it, without snot and display of their emotions, and go along. Pain, howewer strong, is just a part of life. That’s why we feel respect for them. But it doesn’t mean that we aren’t told the price they pay for what they do.
It is not exaggerated, and it doesn’t squeeze tears from us. We don’t see much justice in the way of things, bad guys prosper and good guys suffer as often as the reverse. It is seldom that we see the real possessors of guilty power punished or suffering in this world. No, they live long, happy, successful life and die surrounded by loving children saying, “Life is so beautiful”…
Their mistakes are punished by the life itself, their sins are left to God’s mercy.
The amount of untold, left out of words in Puzo’s novel makes us feel much more terror and guess deeper feelings, thoughts and sufferings than any direct, snotty, primitive yelling and whine could express. The possibility of creating feeling or sense without dictating it is a quality of real art. Unfaithfulness to the nature of things for no better reason than someone’s stupid remarks – is not.