Hi!
A thread like a dream. Thanks, Turnbull, thanks, guys and girls.
We've already got an advice to take all this not so personally. Now we only miss the traditional statement that "if" and "when" are irrelevant because the film was made this way on purpose.
So I hurry to get a cut in.
Originally posted by Turnbull:
Yes, there's a ton of tragedy in his life—all self-inflicted. He had free choice at every turn, and he freely chose the Mob life, with disastrous results...
Michael succeeded--in turning everything he touched into death, including his own.
In the classic Greek tragedy, which GF is a proud although not lonely heir to, the main hero - so called protagonist - is bound to inflict all sorts of troubles onto the loved ones, and ultimately himself, due to his own faults cut open by the pressure of events.
It's clear why it's dramatically necessary. If the protagonist has no choice, we as spectators may have pity with him, nothing more. If he seems to have a shade of a choice - as he apparently doesn't, in firm author's hands - we start sympathizing with the guy by thinking what we would have done if.
That aside, I deeply sympathize with Michael throughout the Trilogy.
I don't think he's got so much choice in GFI, though - all other solutions most probably meant failure and loss of his father, if only for time constraints.
I don't think he's absolutely inhuman in GFII - we do see his internal struggle at the Superman show.
Finally, I would agree that in a sense Michael was slippin' in GFIII - but, unlike Vito, he was slipping by regaining his human nature, which Vito never ceased to possess.
For me, the phrase: "For I cannot do it anymore" makes up for his sins. As usual, the Gods disagree.
Best regards.
Alexander
