"All my life I wanted out"

Near the end of GF3... Michael tells Vincent... "all my life I wanted out"........ Vincent replies "I dont want out, I want in"


When Michael says that is he talking about a few times in his life...

ie:

1.) wanting out before getting involved in family business
Did he really want total seperation from family ie. enlisting in service, college etc...

2.) wanting out when trying to devise a way to go legit after becoming head of family?

He is saying he always wanted out of the crime business and wanted to be legitimate. Let's not be fooled my Michael... he clearly didn't want out of the business at all, even by the end of Part III until Mary was killed.

I think many see this incorrectly. He didnt really want out? Why because he didnt go legitimate all at once. It would have been suicide for him to take his fingers off of some of the strings. Going legitimate for the Corleone's REALISTICALLY would have taken atleast one full generation after Michael. Thats why he wanted Tony (he throws away greatness).


Slowly, one by one you cut the strings from the puppet masters hands. Not all at once. You are then exposed and vulnerable.

He did not want out.

The line in GF II sums it all up when Tom tells him he's one and asks "do you have to wipe veryone out?" To which Michael replies "Only my enemies."

In other words as long as he had enemies, Michael was willing to kill them. That's hardly a man who wants out.

The only mobster who ever really wanted out was DeNiro in Analyze This.

Seems to me like the same questions about the same subjects are being asked and answered in multiple threads.

You are correct. Maybe we need to stop psychoanalyzing Michael.

So true

But thats the basis of it - deep down, Michael has become incredibly corrupted hypocrit. You're not supposed to believe him when he says that line, because he doesn't believe it.

No. There's nothing wrong in itself with psychoanalyzing Michael Corleone. The different veiwpoints is what makes these discussions interesting.

My point is that it seems that the same people are starting new topics asking what boils down to be the same type of questions that they've already asked over in another topic only a few days before.

Perhaps the moderator could set up a classic posts library where the most frequently asked questions and their most brilliant answers are displayed. So that we would never waste our time asking the same question again and again.

He has provided something even better than that. It's called a SEARCH function.

No one is saying that repeatedly asked questions are a waste of time, especially if they are posted by a new member, or haven't been asked for quite some time. But what IS a waste of time is when the same poster asks the same questions (disguising them by phrasing them differently) in 3 or 4 different topics.

I agree. Not only did Michael want out, he never wanted IN. If Michael hadn't taken over after Sonny was killed, the lives of his entire family would have been in danger. Even with the murders in the restaurant, he did them not because it was the easiest path, but because he felt it was the only was to save his fathers life. I'm not saying I agree with his actions, but I can understand how he got there.

The psychology of the situation once those first murders occurred is interesting. It could be argued that his experiences in the war enabled those actions (the murders), and that once they were committed, further crimes were made easier through both the damage to Michaels opinion of himself (not through a 'like' of the business). Throughout the Trilogy he does seem (to me at least) to be very aware of his own 'tragedy'. In the end it is his intellect that destroys him; he is acutely aware that he has betrayed his own morals, and that is possibly the most damaging factor to his psyche. It is made very clear in Pt III that he doesn't see himself as redeemable.

He is also very, very, very paranoid, and justifiably so. By the time he's really in deep, he thinks that if he doesn't kill his enemies, they'll kill him. He's probably right. The conflict comes with his increasing inability to distinguish between threats to his and his family's safety, and threats to his power base. He feels the need, therefore, to assert control over everyone. Quite honestly, the only person who ever comes out on top of Michael is Kay.

The old adage is true: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Michael does want out. That doesn't mean that, psychologically, he's capable of it, however. By Pt III, his need to control and his paranoia is so extreme that he simply can't let go.

I think Michael wanted to go out on his own terms. That's not unusual; most of us would probably want to do the same thing. After the AC hit, he could have folded up tent. But, he found rationales to keep him in it. Remember the garden discussion in Sicily. "We're obligated to step in." he agreed with Vinnie's words.

I think he wanted out he simply could not find the right way out. Mike could not afford to leave all at once and still hold such a powerful position in life. Also the other families wanted to keep him around because he could make them so much money. He always held something that they wanted. Mike wanted out of the illegit world but still wanted power in legit business. This is why he was angry with Anthony, like Vito hoped for Mike, micheal hoped that one day his son would be among the world elite...senator Corleone, govenor Corleone-the oval office

Michael saying he wanted out is like an alcoholic saying he can quit drinking whenever he wants to. It is total denial.

Ditto. Above someone posted that Michael wanted out on his terms. Exactly. What was it that he wanted out of? Murder, mayhem, destruction? Yes. How do you get of all that? Do you wean yourself from it?: "Well, through my 12 step murder for profit recovery plan, over time I gradually reduce the number of people I murder and I graduate from guns, then to knives, then to my bare hands, then to just beating them up, then just pushing them around. In no time at all, I'm cured."

Well, I don't think so. You just drop it all today, period!

A 12 step program for Michael. I think he would get stuck on that "Higher power" thing.

I don't see him as a hypocrite, now or then, watching this film. I think he had a huge burden of responsibility to fulfill, I feel that he wished he didn't have to shoulder that burden and that's essentially what he meant by "wanting out". He wanted to not have to do it, but he HAD to do it. It was the difference between being stuck in limbo (the world of crime he was immersed in) and keeping his family alive in physical and in name- Or losing all of that to become "legitimate". And legitimacy had been tainted in his eyes as well, as soon as Sen. Geary was introduced to him.
But that's my opinion, to each his own. =)

We are all products of our upbringing. However much we think we are not like our parents, more often than not, we turn out alot like them. Michael is Scilian and raised by a man who said: Where I come from, if you go to kill a man, you better finish him off.

Even though Michael may have wanted to get away from the family business more than anything, he wasn't going to get away from his upbringing. If Michael had succeeded in going legit as he'd always wanted, that belief system would still be in place. The second anyone tried to pull anything on him or his family, I am pretty sure he's still react as the Scilian he is.

Michael never wanted out. He had free choice at every step in his life. He chose the Mafia life. See here for past discussion:

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...h=true#Post2286

Emphatically: Ditto!