This question was stimulated by a discussion in the Talia Shire thread. Did Michael really love Kay? Your views and explanations?

TB, I distinguish between loving someone and being in love with someone. You fall in love with your spouse just as I did and still do everyday. Michael was definitely not in love with Kay.

I'm not sure if Michael loved anyone. It comes through more clearly in the book, but he's an extreme rationalist (and quite a narcissist). Apollonia may have been "loved" by him as an ideal of the mafia woman, just as Kay was an ideal of the respectable woman. The relationships would look very different, but only because men and women played different roles in the two worlds.

I think that pre-Sollozzo Michael loved Kay as a rebellion against everything the Corleone Family stood for. She was an escape hatch, a path to a different life.

After he returns from Sicily with his big five year plan to legitimacy, I think he loved everything that Kay stood for: that WASP lineage that no money can buy. She brought something to the table that he could never achieve. She was educated, beautiful, American (in the DAR way), and she would be an asset by his side in his new legitimate role.

I can't believe it; Babe posted again. Madonne!

As I posted above, I don't think Michael was in love with anyone. You know, some people just plain don't love and he may have been one. In any case, I think that several of us recognize that Michael's relationships with women always had an ulterior motive.

My view:
Michael certainly loved Kay before he got involved in the family business. We see it in a deleted scene from GF in which he and Kay are cavorting, playfully, in a NYC hotel room just before he learns Vito has been shot. But, his experiences after that hardened him and stripped him of sentimentality. His "courtship" of Kay in New Hampshire was more of a business negotiation (exemplified by Michael's looking like a pint-sized banker with that ridiculous Homburg hat, and being followed by a limo). His "love you/need you" was emotionless. It was pretty obvious that he saw Kay as an important to him only or mostly as an important stepping stone to "legitimacy," not as the object of his love and passion--much less anything like the "thunderbolt" that hit him when he first saw Apollonia. He continued to use and manipulate Kay throughout the rest of GF and II, ultimately slamming the door in her face, as Talia Shire reminded us in another thread.

And yet...

...by III, he's back to courting Kay again. Why? Did he see reconciling with Kay as the last step in his getting out of Mafia life and becoming truly legitimate? Was he looking to manipulate Kay yet again as a late-life personal triumph? Or, did he find his early love of Kay somehow rekindled? I'm inclined to agree with Pete and Oli that Michael was too narcissistic, suspicious and manipulative to truly love any woman, but I'm not dismissing the possibility that Kay was an exception.

For me Michael sincerely loved Kay because yes was the opposite of the sicilian women that his father want Mike marry; Kay was blonde,indipendent and go to university.

I think that Michael loved more Apollonia and with her death the Michael feelings become to die; yes "love" Kay but the abortion would certainly killed her, if weren't for the sons.
I think that the feelings of michael are dead or dormant during the two movies.
When in Sicily in the third mvie Michael tries to regain Kay, he does so only because would remember the old days when they were young and happy.

I agree with the consensus sentiments so far; he did love Kay before Vito was shot. He may have been attracted to her because she was so WASPy and outside the norm from an Italian second-generation point of view. Getting involved with her would have rubbed his family the wrong way, which was a plus. But once all of those superficial elements were met and he got to know Kay, he came to genuinely love her.

Post-Appolonia, he was so affected by her death that he would never allow himself to love in that way again. Sure, he loved his parents, he loved his children, but he closed himself off to passionate love.

I don't think he loved Kay. He probably was one of those scumbags who only love their children and treat the woman who bore them just like a tool to have offspring. On the other hand, I am not even sure he loved his children either, maybe he wanted to keep them with him and not give them up to Kay only because he felt they were his "property" and felt "disrespected".

I've seriously been laughing for five minutes.

no michael didn't really love kay BUT he did care for her. michael is a perfect example of a person with an anti-social disorder. he didn't really love anyone except his kids at that and maybe his family being his sister in godfather 3. he used kay as he used many other people in his life. then again in godfather 3 it seemed like he really did care about her and love her BUT at the same time idk.

"(exemplified by Michael's looking like a pint-sized banker with that ridiculous Homburg hat, and being followed by a limo)."

That line really cracked me up. I thought the scene was effective. I think Mike was trying to show that he was going to be legitimate in five years, and he wanted to dress the part.

I guess he went back to the old ways in Nevada when the uniform of the day was " oily hair -- dressed up in those silk suits - and try to pass yourselves off as decent Americans."

New York vs. southwest fashion. Also, when he returns to NY to visit Pentangeli, he's formally attired.

I always felt that Michael intentionally always tried to break away from the stereotypical "gangster" persona. He preferred Packards and Chryslers over Cadillacs. He was always fashionably dressed, never flashy like his brother Fredo. He never acted like a "wiseguy". Remember he was educated at the prestigious Ivy League school Dartmouth.

True in most respects, Johnny. But, his Tahoe estate was worthy of the turn-of-the-century Robber Barons, if not mid-century Mafiosi. That's how he thought of himself: a "Captain of Industry."

Since you mentioned cars (an old favorite subject between you and me): FFC was fanatical about details, and nowhere more than in his selection of cars. Note that, when Kay is stopped from leaving the compound, she'd driving a plain-Jane '57 Buick Special wagon--not the higher-end Century wagon. On the other hand, when Michael returns to Tahoe, he's being driven in a '58 Chrysler Crown Imperial limo--one of only 36 made by Ghia of Turin, and, at ~$13k, the most expensive domestic car of the year.

Yes "Captain of Industry", is exactly right. I will again suggest that his going to Dartmouth helped fashion his goals in business. That is not a school you go to, to find employment at the local Wendy's as the night manager.


No denying that Mike wasn't afraid to spend money, when it came to the comfort of his family. My curiosity was peaked and did a search of the house. This is just one of the many sites that offer pictures of the property.

https://homes.yahoo.com/photos/photos-co...0609336906.html

I think at the time that Michael and Kay were married, and for at least several years thereafter, Michael did love Kay...as much as he was capable of doing so. During the last scene between Michael and Vito, when Vito asked "Your wife and children, are you happy with them?", and Michael answered "Very happy", I think he was sincere.

Whether or not that love would qualify as "love" according to the standards of anyone else, particularly Kay herself, and especially as the marriage began to fall apart later, is a separate issue.

He may have loved Kay,but his true love was Apollonia..

I wonder what would have happened if Apollonia had not been murdered?

Michael would have had a tougher time trying to fit in the WASPY world of Lake Tahoe?

Kay was the backup plan.

One thing that always confuses me his when Kay asks Michael how long he had be back, Michael says "I've been back a year. Longer than that, I think".

Would he not know how long he had been back in America or did he not want to tell Kay exactly..

I actually like when he does that. I think that in that moment he's moving from sugarcoating things again to telling Kay the truth, even if it's just for this one conversation.

What's remarkable to me is that Kay never made a stink about this fact; nothing like: "WHAT??? You've been back for more than a year, and you're only now getting around to seeing me? How many other girls did you date, before you finally worked your way this far down the list?" Or something to that effect...

Then again, perhaps this would have been out of character for a woman of the mid-20th Century, raised to be submissive and traditional - as opposed to the more...independent and assertive women of today.

~ Q