My sentimental pick is in III,when Michael flashes back to the dance scene with Appolonia,just before his death. Although the scene lasts only a few seconds,the expression on his face speaks volumes. We see a happy Mike,a man who still has a chance to take a better path than the one he ultimately chose. We see the sparkle,the impish grin that must have swept Kay off her feet the first time she met Michael. The phrase that comes to my mind every time I watch that scene is "What might have been?"
That final scene in the third film rescues many of the film's flaws. Michael remembering his women before he dies; underscoring the life he could have lead, and the utter futility of his quest to keep his family safe, from the moment he put a bullet in Sollozza's head until Mary's murder.
Here is Michael Corleone, a man gifted with great intellect, willpower, and a capacity for nearly endless ruthlessness, whose every action from the moment he put a bullet in Virgil Sollozzo's head had been to keep his family safe, to guarantee its fortunes and survival. And now, at the end of his life, he revisits his failures; the first wife that was murdered by a bomb meant for him, a second wife who grew to hate and fear him and killed his unborn child to escape him, and a daughter who adored and worshiped him, sharing Apollonia's fate in dying in his place.
I just watched the trilogy last weekend, and something stirred me about that final scene in III. It now strikes me that Don Ciccio's death presages Michael's in some way; both men are ultimately killed for their failures; Ciccio for not catching Young Vito, and Michael for not keep safe that which his father had built from the moment he fled from Don Ciccio. A closing of the circle, if you will.
