Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather can serve as an artifact for ethnographic study, presenting as it does a full and detailed picture of a social subgroup in American society. The plot of the film focuses on the criminality of members of this subgroup, but in a broader sense the story of the Corleone family reflects a number of other forces in American society--the immigrant experience, the maintenance of certain Old World social structures in the New World, and a family organization that is different from the prevailing structure in American society at large. The film tells the story of a specific family in a way that reflects the experience of a large number of people from a similar background at this particular time in American history.

The story of The Godfather derives from a novel by Mario Puzo, an Italian-American familiar with this milieu and with the experience of Italian immigrants and their descendants. Director Francis Ford Coppola is also an American of Italian descent and similarly understands the family and community structures of this population. Of course, the film was criticized because it told the story of a narrow fringe of the Italian community, the criminal fringe, so that many may have believed that the film was presenting this fringe group as the norm. The criminality of this family is not presented as the norm for Italian Americans at all but as the "business" in which this family operates. The family structures and social relations of t

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e they sell drugs in their mother's neighborhoods, one of the reasons Don Corleone wants nothing to do with them or their business. The Italians in the film show a sort of xenophobia toward other ethnic groups, using them as needed (as they do with the police captain) but otherwise holding them at arm's length. This familial feeling toward Italians extends beyond the immediate family group or even the extended crime family. Don Corleone in the beginning of the film is fulfilling a custom--since his daughter is being married, he holds court and listens to the pleas of Italians in the community, and if it is in his power he has to fulfill their wishes and offer them assistance because it is his daughter's wedding day. There is a quid pro quo about this custom, since men like the undertaker who wants his daughter's honor avenged are expected to return the favor later, and all this is contained within the larger ethnic community. Kinship is clearly a vital concept for this subculture, both the kinship of the immediate family and the kinship of the wider Italian community. There is a hierarchy to the kinship group based on age so that the godfather is the highest position and so that each of the sons has a role based on his age.

Category: Film - F