Originally posted by Don Cardi:
But in truth Vito, Barzini and Tattaglia are all no good. Bottom line is that they are all the same type of criminals and murderers. But FFC and Puzo are such intelligent writers that they have a way of showing the good side, the intimate side of a criminal and his empire, and make you like that character. They allow you to get personal with the character. It's brilliant writing.
Your whole post was fascinating to read, Don Cardi. The paragraph above really echoed my thoughts. It was indeed brilliant of Coppola and Puzo to explore the psychological depth of the characters. The "bad guys" don't think they're bad. They're
justified; they have their own skewed moral code. The "good" characters in GF are not 100% moral (Kay, Tom, Fredo), just as the "bad" characters are not 100% evil: As you noted, some of them exhibit fine morals in certain aspects of their lives; but they allowed the dark, violent potential that exists in all of us to become their guiding principle.
How true it is that when we feel Vito's grief over losing Sonny, and when we pity Michael at the end of GF III, we're identifying with the good aspects we saw in them. Coppola and Puzo fleshed out their characterizations so well that we can, at times, lose sight of the way they made their living and the suffering they inflicted on others.
