Analysis of a scene from 'The Godfather Part 2'

In this scene from 'The Godfather Part 2' Michael Corleone disowns his brother Fredo.

Fredo tells Michael everything. Hyman and Johnny Ola wanted regime change because Michael was a tough negotiator. Fredo helped them but he did not know that they would try to kill Michael. They had promised Fredo something of his own for a change. Fredo was fed up with getting handouts from his baby brother and running errands. Fredo  pours out his pain and frustrations and when he finishes Michael calmly asks for any info that could help him in the Senate hearings. And after getting the information he needs, Michael disowns his brother. Michael orders his bodyguard Al Neri not to let anything happen to Fredo while their dying mother is alive.

The attempted murders of Don Corleone and Michael in this film are identical; they are both betrayed by someone in the family. In the 1st film, the Don is betrayed by Sonny’s impulsiveness, and Michael is betrayed by Fredo’s greed. 

I want to mention a couple of real life comparisons to Michael’s attempted assassination. The 1st comparison I’d like to make is the Libyan Revolution. In 2009, Gaddafi proposed using African gold and doing away with the U.S. Dollar as the trading currency; in other words, Libya would only accept GOLD for their oil which would have been a “threat to the financial security of the world” according to the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Shortly after his proposal, America staged a coup by sponsoring Al Qaeda terrorists to overthrow Gaddafi. The so-called “rebellion” as the media described the coup, destroyed a 33 billion dollar irrigation pipeline that Gaddafi had built to supply his people with clean water among other atrocities such as the lynching of Black Africans loyal to Gaddafi, the raping of 9 year old girls and other slaughter against Libya’s populace, most of whom loved Gaddafi and his style of socialism. But Gaddafi was a tough negotiator and Nato needed regime change to get control of Libya’s oil, which it has done.

Another real life parallel to Michael’s attempted assassination is America’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In November of 2000, he said that he would no longer trade his country’s oil for U.S. currency and would instead trade Iraq’s oil for Euros because his country no longer wanted to deal in “the currency of the enemy.” Shortly afterward, America used 911 (including accusations of Saddam manufacturing weapons of mass destruction although no evidence of this was ever found) as an excuse to go after Saddam even though his country had nothing to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center. Following Saddam’s ouster, capture, and public lynching, America got the regime change it wanted as American oil company Halliburton (formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney) and other western oil companies privatized Iraqi’s oil fields. So, when negotiations in both Godfather films stalled, the other side felt that the only way to get what they wanted was to get regime change.

Why Apollonia had to die for Michael to return to Don Corleone and America

Art Of War, Chapter 9: The Army on the March

“Pass quickly over mountains, and keep in the neighborhood of valleys”--Sun Tzu

The Godfather (Mario Puzo): “Every man has but one destiny”

In this scene, Michael is still in exile in Sicily after murdering a New York Police Captain and a drug dealer. During his exile, he marries a young Sicilian woman named Apollonia. They are staying in the villa of a local Don who is a friend of The Godfather but for only a short time. Enemy spies are also in Sicily and Michael can’t stay in one place for long. His car is booby-trapped with a bomb that kills his new wife and this death of an innocent represents his baptism into his father’s world and seals his destiny to take over the Corleone empire. The Biblical metaphor here is that his love for Apollonia represented the one thing that could come between himself and complete unconditional surrender to his father’s will. Apollonia’s death and the poverty of his homeland enables Michael to fully understand his father’s determination to not be a puppet on anyone's string. Also, as explained in the previous clip, the Don had cleared the way for Michael to return to America and if Apollonia had not died, Michael may not have made the decision to return to America and stand by his father. Throughout this film, death complements life in some form or another.