Michael Corleone joins the Army: Analysis of The Godfather Part 2

Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Godfather' Part 2

Blu Ray

Michael has a flashback of his father’s birthday, the day he announced that he’d joined the United States military. This scene is ironic in a couple of ways: 1) he separates himself from the Family business on the day of his father’s birthday and becomes the new Don of the Corleone Family on the day of his father’s death; 2) Michael joined the Army to fight and kill foreigners on behalf of his countrymen and at the end of the sequel he gives the order to have his own brother executed.

Everyone’s disappointed by his decision to join the Army because his father (symbolically, God) already has plans and a purpose for him. Michaels decision to join the military is out of rebellion against having his free will usurped by his all-powerful all-knowing father. Yet, in the end, he ends up being exactly what his father had originally designed for him to be. In the book, the Don says “every man has one destiny” and the film ends with Michael pondering the inevitability of his own destiny.

Kay Corleone's abortion: Analysis of a scene from 'The Godfather' Part 2

Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Godfather' Part 2

Kay's Abortion

The themes of Michael’s half of this sequel are death, extinction, suicide, murder; unlike the 1st film, life does not complement death. First, Hyman Roth tried to have him killed and now, in this scene in which his wife, Kay, threatens to take their children and leave him and he finds out the truth about her miscarriage. She had an abortion, she murdered his son! Her intentions for doing so are explicit; she wants to extinguish the Corleone Family. She is upset at the hypocrisy she sees in Michael at how he wiggled his way out of being prosecuted by flying in an alibi from Sicily. It isn’t a coincidence that Mama Corleone dies in this film. She was the last family connection to the homeland. Kay represents American hypocrisy, blind to its own evils yet critical of evils committed by others. In her world and her courts, she would have succeeded in depriving Michael of his children. However, in Michael’s world, he keeps the kids and kicks her out. From this point in the film, Kay is an outcast and not allowed to see her children although soft-hearted Connie did manage to allow Kay access when Michael wasn’t around. 

Fredo Corleone confesses: Analysis of a scene from 'The Godfather' Part 2

Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Godfather' Part 2

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 in the 1st Godfather film and Michael in this film are identical; they are both betrayed by someone in the family. In the 1st film, the Don was 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, they 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 Godfathers 1 and 2 were stalled because of tough negotiations, the other side felt that the only way to get what they wanted was to get regime change.