Analyzing Evil: Vito Corleone From The Godfather

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Hello everyone and welcome to the one hundred seventy-first episode of Analyzing Evil! Our feature character for this video is Vito Corleone from The Godfather. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for watching. If you have any feedback or questions feel free to let me know below!

00:00-23:54 The Beginning
23:54-53:58 Skip The Chapter
53:58-1:10:59 The End

The song in this video was provided by CO.AG

#thegodfather #movie #villain

[TheVileEye]

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[rafaelgustavo]

Frank Herbert was right: Charismatic leaders make people forget that you are often dealing with monsters.

[KingMordred]

*Sad fact:* Marlon Brando's final role was playing Vito again for the Godfather game. At that time, he already had a terminal illness and needed a oxygen cylinder to breathe, so the developers could only get one valid audio for the final game. This last audio of Brando ends with him saying "Well, that's life. Everybody's got their own candle of sorrow"
😢

[MS-jpop]

The Godfather always reminds me of something my Grandma used to say: "We always make the worst choices when we think we have no choice."

[KingMordred]

It's quite fascinating that the cat that Vito caresses in the opening scene was a stray that Brando found on the set and decided to include in the film in an improvised way. Curious that many iconic moments in film history occurred by pure coincidence

[CoralCopperHead]

"This guy is giving us free advertising, shut him down!"
"Uh, sir-"
"Shut him down he's using our footage!"
"Sir, you did say *_free advertising, _* right?"
"COPYSTRIKE HO"
"...screw this job."

[MrfrogAXN]

Marlon Brando played Vito perfectly. I truly enjoyed his performance.

[paulnye]

Vito Corleone achieved the true heights of Machiavellianism. Both loved and feared at the same time but also not hated. In that respect he was a better Don than Michael.

I’d like to see an Analyzing Evil on the cult classic flick The Warriors. A lot of interesting characters both villains and antiheroes.

[osman]

Vito is a sanitised representation of the "virtues" of the mafia, embodying all of the mythology it has developed about itself, its lofty principles of honour, loyalty, pride, respect, etc.

We see that greed was never his motivation. He gained his Godfather status through purely defensive violence against vile and powerful extortionists. He learned in Sicily that society's official laws and government won't protect ordinary people, and he sees the exact same corruption in New York. So he stands up to protect himself with violence, and eventually extends his umbrella of strength and influence to his friends and neighbours.

Through some petty crime, he wins the respect and loyalty of tough guys and criminals. They follow him for his generosity, integrity, wisdom and cunning rather than intimidation or money. All the Corleone violence is done in service of the greater good: expanding and enforcing the sphere of influence of this deeply virtuous man. He reciprocates the loyalty of those who follow him. He shares opportunities with them and spares them hardships. It becomes a matter of ethnic pride and solidarity. The neighbourhood extend voluntary payments to him in gratitude and respect for his protection and friendship, in contrast to the threats inherent in 'protection' rackets of others. Even all of his ambitious plots against rivals and the expansionist violence is explained away as him building a calming control over a chaotic and bloody criminal underworld. The streets are peaceful and his reign is progressive, reasonable and conciliatory.

But even this most virtuous man cannot contain and manipulate these dark forces forever to his benign ends. The evils (greed, amibition, jealousy, paranoia, violence) that he plunged his family into ends up ripping it apart over several generations. It begins to fall apart during his reign, with the Sollozzo conflict. And then after his death, the whole empire is now in the hands of someone without all of Vito's golden qualities. Even his superhuman vision, virtues, strategic mind, etc was not enough to escape the consequences of the evils he pursued.

[shenloken]

Don Corleone: The kind of “bad guy” who you could serve under or be indebted to and be treated fairly and justly as long as you don’t break your loyalty to him.
Sometimes his protection and influence serves one better than that of the so-called “good guys” in the justice system and law enforcement of regular society. Just remember…one day when you are called to do a service for the don, it will be “an offer you can’t refuse!”

[TetsuShima]

"Save your anger, save it. When you're old enough, and the time is right, you will take your revenge"

This quote from the Godfather's game is one of Vito's most underrated. You can tell he, while comforting the protagonist, is seeing at that moment the sicilian boy who lost his family in 1901

[Ravenclaw]

No one else could’ve played Don Corleone better than Brando. My mom is Sicilian, and she constantly quotes the Don on a daily basis. Anytime me or my sister tried to argue with her about something, she would always end it with, “What offer can’t I refuse?” Her nickname at bowling night is Don Mama.

[Kemot]

Don Fanucci (dying): Why Vito?
Young VIto: You took my job!

[pcu]

The Don... A normal man, no superpower, no silly outfit. A character that is completely timeless played by an actor who was limitless in the role.

[Calvin-kscr]

Remember Mario Puzo saying in an interview " just because your a criminal doesn't mean you dont have good virtues".

[thegameplayer]

the perfect example of a villain who really doesn't show the characteristics of an evil monster. vito created his criminal empire so that way his children could grow up without the violence, poverty, or as orphans who only survived out of the good will of others like vito himself did. he ultimately saw becoming a crime lord as the only way to truly give his children the life they deserve, especially michael who vito saw a lot of himself in

[LinkEX]

Surprised you'd keep such an iconic character until the 171st episode.

Then again, I imagine that left you more time to revise the script.
Plus there's only so many universally known characters you can cover, so having them spread out across a longer timeline is a nice touch.

(And that said, much respect for being so prolific on these analyses!
That many Episodes would be commendable even if these only were 10 minute reviews.)

[martyjohnstone]

Long ass day at work, come home having to do a buttload of housework. Put on YT for some listening material - You have literally saved my day, Vile One!! ❤

[FookMi]

This one was long overdue. One of the greatest villains in cinema, in one of the greatest movies in all of cinema.

[Brandon-a-writer]

One of my favorite examples of irony in the Godfather is the nightmares the Undertaker has after he is helped by Don Corleone. He dreams of Vito coming by with nothing but corpses and telling him to hide away the body. When Vito finally comes to him, he brings his son, not to hide him, but to make him more presentable so mama Corleone wouldn't have to see how bad he looked in death. The writing is extremely mature despite the pulp fiction flavor you get from it.

Great vid