The Godfather Part 2: truth or fiction?
Analysis of an early scene in the life of the Godfather
The Godfather Part 2 is a 1974 movie about crime, mafia crime. It’s about killing and profiting from illicit trade, like gambling and prostitution and olive oil. Well, the olive oil itself is okay, but it’s a front for other more dubious trades, like stolen dresses.
At one point in the story, the character played by Robert de Niro (Vito Corleone) is asked by a neighbour (Peter Clemenza, played by Bruno Kirby) to guard over some items of his for a short while, which Vito does. He peeks into the cloth-wrapped package and discovers that it contains firearms. Later, when the urgency has passed, Clemenza reclaims the guns. He asks if Corleone has looked into the package and Corleone says he has. Clemenza says he wants to reward Vito for that favour, if Vito will just come with him for a while.
The two are next seen at the door of a fine house, and Peter secures their entry. In an ante-room lies the object of Peter’s generosity: an Ashkan rug. As they move the table that is situated on the rug in order to roll it up, there is a noise at the glass front door, behind which is a net curtain rendering the view into the house opaque. Clemenza goes and conceals himself behind the right-hand door jamb and, significantly, draws a pistol as we see the shadow of a policeman peering through the glass. Thinking that nothing is amiss, the policeman retreats and Clemenza re-holsters his gun. But this little manoeuvre reveals much: Clemenza was obviously prepared to shoot the policeman dead had he come into the house. In the next scene, we see Vito laying the new rug in his home, to the delight of his wife and small child.
Image: Bruno Kirby as Peter Clemenza, concealed at the door of the house from which he is stealing a rug.
Dramatis personae:
Vito Corleone in the role of the Zionists.
Peter Clemenza in the role of Great Britain.
The policeman in the role of the League of Nations.
The Ashkan rug in the role of Palestine.
The firearms wrapped up in cloth in the role of the Zionist movement in London in the years 1880 to 1917.
In the film, Clemenza asks Corleone for some clandestine help: the concealment of the firearms.
In World War I, Great Britain secures the help of Zionists to conquer the Turkish Empire.
In the film, Clemenza shows his willingness to murder the policeman.
In the aftermath of World War I, Great Britain shows its willingness to contort the aims of the League of Nations in order to fulfil its own promise to the Zionists.
In the film, the rug is stolen by both Clemenza and Corleone, but ultimately ends up being given to Corleone in gratitude for his assistance in concealing the weapons (but he does have to help in stealing it).
In the history of Palestine, it gets stolen also with the joint efforts of Great Britain and the Zionists, with Great Britain ultimately giving it to its fellow thief, the Zionists.
The role of the firearms needs no further explanation.
Of course there is one huge difference between the history of Palestine and The Godfather Part 2. No, it’s not that Great Britain and the Zionists are good and that Clemenza and Corleone are bad. In fact, there’s an argument that it’s the other way around.
Nor is it that the rug belonged to someone before it was stolen and Palestine didn’t. They both belonged to someone before they were stolen. In the film, we never find out who the owner of the rug is. And Palestine: who does that belong to, before it’s stolen? Well, it was promised to the Arabs, then appropriated by the British, in a deal struck with the French, which constituted a betrayal to the Arabs, before being gifted to someone else, so it’s a question that is still being debated. The Zionists say it was theirs, but on shaky reasoning.
No, the difference is this: in the film (which is fiction) neither Clemenza nor Corleone lies, not even when the audience perceives them as being criminals. It almost has to be fiction for that to be the difference, though.