It is always the contrasts between Vito and Michael that are more interesting to me, especially the revealing of how the old power system of Mafia does not fit in the new American democracy, freedom, and rule of law anymore, and how the attempts to maintain the old glory are doomed to failure. Michael Corleone's life allegorically suggests the fate of the othered in the face of the globalised Americanisation: his past as a college student and then a war hero defending America, his struggling transition from family-oriented business to " completely legitimate" enterprise whose capitalist modernity (free market & individualism) finally erodes interpersonal trust and family ties, the opposites of American values bringing about almost all the achievements of the Corleones.
Nevertheless, a dream remains a dream; everyone could have his/her American dream but the dream-come-true scene could never happen to an outsider even if he learns to play the game (reminds me of Rocky here). Michael's two marriages are symbolic: firstly with Apollonia, a traditional Sicilian girl whose life centre was her husband (Oh that thunderbolt-like passion, from which we see Michael's Sicilian blood in romance) and then with Kay, a respectable white middle-class woman believing in truth and social justice (Isn't she an incarnation of Liberty Enlightened the World ). Apollonia must die to concede Michael his American dream. The fateful line of the Corleones is right at the beginning of The Godfather: “I believe in America” (Definitely one of the best openings in film history!) Does America believe in him? He is the king of the empire of gangsters, yes, but also misfits (Gramsci's idea of hegemony can be placed here but I don't feel like going into further detail). Although what is gone is always romanticised, the film does subtly arouses audience's sympathy by breaking the dichotomy between hero and villain, good and evil, and showing the universal incompatibility all of us would feel at some point.
When routine bites hard and ambitions are low And resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow And we're changing our ways, taking different roads Then love, love will tear us apart again
It is love that leads Michael to the road of power; it is the road of power that kills that love.
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