Like Vito Corleone, Richard Hobby believes that men stop being men when they stop spending time with their families. Modern life is designed to facilitate the separation. From Hobby at thosewholovemecantakethetrain.substack.com:
In 1920 Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) kills Don Fanucci in New York in Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather II (1974). He then walks a few blocks and sits on the steps to his apartment with his wife and his three small children Sonny, Fredo, and Michael. He is a happy man. His wife is happy and safe. He has his family. And he is physically right there for his family. He has power—even if his domain is small.
Forty years later Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) says to Vito’s son Michael (Al Pacino): “We’re bigger than U S Steel.”
That may be, but in a way Michael has less power than Vito did sitting on those steps with his wife and three boys.
Michael: Tell me, when Pop had troubles . . . did he ever think, even to himself, that he had gone the wrong way; that maybe by trying to be strong and trying to protect his family, that he could . . . that he could . . . lose it instead?
Mama: You talk about the baby. She can have another baby.
Michael: No, I meant lose his family.
Mama: Your family? How can you ever lose your family?
Michael: But times are different . . . .
How did that happen? To all of us? For odd as it may seem Michael Corleone is every man in these times—these different times.
In this article I call attention to a serious problem that has been misunderstood. I use movies to help us see the problem more clearly, understand its true cause, and find a solution so we can move forward.
