Power's Price

The Godfather endures because it tells the truth about power:

• Organized crime mirrors American capitalism stripped of euphemism
• The baptism scene is cinema's most powerful use of montage as moral argument
• Michael's negative arc shows how competence and loyalty can become the instruments of destruction
• The film argues that the American Dream, fully achieved, costs everything that made it worth pursuing
• Power isolates, and absolute power isolates absolutely

The Godfather is not a film about gangsters. It is a film about America — about the gap between what the country promises and what it actually rewards.