Not easy to seize power in the mafia

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2007)

The USA have reached a point of no return in 1972 that is going to lead them to their final defeat in Vietnam and their tremendous decline in the world. At this moment too the consumer's society has produced a new need in western societies, the need for some artificial paradise that could compensate the materialistic narrow-mindedness of modern life, the lack of spirituality in mass consumption. This paper tiger of a paradise is brought by drugs. The drug market explodes, and first of all in the USA. The mafia is confronted to this problem in New York and elsewhere. The older generation of the Godfather refuses this evolution and that brings some kind of confrontation among the five families or clans and the police of course that tries to put their hands on the profit without soiling their fingers. At the same time the Godfather is brought to realising that he has to let a younger generation take over. First an agreement is reached about drugs : drug trafficking will be accepted but regulated. No drugs to minors and in schools, and drugs in priority to the dark ones, the blacks in an attempt to keep this « cancer » contained in the most hated community in the US. This though is not enough to pacify the streets of New York. The Godfather's death is the signal for one of his surviving sons, appointed guardian of the business by the godfather himself, to take over. It is done in the most typical method of the mafia : the five families are decimated at their heads, including the Corleone family. The new Godfather eliminates his brother in law who is responsible for the death of one of the brothers. Brutal, ruthless, pacifying for sure for a while but the promise that with time vengeance will bring strife again. The depicting of power in a feudal system like that of the Sicilian mafia based on the signoria, on the absolute autonomy of each family and their right to defend their territories and their interests by any means including killing, including children and women. Francis Ford Coppola takes a very visible pleasure in this depiction that he complacently shows in its very minute details of cruelty and viciousness.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne