Monthly Archives: July 2010

Jul 28 2010

Knight and Day: Film Review

Seeing Knight and Day was a consequence of our preferred movie, Toy Story 3, proving to be too expensive for a family (i have decided i hate 3D).  If the trailor was any indication, we had reasonable expectation that Knight and Day would be an enjoyable alternative, featuring Tom Cruise and Cameran Diaz and providing some rollicking entertainment – in theory a Rom.Action; an attempt to satisfy the gal and her bloke.

While my preference is for films that make you think, I don’t mind the occasional Friday night of mindless entertainment.  While certainly mindless, Knight and Day wasn’t all that entertaining.

Romance?  I can see what Cruise saw in Diaz (and no, i simply cannot remember who the actors were playing – this film was self consciously drawing on the star power of its two big names, and the characters they played were largely irrelevant), but the opposite attraction was just silly?  Do girls really go for killer spies that use and abuse them?  Would a girl really give herself to a murdering villain on the off chance that she might be rescued by an aging CIA agent – even if that agent was Tom Cruise?

Action? A little, but the filmmaker kept telling the story from the perspective of the character (whether Diaz or Cruise) who, for whatever reason, was unconscious.  Just when it looked like some action might be on its way, the film skipped the good bits!!! This might have provided a way for Hollywood to save on stunt expenses, but it meant that the action was left to the audience’s imagination.  The more this occurred, the more irritating it became.

Plot? Predictable and absurd.  While I appreciate that action films require the suspension of belief (and i love science fiction, so i am cool with fantasy) it is also important that a movie has at least a certain degree of internal coherence.  Knight and Day, however, cared nothing about the logic of the story.  In one scene near the end of the film, Cruise is about to enter a car chase after a fleeing bad guy.  The villain flees, but before he follows Cruise kills 4 faceless goons and engages in some repartee with Diaz, which ends in a passionate kiss.  10 minutes must have past before Cruise jumps on his motorbike, only to find himself a mere half a block from the fleeing baddie.

Character?  Cruise and Diaz are the only thing halfway likable about this film.  Both have a certain charm and Cruise, in particular, plays the ultimate cool madman.  But otherwise, , everyone is stereotyped.  Villains are greezy and stupid and absolutely hopeless shots.  Scientists are dweeby geniuses.  CIA agents are mindless drones.

Dialogue? The occasional funny line.  Look for Cruise making a joke of himself (playing a likeable madman).

All in all, Knight and Day is not merely a meaningless movie.  This might be forgivable if the action and passion of the film stimulated the adrenalin, which it doesn’t.  Worth watching only if you want to see Cruise and Diaz half naked on the beech.  Otherwise, go watch inception or Toys story – or anything else.

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Jul 27 2010

Belief and faith vs fideism

Perhaps it is the recent visit of Richard Dawkins to Australia or maybe I am imagining it, but it seems to me that the atheist attack on faith and belief is fairly intense at the moment.  Rather than be embarrassed to be a believer, however, i want to suggest that belief and faith are completely reasonable behaviours.

In fact, human progress is dependent upon belief.  As Bernard Lonergan observes, “progress in knowledge is possible because successive generations were ready to believe”.  Without belief, we would feel the need to start from scratch at every turn.  But this is to forget that ‘truth’ is a public reality and knowledge of that truth is a public and shared – beyond the capacity of any individual.  To function, to move forward, to create, we thus need to believe.

This is not to say that belief is unthinking.  Unthinking belief (fideism) leads to our ruin.  We might believe that homeopathy can cure our ills but if we have no grounds for this belief we may kill a child by neglecting evidenced based medicine (see story in SMH).  We might believe that a particular girl is in love with us, but without grounds for such belief we may well receive a slap in the face.  We thus need to put our belief to the test – to make a judgment on its veracity.  We do this in various ways.  We might, for example, be able to justify belief according to our own experience.  We believe the scaffolding will hold our weight because it has done so before.  Our experience is, however, limited, so our belief is also grounded on our willingness to trust the testimony of others.  In this case, we ascertain the veracity of our belief by judging the trustworthiness of the source.  I trust that a builder is expert enough to safely construct my new house, because she is an expert in her field (and i cannot nail a hammer in a wood).  Similarly, my own experience does not enable me to test the truthfulness of Einsteins theory of relativity.  But i can make a judgment that he is sufficiently qualified and intelligent – and that his work has been investigated by other cosmic physicists.  Thus, i can conclude my belief in the truthfulness of the theory of general relativity is reasonable.

Belief, although reasonable, is not certain knowledge, although it may become such.  If i gather sufficient evidence, i may be able to make the judgement that my belief is true – i.e. it is something i know for certain.  You might believe, for example, that Alphacrucis College had sold its property.  You might have good reason to assert this belief (you saw it in a newspaper).  But this belief would become certain knowledge only when you gathered sufficient evidence; when, for example, you witnessed the contract of exchange.  Of course, some things can only ever be believed, since certain knowledge of everything is beyond us.  I believe my house will not fall down tomorrow.  I have good evidence for this.  It did not fall down yesterday, and seems to be sturdily build.  But I don’t know the future and for all i know a plane might fall out of the sky tomorrow and come crashing through my roof.

Anyway, what has this rambling discussion got to do with Christianity?  Firstly, it reminds us that Christians who believe unthinkingly are in trouble.  Fideism (blind, irrational belief) leads to stupid actions – to patients who refuse medical treatment on the grounds that it would be ‘lack of faith’ – to people being duped into giving unreasonable sums of money to so-called health and wealth teachers; the list is endless.

Secondly, it helps us to assert that belief is not irrational.  We need to remember that we have good reason for our belief (and if we don’t we need to search such reasons out).  We have our own experience; the transforming work of God in our own lives.  We have the testimony of our friends and neighbours.  And we have the testimony of the writers of the Scriptures, and of the great thinkers of the church – Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther etc.  More than this, we can apply our own minds to the task of thinking through our beliefs – to putting our beliefs to the test.

Finally, however, we are reminded that our beliefs about God can never be certain knowledge, at least not of the sort that grounds science and that can be ‘proven’.  God always transcends our knowledge.  God is bigger and more mysterious then we can ever know, and so our belief is not certainty ( a fact that should lead us to be generous to those with different religious beliefs).  That is why belief in God is grounded in faith.  Lonergan suggests that faith is ‘knowledge born of religious love’.  It is the knowledge that God has revealed himself; that there is meaning and purpose in the world revealed ultimately in Jesus Christ.

As i noted in an earlier post faith is not the absence of doubt but, rather, a deeply intuitive trust in the goodness of God in the face of our doubts.  It is a trust that is revealed to us through Jesus, one that enables us to persevere through the hard times (even the ‘godforsaken’ times).  It is also a trust that grounds our beliefs, which may not be ‘provable’ to the atheist, but which are reasonable nevertheless.

Jul 25 2010

Faith and Doubt

A friend of mine has been struggling with faith.  One imagines, as a new Christian, that faith grows in time until it is transformed into certainty.  For many of us, however, the experience of growing older is not a movement into certainty but, rather, into ambiguity, as faith mixes itself with doubt.

We have, of course, been told of the heroes of faith in Hebrew’s 11, who were “sure of what they hoped for, certain of what they did not see.”  But most of us are not giants, and we lack the faith of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the crew of Hebrew’s 11.  Or do we?  More than a thousand years later, the writer of Hebrews can talk about the certainty of the faith of these men and women retrospectively, but i suspect that the actual experience of faith at the time was not as black and what as we sometimes assume.  Abraham, the paragon of faith, gives his wife (the mother to be of his promised child) to a foreign king in order to protect his own life – and he does so twice!  Isaac, the seed of Abraham’s faith, did the same thing to Rebekah.  And the ups and downs of Jacob’s life of faith don’t need retelling here.

I suspect that many a life that will, retrospectively, justly be declared to have been one of faith will have been one lived in the face of doubt. Indeed, what is faith without struggle and doubt?  If faith is trust in God, it is faith because sometimes we wonder what God is doing even, sometimes, whether God is really there at all.  Perhaps, after all, real faith is the preparedness to struggle with one’s doubts.  To face them honestly, to share them with a friend, to not find easy answers and yet, however tentatively, to move forward, pursuing the truth and goodness and beauty that we somehow know, deep within ourselves, is only found in God.

By Shane Clifton • Posted in Faith
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Jul 21 2010

Godfather Part III

It is easy for those of us watching the Godfather series on DVD to forget that Part III was released almost two decades after the phenomenally successful Parts I & II (in 1990).  Apart from Hollywoood’s usual goal of wringing every last cent from a successful film franchise, the third film intends to be both a celebration of the earlier films and a wrap up of the life of ‘the Godfather’, Michael Corleone.  It is generally considered to be the poor cousin of its predecessors and, indeed, it lacks something of their originality, complexity and compelling tension.  It also falls short in terms of the depth of the caste.  Gone are Brando and DeNiro (with Vito Corleone dead) and Robert Duval’s Tom Hagin is replaced with a forgetable lawyer. All that is left of the original is Pacino and Keaton, who are both excellent, but whose relationship is difficult to fathom.  Apart from Andy Garcia, who plays Sonny’s son Vincent (the next generation Godfather), the remainder of the supporting caste are relatively bland, and the movie focuses almost exclusively on the Pacino’s Michael. This is not to say that it is a bad film.  Apart from the fact that anyone who has seen Parts I & II will be compelled to see the story through to its conclusion, it remains a well scripted character study, and one that takes us thematically forward; moving beyond analysis of the ambiguity of evil to a reflection on the possibility of redemption.

Set in 1979, as Corleone nears retirement, the film narrates his struggle to leave his family with the legacy of a respectable and legal business empire.  On the surface the Godfather has accomplished the American dream, living in opulence and receiving the adulation of his society and the church.  The problem, however, is that the past is not so easy to leave behind – as Michael observes, “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in”.  Evil has a way of embedding itself, of working its way into the connections of family and visiting its punishments ‘to the third and fourth generation’ (Deut. 5:9).  Thus, notwithstanding his wealth and power, Michael has become a tragic figure.  His mafia ‘colleagues’, friends and enemies alike, will not let him escape.  More significantly, his family life is in crises. In his own mind, everything he has done has been for his wife and children.  But his ex-wife ‘dreads’ him.  His son wants nothing to do with him – “I will
always be your son, but I will never have anything to do with your business”.  The only bright spot is the love of his daughter, but he finds himself forced to lie to and manipulate her – for her own protection.    Reflecting on his life at the funeral of a friend, he notes

  • You were so loved, Don Tommasino. Why was I so feared, and you so loved? What was it? I was no less honorable. I wanted to do good. What betrayed me? My mind? My heart? Why do I condemn myself so? I swear, on the lives of my children: Give me a chance to redeem myself, and I will sin, no more.”

This longing for redemption starts with a $700 million gift to the Catholic church, but he soon discovers, not only that the “higher I go, the crookeder it becomes” (a sad indictment on a church corrupted by wealth and power), but that salvation cannot be purchased, that nothing he can give is sufficient to redeem and protect either himself or his family.  The subsequent exchange between the Godfather and Cardinal Lamberto (the one righteous priest in the film) is worth recording in full:

  • Cardinal Lamberto: Would you like to make your confession? Michael Corleone: Your eminence, I… it’s been so long… 30 years. I’d use up too much of your time. Cardinal Lamberto: I always have time to save souls. Michael Corleone: Well… I am beyond redemption. Cardinal Lamberto: I hear my own priests’ confessions here. The urge to confess can be overwhelming. Michael Corleone: What is the point of confessing if I do not repent? Cardinal Lamberto: I hear you are a practical man. What have you got to lose, eh? Michael Corleone: I… I betrayed my wife. Cardinal Lamberto: Go on, my son. Michael Corleone: I betrayed myself. I killed men, and ordered men to be killed. Cardinal Lamberto: Go on, my son, go on. Michael Corleone: I… ah, it’s useless. Cardinal Lamberto: Go on, my son. Michael Corleone: [choking up] I ordered the death of my brother. He injured me. [sobbing] I killed my father’s son. I killed my father’s son! Cardinal Lamberto: Your sins are terrible, and it is just that you suffer. Your life could be redeemed, but I know you do not believe that. You will not change.

As a Christian viewer, you would like to believe that there is some sort of healing in this confession.  Protestants might reject the ‘catholic’ nature of the confession, and decry the fact that the priest does not offer grace freely – that he expects something from Corleone.  But surely it is right that confession without change (without repentence) accomplishes nothing.  Too often we pedal what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls ‘cheap grace’ – grace without price.  But while redemption is freely and graciously available to all, it has to be appropriated, as Bonhoeffer goes on to note, grace is costly – what cost God the life of the son cannot be cheap for us.  Likewise, notwithstanding his confession, Corleone fails to repent – to change, and so he misses out on the redemption that is in fact available to him.

Thus, the film moves relentlessly toward what is one of the saddest conclusions of a Hollywood film ever.  More then the dramatic and brilliantly acted climactic penultimate scene (which i shall not spoil) is the tragedy of Corleone, finally an old man, dying alone on a chair in the dirt of sicily.  Whatever the flaws of this film, for Christian audiences it stands as a profound reminder of the need for redemption and the true significance of the gospel.

See my earlier reviews: Godfather Part I and Godfather Part II

Jul 16 2010

Church and Imagination

I am currently reviewing a book by Wolfgang Vondey , Beyond Pentecostalism – to be released by Eerdmans in August.  His chapter on Ecclesiology is inspiring me, and i thought i would share a brief quote.  He notes that base communities (grassroots local churches):

  • are meaningful and valuable … only if they function as cultural agents that are open to imagination, creativity, improvisation and change.

He is describing the way in which pentecostals develop a spiritual imagination that enables them to live in and speak to the cultures in which they find themselves.  This gives rise to the diversity that constitutes Pentecostalism, from house churches to prayer communities to ‘family churches’ to the megachurch – all of which can be said to be following and imagining the move of the Spirit in their own context.

The danger of this spiritual imagination is syncretism, where the surrounding culture corrupts the values of the gospel.  But the conservative response to this danger – dogmatism, traditionalism, institutional control – is wrong headed, since it destroys the very imaginative creative that is the fruit of the Spirit.  The alternative is the need to affirm the place of spiritual discernment – to hold together the creativity of Pentecostal spirituality with the voice of the prophets (which might include theological prophets).

Jul 14 2010

100 years old and a new world for women

My father’s Aunty Grace (Grace Hunter) turned 100 last Saturday (1o June).  Who would have imagined, in 1910, that a mere century later she would receive congratulations from:

  • Queen Victoria
  • Julia Gillard (Prime Minister)
  • Kristina Keneally (NSW Premier)
  • Ms Quentin Bryce (Australian Governor General)
  • Prof. Marie Bashir (Governor of NSW)

No doubt there is still some way to go before equality finds its way into all the social structures of society (e.g. the church!), but there is surely something significant in Aunty Grace’s celebration – aside from the awesome accomplishment of reaching that magic age.

By Shane Clifton • Posted in Gender
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Jul 12 2010

Church Unity

On Friday, I was invited to participate in an ecumenical symposium put on by the National Council of Churches in Australia, Faith and Unity Commission.  Held in Canberra, the event celebrated 100 years of the ecumenical movement, which traces its origins to the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh.  Its goal has been a vision of a united church in mission and, to this end, visible unity.

Although i have been involved in various ecumenical events, i have not been a participant in formal ecumenical dialogues or World Council of Churches and Faith and Unity Commission forums.  In this i am typical of our movement and my invitation to the event in Canberra to speak for Pentecostalism provided the ‘novelty’ factor; the strange pentecostal academic amidst the traditional churches!

This is not to say that Pentecostals have been against ecumenism, as is sometimes assumed.  It is noteworthy that global Pentecostalism traces its origins to around the same point in history as the ecumenical movement – to a series of revivals that occurred throughout the world in the first decade of the twentieth century which were ecumenical in spirit.  The early history of Pentecostalism involved the pursuit of revival, believing that the Holy Spirit was capable of breaking down the divisions that plagued the church. Pentecostal revival, thus, brought together black and white, poor and (occasionally) rich, women and men and people from diverse church denominations.  There was a strong desire to reject ‘tradition’ and ‘creed’, since these were understood as being both stultifying and divisive.  The founder of Australian Pentecostalism, for example, a women named Sarah Jane Lancaster, had as one of her driving motivations the goal of ‘non-doctrinal unity’- a unity in the Spirit that transcended creeds. Half a century later, the charismatic movement, with its roots in Pentecostalism, elicited a similarly ‘spiritual unity’ – a unity that set aside the formalities of doctrine and church structure, a unity that was informal and grassroots in its orientation, a unity that was grounded in the pursuit of the Spirit whose work it is to bring diverse people together.

Of course, i should not paint to much of an idealised picture. Pentecostalism has been far from perfect in its pursuit of church unity.  As is well known, the movement has become as denominationalised, as doctrinal, as divisive as any other.  It also tended to avoid the ecumenical movement, and few Pentecostal groups became members of World Council of Churches.  I have my own opinions as to why this was so – but i am interested in any suggestions.

Jul 8 2010

TD Jakes and the Trinity

The Bishop is back at Hillsong conference again this year**. Pastor of the Potter’s House in Dallas Texas, TD Jakes is not only an extraordinary communicator but the pastor of a church with an extraordinary missions program addressing issues of social and economic injustice.

While I am one to celebrate Jakes’ ministry, his invitation to preach in Australia has not been without controversy, largely because of his doctrine of the trinity, described on his website as follows:

For those familiar with trinitarian theology this is a fascinating doctrinal statement.  In using the word ‘manifestations’ rather than ‘persons’ it echoes the modalism traditionally considered to be heretical.  What is perhaps more interesting, however, is the attempt that has been made to mediate between Oneness and Trinitarian Pentecostalism.

Jakes’ himself was raised a Baptist but became a Pentecostal when joining the Greater Emmanuel Apostolic Church. A Oneness Pentecostal church, it is affiliated with the United Pentecostal Churches, a movement that explicitly rejects the doctrine of the trinity.  Its statement of belief notes:

  • In distinction to the doctrine of the Trinity, the UPCI holds to a oneness view of God. It views the Trinitarian concept of God, that of God eternally existing as three distinctive persons, as inadequate and a departure from the consistent and emphatic biblical revelation of God being one. The UPCI teaches that the one God who revealed Himself in the Old Testament as Jehovah revealed himself in His Son, Jesus Christ. Thus Jesus Christ was and is God. In other words, Jesus is the one true God manifested in flesh, for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (John 1:1-14; I Timothy 3:16; Colossians 2:9).

This position clearly reflects modalist perspectives, although it is not true to say that Oneness Pentecostals merely repeat ancient modalism.  In recent years, there have been formal dialogues between Trinitarian and Oneness Pentecostals, reports of which have been published in the Society of Pentecostal Studies journal. It is beyond our purposes to comment on this dialogue, except to applaud the move toward mutual understanding between these two movements with a common heritage and shared spirituality – whatever the extent of theological disagreement.

Back to Jakes.  The Potter’s House is an independent church that is not affiliated with the UPC.  As Jakes’ preaching became more public and ecumenical, he recognised the need to move away from the UPC rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity, but in doing so he sought to retain a friendship with the movement that shaped his ministry.  His doctrine on the trinity (see above) is thus an attempt to mediate between trinitarian and oneness pentecostals – taking on the form of the former but avoiding wording that would offend the latter (i.e. Trinity and Person).

Whether or not he is successful I will leave for you to decide.  In Feb 2000 Christianity today published a response by Jakes to charges that he was a “heretic”, My Views on the Godhead.  It is a fascinating read, reflecting a number of elements common to pentecostal theology.  These include

  • the restorationist tendency to avoid theology and tradition and “go directly to the bible” (from my perspective, an unfortunate method, since presumes we have little to learn from theological tradition and naively presumes we can access an unmediated biblical theology.  Unfortunate, but not heretical – and common to Pentecostal and conservative evangelical communities)
  • Efforts to affirm trinitarian theology without using the word ‘person’ – e.g. “My views on the Godhead are from 1 John 5:7-8, “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.”
  • Some unusual attempts to describe the trinitarian mystery.  e.g. “Many things can be said about the Son that cannot be said about the Father. The Son was born of a virgin; the Father created the virgin from whom He was born. The Son slept (Luke 8:23), but the Father never sleeps (Psalm 121:3—5). The Son took on the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3), but God is a spirit (John 4:24). Likewise, several characteristics are distinctive to the Holy Spirit (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit alone empowers (Acts 1:8), indwells (2 Timothy 1:15), and guides the believer (John 16:14). In spite of all the distinctives, God is one in His essence. Though no human illustration perfectly fits the Divine, it is similar to ice, water and steam: three separate forms, yet all H20. Each element can co-exist, each has distinguishing characteristics and functions, but all have sameness.”

The Christology implicit in this latter assertion is unusual indeed, since it makes a basic category error.  That is, it fails to distinguish between the two natures of Jesus, his full deity and full humanity.  In trinitarian terms, it thus makes no sense to say that the Son differs from the father because he was born a virgin and sleeps, since these are part of Jesus’ human nature not his deity.  Notwithstanding this, what is clear is that Jakes is attempting to affirm a trinitarian perspective by distinguishing between the (persons) of the trinity.  Whatever criticisms might be made of how he goes about it, this is NOT the view of a oneness pentecostal.

As a Pentecostal theologian, it is something of a disappointment to me that a public figure of Jakes’ stature does not seem to understand the insights church tradition.  If we are honest, however, Jakes is not alone in this; many (most) Christians would struggle to explain the doctrine of the Trinity or makes sense of the distinction between the two natures of Christ.  That does not make them (or Jakes) any less ‘saved’, any less in relationship with Jesus’, or any less effective in ministering the grace of the gospel.

To conclude.  I dare anyone to assert their own superiority over Jake’s in the things that matter most.  I might be better equipped to teach the doctrine of the Trinity, but i have more important things to learn from his dedication to the preaching of the good news of Jesus to the lost, poor, outcast, addict, abused etc.

Obviously, i believe that theology is important and that theological study helps enrich our proclamation of the gospel.  But Jake’s is surely also correct when he observes:

  • I look forward to the day when Christians do not judge one another by the diversity of our associates, nor the distinctives of seman­tics. Rather by the love of Christ we reflect, the integrity of our personal convictions, and the sweet fruit of both in our lives. There are a few things I would die for; a few more I would argue strongly; after that I am too busy trying to preach the Gospel to split hairs. People in my generation are lost, hungry, in prison, wounded, and alone…. Many of our generation are dying without knowing God — not dying for the lack of theology, but for lack of love.

** DISCLOSURE** I attend Hillsong South Western campus.  While I believe this does not colour my opinion, readers should be  aware of the potential conflict.

Jul 5 2010

The Godfather Part II – Film Review

The Godfather Part II is widely acknowledged as being that rare sequel that equals (perhaps betters) the original, a deserving winner of its six Oscars, including Best Picture.  Those setting themselves to the watching would be well advised to start early as the film runs at a staggering 200 minutes.  Apart from the need for an intermission (unless your bladder is stronger than mine) there is, however, no sense of time dragging; it captures your attention instantly, with the funeral of Don Vito Carleone and the crowning of Don Michael as the new Godfather, and when the film ends you still want more – thank goodness for Part 111!

The genius of this sequel is not only that it brings back to the screen everything that was great about the original; a steady and relentless pacing, a rich set of characters and outstanding performances, an emotive score, a series of surprising events and an emotional tapestry of joy, fear, love and hate.  More than this it takes us beyond Part I by telling two stories simultaneously; that of Michael and his increasingly tragic journey into the corruption of wealth and power, and that of his Father Vito’s early life and the emergence of ‘the family’ as a crime force in America.  Played perfectly by a baby-faced Robert De Niro (hard to recognise at first, but his voice and glance are soon familiar), Vito is a likable character, a generous rogue.  He is a killer, and a person not to be crossed, but he operates according to an ancient code of Sicilian ethics, kills only those who seem to deserve to die, and has about him a benevolence that is somehow attractive – although we can never forget that this is the same man who had a horse slaughtered in the previous film (among countless other murders).  By way of the interweaving of the two stories, Francis Ford Coppola contrasts Don Vito’s colourful life with the darker rule of his son.  It is a contrast drawn out by setting, light, cinematography and score , and the comparison is an increasingly tragic one.  Both men are powerful, successful in business, targets and victims and capable of brutal decisiveness, but where Vito draws people to himself, Michael is increasingly isolated; where Vito is a family man whose wife and children adore him, Michael, even when trying to save his family, repels them.

Of course, whatever their differences, Michael is what is his father has made him.  In telling Vito’s immigrant story, there is something being said about both the potentiality, as well as the corruption, of the American dream (as an Aussie, i should call this the capitalist dream of the West).  At the heart of that dream is the potent idea that anyone can succeed, including a penniless, orphan and uneducated migrant.  But success in this dog-eat dog competitive environment extracts a price, which seems almost inevitably to involve some degree of corruption of the soul and character of the ‘man’ (and i use the gender exclusive term deliberately).  Vito reaches for the American dream but when Michael has that dream in his hands it turns out to be illusory.  Of course we might respond that the issue is that the Corleone’s suffer because their success is built on crime but the film implies that their story is analogical, that every element of American power is similarly corrupted; policemen, lawyers, senators, business.

This corruption extends especially to the masculine nature of its social structures.  Women are kept completely in the dark about events.  When business is discussed, they are pushed out of the study and the door is shut.  They rarely ask about events and it seems they are largely unaware of the true nature of the families business.  They are, metaphorically, kept in the dark although it is the men whose black business is conducted in dark rooms away from the music and light of the wider family.  It is Diane Keaton’s Kay (Micheal’s wife) who eventually resists, aborting the male child of Micheal’s dreams and prayers.  Whether this marks a feminist transition for ‘the family’ is yet to be seen (and seems unlikely), but it is surely significant in the light of the 1970s feminist uprising underway when the film was made.

Once again, so much more could be said.  Godfather Part II was released in 1974.  The fact that it remains so eminently watchable and relevant almost four decades later speaks for itself.