The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #161483   Message #3926376
Posted By: Charmion
22-May-18 - 11:04 AM
Thread Name: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
Subject: RE: BS: The Godfather and The Full Monty
Donuel, start with Monty Python, then move backward (in time) to Beyond the Fringe and The Goon Show. Lateral thinking combined with sparkling wit of the literary variety (think PG Wodehouse) and post-theatre of the absurd.

Senoufou, I agree with you completely on The Full Monty. Knowing what I do of north-English working-class culture, I found it very hard to laugh at scenes that were obviously played for laughs, and the character of Gerald, the ballroom-dancing ex-foreman, strikes me as the real hero of the story.

I read the Mario Puzo novel "The Godfather" long before I ever saw the film, so I never liked the film much; it left out everything in the novel that helped me understand what was going on -- to the extent that I did at that young age. Most of all, the ferocious sexism, sadism and sexual sadism that were overt and central elements of the novel were subordinated in the film to the power struggles between the criminal enterprises. The novel was (and is) a pulp pot-boiler of a type not much seen these days, probably because porn is so easy to find on the internet, but it conveyed an unambiguous message: people who grow up in a "might makes right" culture are easily corrupted because force -- physical, emotional, financial, doesn't matter what kind -- is their go-to way achieve any objective.

The whole point of the Mafia context of the story, I believe, is to show how effectively notions of "honour" can be used to camouflage "might makes right". That, and the opportunity provided by a cast of criminal characters to throw in every salacious fantasy Puzo could devise. Fortunately, the film industry of the 1970s did not tolerate much deviant sex in a mainstream theatrical movie; I hate to think what a screenwriter working today would make of the same material.