My friend Nathan Pinkoski of the Zephyr Institute invited me to lecture at Stanford—if you’ve been following pomocon, you’ll notice, I’ve been thinking about what images of America we get from prestigious movies we somehow remember on their anniversary. The Godfather is on its 50th, it’s two generations removed from us, & therefore its influence has already spread to the point where it is difficult to trace. I’ve been writing about this movie, first to trace it back to its origin—serendipitously, conservative champion, not to say paladin, William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote a review of the movie when it hit theaters back in 1972! So I wrote about that conflict Buckley v Coppola, for my friends at the Acton Institute, not just to show how much the movie was opposed to decent opinion at the time, & how popular it was, & how decent opinion has retreated in recent generation—but also to look for some way to find some common ground between the two, with a partial success, in looking for tragic statements on the transformation of America in the 20th c.
I also wrote for my friends at The American Conservative, following this thought, the uses of tragedy in republican gov’t, an examination of the weaknesses of American institutions, as exploited by Michael Corleone, who after all has a touch of greatness… In one sense, the two essays are contradictory: Is Michael American or not? As American, he’s a criminal; as non-American, he’s a tragic hero. I think Coppola points to something very important by bringing out this contradiction, which ultimately points to love of the beautiful, the honor that man crave & the conflicts poets find interesting. Can America do well without such motives & investigations? Can America prevent their emergence as law-breakers? Can America include them somehow in the confused, but thrilling freedom people enjoy, or used to enjoy? I’ll be lecturing on these matters…