![]() The New World way of life may undermine the immigrant’s Old World customs and traditions, and leave him without a moral compass. Carrying over Old World habits to the New may interfere with pursuing the American dream, while adapting to the fast pace of change in America can be disorienting to the Old World immigrant. Coppola portrays what it is to move from Europe to America and from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, and neither journey goes well for the immigrant. Their epic scale gives a wide geographic and historical scope to the films. ![]() The Godfather films also question whether it is possible to make a smooth transition from the Old World to the New. The demands of his business may draw a man away from his family, just as family loyalties may get in the way of business responsibilities. Devotion to one’s family often comes into conflict with commitment to one’s business. But the Godfather films do not accept the American dream of moving easily between these poles. In interrogating the American dream, the Godfather films turn on these two polarities: family versus business and Europe versus America (or more broadly: the Old World versus the New). One should be able to combine family and business to the benefit of both. In America, the land of optimism, all good things should be compatible. Like the family farm, the family business is at the heart of the American dream. A man dreams of his son going into his business (perhaps his daughter too). Ideally the business should provide the financial foundation for the family and it may even develop into a family business. The dream of founding a family and the dream of founding a business go together in America. ![]() Historically, many Europeans left a variety of forms of oppression in the old country to come to America as the land of freedom and opportunity, with the Statue of Liberty as its welcoming beacon. As we have seen in Huckleberry Finn, in the American imagination, Europe is the land of feudalism and autocracy, where the many are forever enslaved to the few. The dream of being self-employed developed in conscious opposition to the centuries-old European nightmare of servitude. An American should not have to work for someone else an American should not have to take orders from anybody. At a minimum, one should have a business of one’s own because the American dream is a declaration of independence. One should build a business empire and become rich beyond one’s wildest dreams. The other component is the classic American rags-to-riches success story. One aspect of the American dream-a role traditionally assigned to men-is to build a solid foundation for one’s family, to provide a good home and to promote one’s children’s growth and education. The Godfather films explore the two components of that dream: family and business. America is a land of immigrants and they are drawn to its shores by the American dream. Together they chronicle life in America in roughly the first half of the twentieth century (1901-1959). By linking that dream to the immigrant experience, The Godfather I and The Godfather II tell a foundational American story, perhaps the foundational American story. The film thus signals that it is going to examine the faith in the American dream. I believe in America-those are the first words we hear at the very beginning of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather I.
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