How did the Don know?
October 16, 2017 9:32 AM   Subscribe

A question about The Godfather.

After the summit of the five New York crime families that sets The Godfather rolling toward its climax, Don Corleone famously says of his family's enemies, "Tattaglia's a pimp—he never could've outfought Santino. But I didn't know until this day that it was Barzini all along." But why and how did he come to this conclusion that Barzini was the source of the Corleones' woes? And did it even matter, since Michael wound up exterminating all the other families anyway?
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell to Media & Arts (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I always thought it was because Barzini says something like "a refusal is not the act of a friend......Don Corleone has all the judges in his pocket.." And then Barzini goes on to say who will give up what to keep the peace.
posted by jtexman1 at 9:55 AM on October 16, 2017


This is the way I've always assumed it worked: during the summit, Tattaglia looks over in clear deferral to Barzini. Vito picks up on this.

One of the ways it mattered was that whoever came to Michael with the proposition he meet with Barzini would reveal themselves (Sal Tessio) to be a traitor within the Corleone family. So regardless of his intent to wipe out the competition, Michael needed to know who was in cahoots with Barzini.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:55 AM on October 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


Barzini basically runs the meeting. There's a bit of play-acting between him and Tattaglia, but clearly Barzini has the concessions he wants in mind before he walks into that room, and he maneuvers Corleone into a position where he can't refuse without looking unreasonable in front of all of the other families. (And Don Corleone lives and dies by his reputation for reasonableness.) If you're already assuming that Tattaglia has a powerful backer, it makes sense that the guy who sails in to resolve things by forcing the very concessions that Tattaglia asked for is a good place to look.
posted by firechicago at 10:29 AM on October 16, 2017 [9 favorites]


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