Movie Deaths For Which I Never Felt Much: Episode 1: Apollonia from The Godfather by Mike Meehan on March 1st, 2009
I’m a movie-crier. I’ll let that cat out of the bag right away. I’ve let the moist eye puppies out for a walk many a time. If it’s a sound friendship that has been tried and tested during a tumultous search for a dead body set to a 50s doo-wop soundtrack, a father and son playing catch after the latter brings the former back to life due to not helping the local economy due to a morbid-baseball-related agenda, or an elderly man gradually reaching the end of his life in the form of a cradled infant, my shirt sleeve’s gettin’ cried-the-fuck-on.
From here I’ll begin my point. Some deaths on screen are meant to Mike Tyson Punch Out our tear ducts, Michael and Janet Jackson scream in terror, or, most unsettlingly, satisfy our desire to see the bitch croak.
I won’t go deep into psychological rhetoric regarding what drives these death wishes and murder boners, as there have been several well-layered articles on the subject already. Instead, I’ll go into a semi shot-by-shot analysis of one very famous who-gives-a-crap death in cinema; Apollonia Vitelli-Corleone from The Godfather.
Backstory: Squeaky-clean Michael Corleone made his first organized hit, and he’s fled for Italy. He meets a hot Italian girl and they get married, even though he was just in a serious thing with Diane Keaton. Meanwhile, in America, shit goes crazy. Mafia families are blaming each other for various things, Corleones are caught in the middle, and brother Sonny is beautifully shot to high hell.
Before learning of his wacky brother’s demise, he’s teaching Apple Martin-Corleone how to speak English and drive a car terribly. He leaves the car, and speaks to his friend whom reluctantly breaks the tragic news from America. It’s a powerful moment. The camera objectively looks at both the messenger and the recipient. We can’t possibly comprehend what goes through Michael’s mind; his actions back home no doubt caused this to happen. He’s lost his big brother. We can only linger on these feelings for a few seconds, and then…
HONK HONK HONK
An annoying-as-hell whiny brat voice from the car, begging him to come back to teach her how to drive a car terribly and putting the days of the week in the wrong order. Completely ruining a moment of deep emotion.
Yes, she didn’t know of the situation’s gravity. I’ll admit, I didn’t think too too poorly of Apollonia when this happened. However, when her car eventually got blowed up real good, I didn’t feel badly at all.
Looking back, why would I feel badly? Coppola made certain that we audience members subconsciously wished for her death. He knew from the get-go that we would love Annie Hall (5 years before Annie Hall came out, impressively enough) and, although she was nice at the start, hate Apollonia’s whiny brat days-of-the-week-dyslexic eventual blowed-up arse. As well, she interrupted what could have been a heartbreakingly beautiful mourning scene.
So there you have it. A lovely, innocent woman dying for reasons out of her control…and we LOVE it.
It takes a master craftsman to accomplish such a feat.
Make that a once-master craftsman.
