Daily Dialogue — September 22, 2013

Bonasera: I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom but I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a “boy friend,” not an Italian. She went to the movies with him. She stayed out late. I didn’t protest. Two months ago he took her for a drive, with another boy friend. They made her drink whiskey and then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor. So they beat her. Like an animal. When I went to the hospital her nose was broken. Her jaw was shattered, held together by wire. She couldn’t even weep because of the pain. But I wept. Why did I weep? She was the light of my life. A beautiful girl. Now she will never be beautiful again.

He breaks down at this point, and the Don gestures to his son to get him a drink.

Bonasera: Sorry…

He regains his composure and carries on.

Bonasera: I went to the police, like a good American. These two boys were brought to trial. The judge sentenced them to three years in prison, and suspended the sentence. Suspended sentence! They went free that very day! I stood in the courtroom like a fool, and those two bastards, they smiled at me. Then I said to my wife, “For justice, we must go to Don Corleone.”
Don Corleone: Why did you go to the police? Why didn’t you come to me first?
Bonasera: What do you want of me? Tell me anything. But do what I beg you to do.
Don Corleone: What is that?

Bonasera gets up from his seat and whispers into the Don’s ear; for a long moment the Don is silent.

Don Corleone: That I cannot do.
Bonasera: I will give you anything you ask!

— The Godfather (1972), screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, novel by Mario Puzo

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is asking a favor, suggested by rdlln.

Trivia: Gordon Willis insisted that every shot represent a point of view, usually setting his camera about four feet off the ground, keeping the angle flat and even. Francis Ford Coppola managed to get him to do one aerial shot in the scene when Don Vito Corleone is gunned down, telling Willis that the overhead shot represented God’s point of view.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this type of scene [asking favor] in cinema history.

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