The Gun, the Pen, and the Cannoli: Orality and Writing in The Godfather, Part I

Abstract

The overwhelming popularity of The Godfather argues for the fact that it serves as an American myth by suggesting resolutions to key contradictions in American society. These contradictions focus on the relationship between impersonal capitalism and the personal world of family relations. While this has been noted in previous studies of the film, the key symbolic tension between orality and writing has gone unnoticed. In this article we argue that food acts as a symbol of personal honor, ethnic authenticity, and family relations, which is brought into tension with the written word. For Don Corleone, food and drink set up cycles of long‐term exchange relationships, they seal oral contracts, and make “friendships” (i.e., business relationships). These are counterposed to the impersonal and. pseudo‐rational world of money and the written contract, as represented in this film by the non‐Italian world and the American legal system. Through the revelation of previously unexplored symbolic tensions, we hope to show the value of applying anthropological analysis to popular films.