I'll begin by telling you that The Godfather I and II are among my favorite films. My family and I have seen them so many times we quiz each other: Who said, "I'm the hunted one"? "Let me dip my beak"? "You can't come to Las Vegas and talk to a man like Moe Green like THAT!"?
You get the idea.
John and I were also big fans of TV's The Sopranos. I realized I had been watching it too much when I found myself muttering about an electrician, "What the f--k did that motherf----- do?"
There is a flip side to that record.
Yesterday I watched Paolo Borsellino, a film based on true events in Sicily in the 1980's and early 90's. Borsellino and his closest friend, Giovanni Falcone, were anti-Mafia judges who were making progress in their fight against the criminals. Their successes put their lives, and those who protected them, at risk.
John and I were also big fans of TV's The Sopranos. I realized I had been watching it too much when I found myself muttering about an electrician, "What the f--k did that motherf----- do?"
There is a flip side to that record.
Yesterday I watched Paolo Borsellino, a film based on true events in Sicily in the 1980's and early 90's. Borsellino and his closest friend, Giovanni Falcone, were anti-Mafia judges who were making progress in their fight against the criminals. Their successes put their lives, and those who protected them, at risk.
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Both men were killed by the Mafia in audacious bombing attacks just two months apart in 1992. Falcone's wife died with him, along with three police officers hired to protect him. Borsellino died outside his mother's apartment with five police officers, one of them a young woman.
Their murders caused such outrage in the country that it renewed determination to fight the Mafia. The film uses actual footage of the events to great effect. The emotional funeral speech of Rosaria Schifani, wife of one of the policemen killed with Falcone, in which she pleaded with the Mafia to have the courage to "cambiare" (change) had me in tears though I could not understand every word.
Less than a year later, in 1993, Mafia boss Salvatore Riina was arrested for ordering the murders. He and the man who actually detonated the bombs are serving life sentences.
Stay with me as I move to 1998 or 1999, when part of John's portfolio in Vienna included the United Nations Drug Control Agency.
The head of the Agency was an Italian and former friend of the slain judges. He maintained that the Mafia had been crushed in Sicily, and to prove it, the Agency held a major conference in Palermo. There was to be a trip to Corleone, the village historically at the center of Mafia activity, for presentation of a plaque saying that it was now Mafia-free.
We arrived at Palermo's Falcone-Borsellino Airport to find the city in total lock down. Carabiniere (military police force) had been brought in from all over Italy to protect us. Security was complex and layered. There were cameras and barbed wire everywhere. As our vans made their way through the city, it was eerily deserted. Streets were barricaded and every corner had a contingent of armed soldiers.
The touted trip to Corleone, which was to have included anyone who wanted to go, ended up as a a quick helicopter ride for a few conference bigwigs who buzzed in, had a picture taken with a plaque declaring it to be a Mafia-free zone, and then whirled out again.
Maybe the Mafia was neutralized, but no one was taking any chances. That conference was six or seven years after the assassinations of Borsellino and Falcone and convictions of their murderers.
So where am I going with this?
I am always going to appreciate The Godfather films and The Sopranos TV series for the spellbinding cinematic power (the former) and the writing (the latter). Okay, I have to add the young Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, too.
In those screen portrayals of the underworld, the bad guys eventually get what they deserve (I think Tony Soprano was killed in the final inconclusive episode).
Film biographies like Paolo Borsellino remind us that too often the good guys don't. Fighting against something rotten gets them killed. Borsellino and Falcone knew the dangers they faced, but as Falcone said, "If you are afraid you die a thousand times. If you are not afraid, you die only once."
It seems to be a given in Italy that there will be occasional outrage at the excesses of the Mafia, some kingpins will be imprisoned, and then life will return to the way it always was.
The Mafia by all its names seems to be alive in 2009, particularly in its home bases of Sicily and Calabria.
Did Borsellino and Falcone die for nothing?
Their murders caused such outrage in the country that it renewed determination to fight the Mafia. The film uses actual footage of the events to great effect. The emotional funeral speech of Rosaria Schifani, wife of one of the policemen killed with Falcone, in which she pleaded with the Mafia to have the courage to "cambiare" (change) had me in tears though I could not understand every word.
Less than a year later, in 1993, Mafia boss Salvatore Riina was arrested for ordering the murders. He and the man who actually detonated the bombs are serving life sentences.
Stay with me as I move to 1998 or 1999, when part of John's portfolio in Vienna included the United Nations Drug Control Agency.
The head of the Agency was an Italian and former friend of the slain judges. He maintained that the Mafia had been crushed in Sicily, and to prove it, the Agency held a major conference in Palermo. There was to be a trip to Corleone, the village historically at the center of Mafia activity, for presentation of a plaque saying that it was now Mafia-free.
We arrived at Palermo's Falcone-Borsellino Airport to find the city in total lock down. Carabiniere (military police force) had been brought in from all over Italy to protect us. Security was complex and layered. There were cameras and barbed wire everywhere. As our vans made their way through the city, it was eerily deserted. Streets were barricaded and every corner had a contingent of armed soldiers.
The touted trip to Corleone, which was to have included anyone who wanted to go, ended up as a a quick helicopter ride for a few conference bigwigs who buzzed in, had a picture taken with a plaque declaring it to be a Mafia-free zone, and then whirled out again.
Maybe the Mafia was neutralized, but no one was taking any chances. That conference was six or seven years after the assassinations of Borsellino and Falcone and convictions of their murderers.
So where am I going with this?
I am always going to appreciate The Godfather films and The Sopranos TV series for the spellbinding cinematic power (the former) and the writing (the latter). Okay, I have to add the young Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, too.
In those screen portrayals of the underworld, the bad guys eventually get what they deserve (I think Tony Soprano was killed in the final inconclusive episode).
Film biographies like Paolo Borsellino remind us that too often the good guys don't. Fighting against something rotten gets them killed. Borsellino and Falcone knew the dangers they faced, but as Falcone said, "If you are afraid you die a thousand times. If you are not afraid, you die only once."
It seems to be a given in Italy that there will be occasional outrage at the excesses of the Mafia, some kingpins will be imprisoned, and then life will return to the way it always was.
The Mafia by all its names seems to be alive in 2009, particularly in its home bases of Sicily and Calabria.
Did Borsellino and Falcone die for nothing?
top photo: starpulse.com
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