So, before I go on, I have to point out that this essay will not be an analytical essay on The Godfather as whole, nor will I be examining in depth its depiction of Italian-Americans, the mob, New York City, or midcentury America. These themes have all been covered many times before. Godfather scholarship can fill its own library. This essay is more about Diane Keaton’s contribution to the film – her performance and her character’s significance to the film.
There’s a lot of mythology, canonization, and fandom surrounding Godfather and its sequels. It’s regularly lauded as the greatest example of American cinema. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola who wrote the script with Mario Puzo (whose book served as the inspiration of the book), Godfather focuses one a crime family, the Corleones, specifically Michael (Al Pacino), the youngest son of Corleone patriarch, Vito (Marlon Brando). Michael is seemingly diffident about his family’s “work” unlike his brothers Sonny (James Caan), Fredo (John Cazale), and adopted brother Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall). The Corleone family’s fortunes are also imperiled by the tempestuous, yet tragic daughter, Connie (Talia Shire). It’s a violent film, one that shows the consequences of getting tied up in the amoral world of organised crime, yet it’s also a weirdly glorified vision, too, particularly due to the charismatic work of Brando as the commanding and expansive Vito.
The Godfather has been the subject of various panels and talks, with its stars becoming film legends due to the film’s important place in film history. Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, and James Caan are largely identified by the film and its legacy (Robert DeNiro would join this pantheon with his work in the even-better sequel The Godfather II). Predictably, the women in Godfather aren’t as central to the action, often acting as peripheral characters. In The Godfather we only have two women of note: Connie and Keaton’s character, Kay Adams, the WASP wife of Michael.
Despite her legend, Keaton’s contribution to The Godfather franchise is seemingly minimal compared to those of her costars. She’s rarely brought up in the discussions of the brilliance of The Godfather her work rarely getting much attention, due to the brevity of her presence in the film as well as the marginalization of her character.
So, I was curious how an actress like Diane Keaton would have gotten cast in The Godfather. It’s a role that is easy to underestimate, particularly in the largely masculine confines of the film and the action. Keaton had only done one other feature film, 1970’s Love and Other Strangers. She wasn’t a big star, at this point, nor had she established a screen persona. And the role as it reads on the film didn’t require the extraordinary work of a great actress.
In an Instagram stories AMA, Coppola answered Keaton’s question of her casting. He mentioned her work in Broadway musical Hair and that she brought a certain quality to her audition, belying the “vanilla” quality of Kay’s personality, bringing it depth and humor. According to Coppola, Keaton brought something more to the character – filling out whatever was missing on the page.
After several repeated views, it’s still unclear whether Coppola was being truthful or generous.
It’s true that Keaton does a solid job in the film. Her work is fine but there’s little for her to do much and she gets simply swallowed up by the force of Pacino’s work as well as the heavy themes of the film.
Keaton’s first appearance as Kay is at Connie’s wedding to Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo). Michael is a former marine (he’s wearing his uniform at the wedding), and Kay is his plus one. Kay stands out. In comparison to Kay’s creamy WASPiness, the rest of the Corleones appear very ethnic. Populated by character actors, the physical appearances of the character range in size, age, and fitness. Kay is freshly pretty, and pulls focus when she’s sitting at a table with Michael. Because she’s new, she exhibits a naivete – as opposed to Michael, who displays a discomfort.
Coppola creates scenes through colors, rich browns, yellows, and blacks – a choice done by the director and his cinematographer Gordon Willis. The end result feels muted and lit by candlelight – a beauty that juxtaposes with the brutality of the action. The scene in the wedding is a refreshing break, though, a moment in the sun-dappled outside, free from the looming, almost-oppressive shadows of the indoor scenes with Vito taking requests from various family associates.
Keaton is wearing a white, wide-brimmed hat and a red dress with polka dots. She’s dressed markedly different, her sartorial choice, a symbolic way of clueing us into her outsider status. She’s an intruder in this world and an observer, like the audience. The rest of the women at the wedding are either wearing pinks, pastels, or florals, and of course, Carla’s wearing white. The vibrancy of her dress, which stands out even further because of the bright white of her hat and the white of the wide collar, sets her apart.
As she and Michael are sitting at a table, Kay spots Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana) preparing himself for his audience with Vito Corleone. As part of pulling together his A-game is to go over his prepared speech. Kay points him out to Michael. “Michael,” she says behind her cigarette as her companion is eating, “see that scary man over there?” He agrees that Brasi is a “very scary” guy. Kay’s curious and pushes him for an explanation, which Michael is reticent to give. Their chat is interrupted by Hagen who ushers Brasi towards Vito’s office, but not before greeting Michael and being introduced to Kay. It’s here that Coppola begins to educate his audience through Michael educating Kay. We’re outsiders just like her. He describes Hagen as a potential consigliere, a position within an Italian-American mob, a confidant of the don. Kay doesn’t know what that means and Michael gives her an evasive, incomplete answer – suggesting that he’s simply an advisor.
But Michael cannot shield Kay forever, and it’s clear that he has feelings for her (he even pulls her into a family portrait despite her giggly protests). As they watch Johnny Fontane (Al Martino), a famous pop singer, entertain the family, Kay is duly impressed. Michael cryptically mentions that Fontane and the Corleones have done work for each other. After being pressed, Michael goes into a terrifying story of how Vito managed to get Fontane freed from a contract with a recalcitrant big band leader who wouldn’t release him; Vito brought Brasi, the enforcer over to the big band leader and threatened him, pulling a gun on the guy, and presto! Fontane was able to break the contract. The big band leader for his troubles got a $1,000 (down from the initial ten grand he was offered before Vito had to get tough). Kay is understandably disturbed by this horror anecdote, but is reassured by a sincere Michael who promises, “It’s my family, Kay. Not me.”
Kay must’ve believed Michael, because the next time we see her is much later in the film, during Christmas. Michael and Kay leave Radio City Music Hall after a screening of 1945 classic, The Bells of St. Mary starring Ingrid Bergman as a nun. As Kay and Michael leave the cinema, they chat and she teasingly asks if she would be more lovable to him if she were a nun – it’s flirting, obviously, but again, Kay is telegraphed as othered in Michael’s world. The Corleone family is devoutly Catholic (despite the violence and the murder), while Kay is a Protestant. As the snow falls, and they walk arm-in-arm, they engage in warm banter that is interrupted by Kay’s mortified expression. She notices the headline screaming from a newspaper, “Vito Corleone Feared Murdered” as they pass a newsstand. Coppola does something very interesting in the next shot. Michael dashes to a phone box, calling Sonny in a panic. He’s ensconced in the glass box, leaving Kay out in the cold – she’s literally left out, again, a haunting, yet tertiary figure in the scene, watching from behind glass. As the camera zooms in, uncomfortably close on Pacino’s face, as he’s gripping the phone, we see Keaton’s eyes – just her eyes, the rest of her face obscured by the panes in the glass, nothing more than a distant spectator.
The next time we see Kay, it’s at a lovely dinner, plush environs, reflecting her own upper-middle-class roots. She’s dressed exquisitely, in a burgundy evening dress and she’s wearing an understated string of pearls. The dinner is tense, and she’s absently stroking a wine glass as she looks across at Michael who is understandably anxious. Keaton is quite affecting and effective in this short scene, displaying the angst and fear – there’s an unspoken development in their relationship because of Vito’s shooting. She feels it. She asks to accompany him, but the request feels hollow, as if she were expecting his refusal. When she asks when they’ll see each other again, he urges her to return to her native New Hampshire and wait for his phone call. “When will I see you again, Michael?” she asks plaintively. Instead of reassuring her with platitudes, he honestly answers, “I don’t know,” before giving her a tender kiss.
We don’t get to see Kay for a long stretch of the film, as Michael finally enters his family’s “business” completely, avenging his father by killing two nemeses of the Corleone family and then going into hiding in Sicily. There, he marries a local beauty, Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli), but the marriage ends in tragedy when she’s killed in a car bomb intended for him. More tragedy befalls on the Corleones when Sonny is killed by mobsters. A surviving Vito, mourning his son’s death, works to create some semblance of a truce, which allows for Michael’s return to New York City.
This return also means the return of Kay, who has established a life for herself in New Hampshire as a school teacher. Again, Coppola does a canny thing in how he re-introduces Kay to viewers. We’re out of the gritty New York and transported into the Autumnal New Hampshire, and Kay’s presented in a maternal image – she’s leading a trail of well-dressed, well-heeled children, who follow her like chicks following a mother hen. Because she’s a professional, her clothing is far more muted – though she still has the string of pearls.
She stunned to see him emerge from a black car, as she ushers the children safely across a street. “How long have you been back?” a stunned Kay asks.
“I’ve been back a year.” He answers. “Longer than that, I think.”
As the two walk idly down a tree-lined street, Coppola could have been filing a romantic comedy. The upscale suburban domesticity suits Kay and her understated, muted elegance. It’s Michael who’s the outsider at this point. He’s inserted himself into his world to win her back. As if it couldn’t be Norman Rockwellian enough, a little boy races past them on a bike, calling out politely, “Hi, Miss Adams!” as his happily barking dog follows.
They have a confrontation again. It’s sad and reflects his growing acceptance of his seeming fate. He announces that he’s working for his father. When challenged by his earlier assertion that he’s “nothing like his father,” Michael compares Vito to a president or a senator, a powerful man. Kay shakes her head in pity, calling him naive. “You know how naive you sound?” she asks with a sad, lopsided smile that only Keaton can make. “Senators and presidents don’t have men killed.”
“Who’s being naive, Kay?” Michael asks.
“This exchange is key in awning gulf between these two people’s worlds. Michael isn’t naive – in fact, his life forbids him from being so, and Kay’s starched, prim upbringing shelters her. She has space to be condescending to Michael, despite being almost childlike in her assessment of power and hierarchy. In her country club-swaddled world, she can afford to be naive in her civic studies optimism about men in power. “This exchange is key in awning gulf between these two people’s worlds. Michael isn’t naive – in fact, his life forbids him from being so, and Kay’s starched, prim upbringing shelters her. She has space to be condescending to Michael, despite being almost childlike in her assessment of power and hierarchy. In her country club-swaddled world, she can afford to be naive in her civic studies optimism about men in power.
But Michael isn’t interested in trading philosophical or topical barbs. He promises that the Corleone business will go legit, five years’ tops. He implies that Vito and his generation are history. “Trust me,” he says, his words fateful. “That’s all I can tell you about my business.”
He proposes marriage and we can see Kay’s resolve crumbling. Again, Keaton is effective in the scene as she ably plays both Kay’s desire and reticence. Michael’s moving words seem to have a convincing effect, particularly as we see his car magically appear, and Michael leading her in, whisking her away from her New England surroundings and taking her back to his turf, his world. He was willing to be an outsider – for a limited time – to get his girl, but now that his goal is accomplished, he spirits her away back to his world.
Kay’s life as a mob wife is fascinating to watch. It’s not that she becomes a more imposing presence in the film. In fact, the swirling events that lead to Michael’s ascendance (or descendance, depending on how you look at it), mean that Kay becomes somewhat of a duped passenger. Again, her contribution to the story is small, but Keaton does have one final scene, and it’s a powerful one. In their new home, Kay and Michael are confronted by Connie who is despondent after her husband is murdered. Kay is horrified at Connie’s accusations, charging her brother with her husband’s murder. Connie’s a raging mess and is escorted out of the house, and Michael is faced by Kay’s searching, besieging look.
She starts to question him, her face an open nerve. Keaton is excellent in this scene, essentially making up for lost time. Few actresses – especially comediennes – can be as emotionally naked as she. As she looks at Michael, she bores into his soul. Meryl Streep once said of Keaton, “Diane Keaton…is a transparent woman. There’s nobody who stands more exposed, more undefended, and just willing to show herself, inside and out.”
Michael has nearly completed his evolution to the don of the Corleone family and therefore is frustrated and outraged at his wife’s demands. He warns her, “Never ask me about my business.” It’s an ominous warning – the threat of violence hanging. It’s a terrifying scene that is dominated by Pacino’s masterful work. But Keaton is good, too. Maybe not keeping up, but quite moving, as Kay doesn’t relent. Michael allows for this one final time for Kay to ask about his “business” and she’s visibly relieved when he assures he didn’t have anything to do with Carlo’s death. However, once she leaves the room, she can’t help but overhear and see Michael being paid respect by his capos as Don Corleone. One of the men then closes the door in Kay’s face as she stares unsure and wary.
So, even though The Godfather is an undeniable classic, it is so without any measurable contribution by Keaton. Yes, she does a fine job with a somewhat wan role, any reasonably competent actress would have made the same impact. Part of this is because the female characters are essentially on the frame of this film, but the other part is that Kay is designed to not be a character so much as a stand-in for the audience. A way for the film to introduce this largely secretive and cryptic world through the child-like eyes of Kay, our avatar. Keaton’s assessment of her contribution to the enduring legacy of The Godfather has been largely self-deprecating, which is typical of the way she approaches her role, but this isn’t mere faux modesty. Keaton is solid in this film but she’s merely a way for Coppola to tell his story.
A Seat in the Aisle 
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