Favor bank: Can you recall the 'favor' The Godfather requested?
Most of the time, there are good reasons why we are reluctant to ask for help, even from friends and even when we need it.
But other reasons might not be so good. For example, many people are reluctant to accept favors from others because they would feel obliged to reciprocate.
In Tuesday’s post this week, we looked at the famous opening scene in The Godfather, when the undertaker Bonasera seeks help from Don Corleone only when he found he couldn’t get justice from the courts and police.
After Corleone agrees to have some men beaten at Bonasera’s request, he tells Bonasera with no small degree of menace: “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.”
We’re left to wonder, and no doubt Bonasera worries about what frightful thing he might be called upon to do.
We find out later in the movie, after Sonny Corleone has been murdered by rival gangsters.
Don Corleone arrives at Bonasera’s funeral parlor along with men carrying Sonny’s mangled body and asks, “Well, my friend — are you ready to do me this service?”
And what does he ask for?
“I want you to use all your powers — and all your skills. I don’t want his mother to see him this way.”
Doesn’t that seem like a very modest request to make? To ask an undertaker to prepare a body for a decent burial?
Apparently, it’s possible to accept a favor, even from someone as evil as Don Corleone, without incurring a debt of reciprocity that can never be repaid.
What do you think about these remarkable scenes in The Godfather?
Does this network of favors surprise you at all?
These days, are you more, or less, likely to do a favor — or ask for one?
Please, add a comment below.
Comments
mady
Sat, Aug 3, 2013 : 4:14 p.m.
This "network of favors" doesn't surprise me at all. When someone helps me out, I usually try to do something to return the favor. BTW, regarding your comment about how "evil"(?) Don Corleone supposedly is:(realizing that it's all fiction here) do you remember in that scene where he says "See what they've done to my boy" and it's all he can do to keep the tears at bay? theoretically speaking, a man who loves his children that much isn't all that bad. just sayin'.
LA
Sat, Aug 3, 2013 : 2:10 p.m.
I think it was a reasonable request. Altho it was really unnecessary. If you are the undertaker for the Mafia, would you ever do less than an awesome job on a member of their family? I saw nothing unusual in the requesting of a favor from the Mob, who they all knew f rom the neighborhood, when all other options had failed. I think in real life, favors these days are less spectacular and more mundane even reciprocal. A neighbor babysits your children and you offer something in return; watching their house, collecting mail when they are gone or taking care of their garden when they are sick, etc.
John Hritz
Fri, Aug 2, 2013 : 2:46 p.m.
I have this vague recollection that a true favor is one that you request of an acquaintance on behalf of someone else you know. It's not simply a time separated exchange between two people. There are three or more people involved in the bargain, and there is a power imbalance like we see in The Godfather example. The ill-fated television show, Marker, follows this pattern. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marker_(TV_series)