Falls of Don Corleone and Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather are strikingly alike when put side to side. Interesting to note is the similarities between the falls of Don Corleone and Julius Caesar.
Both men are in positions of immense power and emanate honor and respect. However it is these lofty positions that provide the targets on their backs and fashion the jealousy around them. Don Corleone is almost assassinated in order to breathe new life into the mob and allow a new structure of power to take form. Caesar is killed with the intentions of “saving” the republic and ushering a new era of political power in Rome. Don Corleone and Julius Caesar are seen as figureheads for their “regimes” and are seen as necessary to eliminate in order to move forward.
The assassination of Caesar and the attempt on Don Corleone’s life both lead to political wars. The mob is divided and each family is forced to take sides. The republic is split and everyone is forced to choose either to support the conspirators or avenge Caesar’s death. In each case lines are drawn and choices are made that will affect the “political” landscape in Rome’s republic and between the families that make up the mafia.
Everyone involved in the death of Caesar and the gunning down of Don Corleone all end up dying in the end. The Corleone family (with Michael at the head) kills the rest of the family’s leaders and all those responsible and associated with the assassination attempt on his father. In Julius Caesar the conspirators one by one fall to the fate of death as Antony and Octavius claim revenge for Caesar’s death.
The patterns of each of their respective falls are almost parallel in each other as they produce the same motives and results.