Recast? Why? Keaton's performance is perfect. At this point in her career, she specialized in playing downtrodden, put-upon women with little will and an almost fatalistic resignation to fate. That's Kay in a nutshell. She's introduced in Puzo's novel as "the dish-rag of an American girl." (If you haven't seen "Looking for Mr. Goodbar, it's a definite must. It came out around the same time as The Godfather and has Keaton playing a similar character, who gets into an even more dangerous situation than she does here. It really shows off Keaton's talent).
Kay doesn't get much development because there's not much to Kay. She's a nice Protestant girl from a WASP family who's attracted to the nice Italian boy in an age when Italian were still a few years away from being considered "white." (Sounds strange today, but in terms of the way society looked at them, Italians were pretty much the Mexican-Americans of the day. They were one step above the way society looked at Jews and two steps above the way they looked at blacks). Michael was a safe yet "dangerous" choice for an exotic boyfriend. Kay was the sort of girl who'd want to get married and settle into small-town life, never think about big things, enjoy simple pleasures, and never grow very much as a person. A very much late 19th/early 20th century ideal of femininity, and the way that women from upper-crust backgrounds were socialized. In a sick sort of way, Kay's relationship with the Corleones caused her to become a more independent, strong person than she would've been had she ended up with a "straight" guy.
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RichN36
8 years ago
To answer your one question.Kay knew she married a monster as the end of the first movie. When she walks out of the room after Michael lies to her face about his dealings. You can read it in her face.
Col. G. Stonehill: Most people around here have heard of Rooster Cogburn.
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elephuntingun
7 years ago
To answer your one question.Kay knew she married a monster as the end of the first movie. When she walks out of the room after Michael lies to her face about his dealings. You can read it in her face.
She knew long before that.
When Michael finished telling her his story about Luca Brasi he said, "That's my family Kay, not me".
Only someone willing to purposely lie to themselves could possibly swallow
that fish in one gulp.
http://tinyurl.com/9-simple-easy-guacamole-recip
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Weber4278
7 years ago
You'd be surprised what BS people are willing to tell themselves when they are in love.
Kay was in love with Michael and so when he tells her the story about his father and the band leader...what is obviously a giant red flag to those of us on the outside screaming at Kay to "get the heck out of dodge, this guys family are criminals"....is to her something that is ok because Michael promised her he wasn't like them, and because she is in love she believed him, WANTED to believe him, and therefore convinced herself of Michaels BS.
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Arancini
7 years ago
She's so good in the part, that I no longer thought of Dianne Keaton as "Kay"...but "Kay" as Dianne Keaton afterwards.
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