Did 'The Godfather' feature the longest pause and most blatant lie in the history of movies?

Watching The Godfather again the other day reminded me that the first time I saw it was when I'd just started getting interested in conversation analysis (c. 1974) - which meant, among other things, that I'd become fascinated by the way in which pauses can work in everyday conversation.

From that point of view, the most riveting scene in the movie came in the last few seconds, when Michael Corleone allows his wife to ask 'just one question' about his 'family business' (see below).

In conversation, pauses don't happen very often or for very long

As I've suggested in some of my books, one of the reasons why so many public speakers feel uneasy about pausing is that 99.99% of our talking lives is spent in the much more familar world of conversation, where we collaborate with others to minimise silences - therefore avoiding the awkwardness and embarrassment that so often come with them

As a result, inexperienced presenters often find it uncomfortable, if not unnatural, to pause far more often and for much longer than they do in everyday conversation - which is one reason why some of them carry on using the conversational practice of killing off silences with frequent "ums" and "uhs".

Delay as a warning of coming trouble

The early work on turn-taking in conversation showed how a very slight delay between the end of one turn and the start of another often works as the earliest warning that the speaker is having some difficulty in producing an appropriate response.

An example of this is when you say something that limits the next speaker to making a choice between two alternatives, as when you're looking for yes/no, agreement/disagreement, acceptance/refusal, etc.

Quite often, one or other of these options is, in the jargon of conversation analysis, 'preferred' -which is to say that the speaker and respondent both know perfectly well which one is expected and which one is not.

For example, in the case of invitations, acceptance is 'preferred' over refusal. And that's what we're implicitly taking into account when we lead up to issuing an invitation by checking out whether or not the recipient will be able to reply with the 'preferred' option (i.e. accept) if and when the invitation comes.

So a question like "are you doing anything on Saturday night?" is hardly ever heard or treated as a neutral enquiry about your plans for Saturday night. Much more usually, you'll hear it both as a signal of what the speaker has in mind (i.e. an invitation) and as providing the you with a chance to say whether or not you'll be able to take the 'preferred' option (i.e. accept) before any firm invitation is actually made.

'Preferred' options tend to come straight away

Once an invitation has been issued, the 'preferred' option (acceptance) is much the easier of the two options to deal with, and normally comes within a split second. But if the option taken by the invitee is not the 'preferred' one, their refusal will be delayed and constructed very differently from an acceptance.

So, if you invite someone to dinner and they haven't started speaking within about a fifth of a second, you can be pretty sure that they're going to refuse.

And the actual refusal itself will typically be delayed beyond the initial 'warning' that came with the pause, and will be pushed back towards the end of the turn so that the eventual 'dis-preferred' response is cushioned by preliminary expressions of thanks and appreciation, and/or an explanation for the upcoming refusal - as in the following:

[0.5 second delay] - "Well - I'd love to - but unfortunately - I'm baby-sitting on Friday night - so I won't be able to make it."

In this case, each of the components (between the hyphens) progressively confirms that the initial delay did indeed mean that the 'dis-preferred' option (refusal) is on it's way (but not before suitable statements of appreciation, disappointment and explanation have been made).

The general point is that taking the option that's not preferred (refusal) is more complicated and involves considerably more time and effort than taking the option that is 'preferred' (acceptance).

The peculiar impact when a 'preferred' option comes after a long pause

At the end of The Godfather, Michael Corleone has just finished 'settling family business' by delegating his minions to bump off everyone who's betrayed it. His sister has just become 'hysterical' (his word) in accusing him of having had her husband murdered.

Michael's wife, Kay, has heard the argument with her sister-in-law and now wants the truth from her husband.

He knows and she knows (and we in the audience all know) that the 'preferred' answer to her question "Is it true?" is No. And we also know that the true answer is Yes. If we were in any doubt that Kay suspects and fears that this is so, the long delay of eight seconds before she braces herself to whisper the key question confirms that this is exactly what she is afraid of.

But, before he eventually comes up with the 'preferred' option, Michael delays for another eight seconds - again, far longer than would ever happen in a real, rather than a dramatised, conversation.

The suspense presumably comes from the fact that the pause implies that he might be about to select the 'dispreferred' option (Yes). The longer the silence lasts, the more it implies that this is where he's going - as he would, after all, need plenty of time to work out an apology, explanation, justification and/or whatever else might be required to cushion the journey towards the dreaded "Yes".

His blatant lie lets those of us in the audience know for sure that the respectable college graduate and war hero at the start of the film has gone forever, and that Michael Corleone has now fully committed to a career of crime and deception.

Kay's apparent acceptance and relief when he goes for the 'preferred' option makes us feel sorry for her and appalled that even his long-suffering wife is now included in his web if deceit.

Then, when she sees his murderous underlings paying homage to him as the new Godfather and shutting the door on her, the expression on her face leaves us wondering whether she's finally got the point:

BAFTA award winners' speeches

Earlier posts on actors' award winning acceptance speeches can be seen HERE & HERE.

Followers of this gripping subject can now review a selection from last night's BAFTA award winners' speeches HERE.

In the gratitude to all and sundry stakes, best actor winner Colin Firth deserves an additional special award for originality (not to mention his neat demonstration of the effectiveness of a simple anecdote) for thanking the man who came to repair his fridge.

You can't judge what's in Nelson Mandela's book by its cover

I used last week's post on you can't judge a book from its cover to advertise the fact that the Russian translation of my book, Lend Me Your Ears, is being published in Moscow TODAY - making it available to a potential market of about 170,000,000 new readers.

The day after that, I posted some comments on and a video clip of Nelson Mandela's speech after being released from prison in 1990, which reminded me that I have further proof that you can't judge a book from its cover.

Here's the cover of my copy of the illustrated edition of Mr Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom:

Open it up, and the first thing you see inside is a handwritten note from the great man himself:

Unfortunately, I wasn't there when he actually signed it. But a close relation did have the privilege of meeting Mr Mandela during his visit to London in November, 2000 - and got him to sign what was by far the most memorable Christmas present I received that year.

(N.B. Burglars and/or book thieves should note that this particular volume is not to be found on any of my book shelves - and that they would have to graduate to robbing banks to get their hands on it).

A weep in politics

Every now and then, Private Eye comes up with a cover that makes you want to show it to people who aren't regular readers of the magazine.

The current copy features a nice sequel to yesterday's post on the Morgan-Brown TV interview - though I do wonder how many of their readers are old enough to remember that it was Harold Wilson who famously said that 'a week in politics is a long time' (c. 1964).

Click on picture for bigger easier-to-read bubbles:

Gordon Brown's dirty dozen (as confessed to Piers Morgan)

Having commented in previous posts on Gordon Brown's inability to answer questions in interviews (HERE & HERE) and his tendency to pack far too much information into his speeches (e.g. HERE), I suppose I should give him points for slight improvement on both counts in his encounter with Piers Morgan.

But, about half-way through the interview, he reverted to type when asked about the delicate matter of his relationship with Tony Blair after the Labour party leadership became vacant on the death of John Smith in 1994 (and after Blair had become leader and won three general elections).

A thin slice of meat

Although it was arguably the most revealing part of the whole show, this short sequence of less than four minutes (see below) doesn't seem to have attracted much attention - perhaps because it was such a thin slice of meat that some deft editing had sandwiched between the early banter about student days, wine women and song, etc. and the later harrowing sequence about the death of Brown's infant daughter.

Or maybe it wasn't picked up on because it merely repeated what everyone had already known (or at least suspected) for well over a decade.

After much laughing and giggling in the first half hour, Gordon's smiles suddenly disappear for a good three minutes before he managed another one - which only comes when Morgan turns to the "big rows" alleged to have taken place between him and Tony Blair - that had the effect of restoring the jocularity in time for the last 40 seconds before the commercial break to be conveniently rounded off in an amiable mood of good humour.

The Dirty Dozen

But, in a mere 3 minutes and 40 seconds, Brown had managed to make 12 points that confirm the worst fears of anyone who might worry about the character of a man who so resented the success of his charismatic colleague that he spent the best part of 16 years sulking about it:

1. Brown did believe that he, rather than Blair, would be and should have been the next Labour leader after John Smith.

2. He was angry that Blair won, but "got over it pretty quickly" (er- 14 years later?)

3. He found it painful.

4. There was no deal between him and Blair at the Islington restaurant (but actually there was a deal that had been agreed elsewhere).

5. Blair had agreed to stand down and support Brown "w- when that was the case".

6. It was up to Blair to decide when to deliver on the deal.

7. He "has to remember" that Blair had won a general election (er- 3 actually) whereas he hadn't.

8. They did have fights that caused tension.

9. It's good to be open and honest that there were disagreements about certain things (!?).

10. In spite of all that, they "managed" to "get things sorted out".

After 3 minutes, we get Brown's first smile, which prompts Morgan to switch to a lighter mood, during which we learn:

11. Brown never actually threw anything at Blair.

12. He had been been tempted to do so.

(Historical/comparative footnote: you can watch some action replays of Mrs Thatcher in a chat show in 1983 here).

Why does 'The Times' think Brown's interview has 'eroded the dignity of his office'?

A fleeting review of media and blog reactions to the Piers Morgan interview last night points to a consensus that Gordon Brown more or less got away with it.

This doesn't really surprise me, as I can't see that he had anything to lose from doing a 'soft' chat-show interview - any more than Mrs Thatcher had when she appeared on Aspel & Company during the miners' strike in 1983 (see previous post)

The most baffling exception to the consensus I've seen so far is in a leading article in The Times under the headline:

Private Grief, Public Persona

Gordon Brown’s interview with Piers Morgan eroded the dignity of his office

But, unless I'm unusually dense this morning, I can't see anything in what follows that makes any further mention of the interview having 'eroded the dignity of his office' let alone any explanation of how, why or in what sense it's supposed to have done so.

Nor did it make much of a case for another of its definitive-sounding conclusions, namely that 'for Mr Brown, it was a mistake.'

I don't think it was (and don't seem to be alone on that).

What's more, I don't remember The Times accusing Mrs Thatcher of having 'eroded the dignity of her office' by agreeing to be interviewed by Michael Aspel (or as a regular on BBC Radio 2's Jimmy Young Show).

Piers Morgan interviews Gordon Brown: shades of Michael Aspel & Margaret Thatcher?

I've been intrigued by the way the media has been getting so wound up during the build up to Gordon Brown's appearance in a TV interview with Piers Morgan on Sunday night (and wondering what, if anything, I'll have to say in an interview about it on BBC Radio Bristol on Monday morning).

There is, after all, nothing new about embattled prime ministers taking the opportunity to appear in 'soft' talk shows.

Did the the idea come from Margaret Thatcher?

Maybe Mrs Thatcher gave him the idea when she went to number 10 for tea not long after Mr Brown had arrived there - as she was the one who had pioneered the strategy in an bid to 'soften' her image during the miner's strike in 1983. As Ian Hargreaves put it on the BBC website a while back:

'Meanwhile, the politicians hade their own ideas for diversifying the interview market. Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher's crusty press secretary, says he wass opposed to the decision to put the prime minister on Michael Aspel's ITV chat show in 1983, but was over-ruled by her image consultants.

'But she did so well - softening the Iron Lady image assembled in the miners' strike - that even Ingham became a convert to chat show politics. Soon Mrs T was in and out of Jimmy Young's Radio Two studio as often as the Today Programme.'

For me, her appearance in Aspel & Company had at least three memorable moments:

1. Where to sit?
The first came right at the start, when Mrs Thatcher pretends that she's not sure where to sit. Yet here was someone who never went into a television studio without the advice of former TV producer Gordon Reece, who had decided that, wherever possible, her left profile should be exposed to the camera.

Also note how 'dolled up' she is - which is thoroughly consistent with a point about her 'unambiguously recognisable femininity' that I made in an earlier post on the evolution of charismatic woman.

2. Thatcher & Aspel were quite open about the rules of the game:

Early on in the interview, Aspel notes how unusual it is for a prime minister to appear on a show like this. Mrs Thatcher concludes her reply by saying how 'very grateful' she was to have been invited - whereupon he reassures her by confirming that he's after "different kinds of answers" to those she has to come up with at prime minister's question time:

3. The audience's reaction to "I'm always on the job."

Whether or not Mrs Thatcher realised why the audience laughed and applauded when she announced that he was always "on the job"* is not altogether clear - though Aspel's sideways glance leaves little doubt that he knew perfectly well how they'd taken it.

I also suspect that her choice of those particular words may have been triggered by the fact that Aspel had just mentioned that she lives "over the job" at number 10 - in a similar way to that in which I suggested Gordon Browns gaffe about 'saving the world' might have been triggered by sounds in the words had had just used (for more on which, see HERE).

(* Native speakers of American English may not be aware that, in British English slang, 'on the job' is commonly used - depending on context - to mean 'having sex').