PASADENA, Calif. -- Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it isn't necessarily as interesting or entertaining.
Witness the two-part Showtime movie "Bonanno," which chronicles the life of Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno. His life could well have served as the blueprint for Mario Puzo's title character in "The Godfather," and its dramatization is a fairly obvious attempt to mimic that fictional success.But "Bonnano" is too long, too violent and too familiar at this point. About the only thing that distinguishes "Bonanno" from umpteen made-for-TV Mafia movies that have come before is the extreme violence (there's blood spurting all over the place with great frequency) and the nudity, which comes with its being on Showtime, the pay-cable channel where such excesses abound.
What "Bonanno" has most in common with so many other Mafia movies is the unfortunate tendency to not just romanticize but lionize its subjects. And given that this is supposed to be a true story, the fact that Joe Bonanno -- a man involved in no small amount of crime and murder -- is portrayed as a heroic figure is somewhat disturbing, to say the least.
But perhaps it's not surprising, given that the 94-year-old's own reminiscences formed the basis of the script by Thomas Michael Donnelly.
"This movie was written out of sitting with Joe Bonanno for almost three years, off and on, at his kitchen table in Tucson and listening to him tell me his story," Donnelly said. "What interested me in doing it was because I was actually sitting with Joseph Bonanno who was the youngest, for lack of a better word, Godfathers -- one of the first of the five families of New York , which we all got to know from 'The Godfather.' . . . And I sat with the man who was the youngest Godfather and one of those five families of New York. And to be able to literally speak to the man who was a participant and a leader in all of those tales we've all heard."
Donnelly admitted he was just enthralled with tales of Lucky Luciano and and the mob meeting in Apalachin, New York, and the mob's alleged assassination of John F. Kennedy.
"I got it right from the man's mouth. That's unique, and as a writer, that's a unique circumstance," he said. "Virtually the entire script for the six hours -- and it could have been 60 hours --came from his mouth. And that is what, at least for me, made it unique, and I think that's what makes the movie unique."
If that's not enough, how about the fact that the movie's executive producer is none other than Bill Bonanno -- Joe's eldest son.
"The uniqueness of this particular project is really twofold," Bill Bonanno said. "Number one, it's a story that came from an individual who was not a minor player on the stage, who was an integral part of the group of people who had an impact on the history of the 20th century.
"Number two, the uniqueness here is also that we're talking to someone who was the last, for lack of a better phrase, the last of the Mohicans. He is the last of that extinct species of people that I call masterpieces of men.
"You may agree and you may disagree with the methods of their lifestyle. But what you can't, I don't believe, disagree with is that we're hearing the story of a group of people who came from a small island in the Mediterranean and, against overwhelming odds, came over here and had an impact on American history."
Ah, yes. Mobsters as heroes.
(As portrayed in "Bonanno," Bill himself was a member of the Mafia and intimately involved in various illegalities. Asked how he would respond to questions about his activities, Bonanno replied, "I would take the Fifth.")
The actors in the movie -- including Martin Landau (who plays Joe Bonanno as an elderly man); Bruce Ramsey (who plays him from ages 17-27); and Costas Mandylor (who plays Joe Bonanno's father) -- all expressed great admiration for the men of the Mafia. They were particularly impressed that Joe fled Italy rather than join the Fascists.
The fact that he came to America and became a criminal didn't seem to bother them.
And "Bonanno" does indeed portray not only the real-life godfather's rise to the top but his decades as a mob boss. It doesn't hide the fact that he was a criminal, but it does make his crimes appear almost noble at times.
"He's a man that lived by a very strict set of principles and scruples and he doesn't waver from them. And he expects everybody around him to be the same and that causes problems sometimes, especially in this age," Bill Bonanno said.
At the same time that Bonanno was extolling the telefilm as an epic ode to his father, Showtime's chief programming executive, Jerry Offsay, was singing a different tune.
"As (Bill Bonanno) said to me the first time out there, 'You wouldn't necessarily do a lot of the things that we have done, but we had a code of conduct that we lived by. And you might have been embarrassed by some of these things, but we were not. We broke laws and people lost their lives,' " Offsay said. "It's a story, though, that they were not embarrassed to tell and we're not, either.
"I think we're exposing it and showing it and we're trying to show it in a balanced fashion and show it not with a particular point of view and letting somebody say, 'This is my story,' We haven't sought to rehabilitate or not rehabilitate anyone. We're just intending to show something that is an interesting story that's been told before, except before it was fiction. And this time it's real."
These comments came within moments of Bill Bonanno telling TV critics, "I think it's a film to honor the lifestyle that he led."
"What we've tried to do is tell a story here about a 94-year old man who didn't just fall off the turnip truck yesterday," Bill Bonanno said. "(He) was not a minor player and was involved with Presidents, was involved with President-makers, was involved with almost every conceivable, integral part of American history during the 20th century."
Gee, what a guy.
And, again, the idea that truth makes for better narrative than fiction is clearly ridiculous -- at least when it comes to a comparison between "Bonanno" and "The Godfather."
" 'The Godfather' is a very operatic, fictional version of this story," Landau said. "But this is the real story. And it has Bill's blessing and, obviously, Joe's blessing."
Just think of "Bonanno" as the Mafia miniseries blessed by the Mafia.
Lovely.