Following Michael Corleone (please read)

At the beginning of the movie The Godfather, I was given the impression that the movie was going to be focused on Vito Corleone but as the plot went on, the spotlight drifted off Vito and onto Michael's growth as a mafia family member. The reason I thought Copella focused less on Michael and more on Sonny, Tom Hagen and Vito was because the movie was about the mafia family 'drama' and because Michael had chosen not to be a part of it. Copella informed us of this at the very beginning when Michael told Kay Adams, at the wedding, "That's my family Kay, not me." After a number of unfortunate events that happen to the Corleone family, Michael is slowly drawn in to the family issues and pulls himself away from Kay. A very important part of Michael's development is at the hospital when he hides his father and tells him that he is with him and will be there for him. After that, Michael was increasingly involved with the mafia world until the point of no turning back. This was when he killed Sollazzo and McCluskey. Once this was done, it would never be possible for him to go back to being a normal member of society or get out of this way of life. This was illuminated by Copella by adding loud train noises as he was taking the gun and when he killed Sollazzo and McCluskey. Trains are only capable of going one way because their tracks follow a line and going backwards is very tricky and often impossible.

The symbolism of orange

There are not very many vibrant colours in the Godfather, so one that stands out is orange. After some research, I found out that the colour has a relationship with death, suffering and rape. In The Godfather, Oranges or the colour orange seem to be appearing before scenes of death. This is an example of foreshadowing because when someone has oranges in front of them and that someone dies or murders, you have that 'ooohh' feeling and you almost saw it coming. Instances of this have happened almost 10 times and I have only watched half the movie. After Vito Corleone is buying oranges, he is seen walking to his car and he is shot then. A plate of oranges is set on the table in front of Woltz and his horse is found dead soon after. The oranges are subtle and usually blend in with the background but a careful viewer will notice these.

The motif of Judeo-Christian references

While watching The Godfather, Judeo-Christian references are evident and come in visual and oral forms and this is not surprising considering it was made in the 1970s when religion played a large role in society. The first occurrence was at the very beginning of the movie when Vito Corleone was sitting in his chair in his office and the the light shining through the window formed a halo around him. At first, it sounded like a big stretch but as the movie went on, other instances came up and it started to make sense. Examples are when Vito Corleone was shot 5 times but still survived, just like Jesus was stabbed 5 times but came back to life and were as simple as when Michael said 'Jesus Christ' when he was upset. These subtle hints all point back to the Bible. I am not sure why Francis Coppella chose to do this, but I will keep paying attention for more Judeo-Christian references in hope of finding my answer.

The motif of doors

While watching The Godfather, it was noticed that the motifs of doors and camera angles were played with together to create different levels of inclusion of the audience. Some angles like the low one through the doorframe and where the man went outside of camera view are still a mystery to me because I have only seen about a quarter of the movie. Another thing that was noticed is that the good things that happen in the movie happen outside. An example of this is the wedding and we know it is more than a coincidence because it occurs more than once with Kay and Michael Christmas shopping. To contrast this, all the bad things happen indoors like the killing of Luca Brazzi and Mr. Waltz waking up with the horse in his bed. Something intriguing that could be further analyzed is that the scene where Sonny was having sex with Lucy, they were leaning against a doorway and this could be interpreted as being still a good thing, but because they were almost outside of the door, it was almost a bad decision. This was a short scene and because it was random and did not make the plot move forward, it was put in for a reason. 

The Godfather glorifies crime (please read)

 The Godfather’s main motif in the movie and its reoccurring event is crime although in the eyes of the audience, or at least in mine, it does not appear to be as wrong as it should be. We are raised to identify crimes like threatening, killing and manipulating in violent manners as wrong but The Godfather makes us think that maybe in some cases, it is not necessarily a bad thing. But why do tend to let the violent events slide while watching this movie and why do we even find them cool? This is because Vito Corleone is the one manipulating the crimes and he makes it seem as if he’s doing it out revenge or friendship. We see that he cares so much about his ‘friends’ that he is willing to do anything for them and in our society, that loyalty makes the violent and potentially wrong part understandable. Additionally, Vito Corleone is not the one doing the crimes and instead, he hires people to do the dirty work so we do not portray him as being an evil man. He is the main character and because we think of the movie in a similar way as we think of the main character, the movie does not appear to be a movie full of crime.

- Katherine