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Ripeness Is All: The Death of Vito Corleone

in Anatomy of a Scene

By Daniel Arias

Late in The Godfather, when Vito Corleone collapses to the ground and his grandson Anthony runs away to get help, viewers are left to look at the former Don’s body lying motionless in the shade of a trellised tomato garden. For five seconds, the only sounds that fill the soundtrack are the birds chirping and the wind blowing through the trees; then the image fades and funeral bells ring in the next scene. Unlike other critical scenes in the film, which rely on dramatic sequence and action, or intriguing dialogue between characters, this scene has a different way of registering with the viewer: its significance is encapsulated in the symbolic images that frame Vito’s final moments and the non-verbal gestures shared between Vito and his grandson.

It is no accident that the central prop of this scene is a watering gun — an implement which evokes power and the potential for violence but does so lightly, even ironically. (Water, not bullets, issue from its ‘barrel’.) Just before this scene, Vito speaks to his son, Michael, in the same garden. In that scene, Vito grapples with the guilt and uncertainty of having to transfer his power down to the next generation. Handing his status and the family business to Michael, he wants also to advise his son and ensure that the business can flourish. Though Michael is not unkind with Vito, neither is he overly deferential: the scene signals clearly that Michael, as the new Don, will make his own decisions.

This power dynamic is reenacted in the garden scene when Vito hands his grandson the watering gun. As a fatigued old grandfather, Vito can no longer stand for too long and he must sit down to watch Anthony play. From this position, Vito still seeks out any control he might have, shouting at his grandson, “over her, over here. Be careful, you’re spilling it, you’re spilling it. Anthony, come here, come here. Come here.” In the same way that he cannot control how Michael runs the family business, Vito cannot control how Anthony uses the water gun to feed the tomato vines. He has passed down the power to the new generation of his family: how they use that power, and how it affects them, are completely out of his control.

***

Vito Corleone’s loss of power is reflected in his physical appearance and presentation. In the introductory scene of the film, Vito comes across as a powerful figure. His words carry weight and deliberation in his monologue; he wears a fine suit, and his hair neatly slicked back. By contrast, this scene presents Vito in casual clothing, and with unruly hair protruding out of his hat. His body appears languid and shriveled by age. It is a portrait of a powerless Don. Even the simple act of calling out to his grandson and extending his arm as gesture seems like an extra strain on his body.

The only gesture of power that Vito conveys in this scene is reliant on artifice. To get his grandson’s attention, Vito cuts an orange peel and fashions a pair of fangs for his mouth. In his final exertion of power before he dies, he pretends to be a big and scary monster to frighten his grandson. The performance of power is what leads to his death — both literally, in this scene, and symbolically for the overall story arc of his character. Through much of the film, Vito has performed the role of mafia Don as the ultimate exertion of his power, but in this scene, viewers are offered a glimpse into what Vito Corleone looks like without his presentation and appearance as the powerful Don Corleone. When he adorns himself with a pair of fangs, to play pretend with his grandson, the scene frames the gesture as a representation of how Vito performs throughout the film; the only difference here is that viewers witness the process of how Vito transforms himself to convey power, even if it is just to frighten his grandson for a brief moment.

Chasing his grandson through the tomato vines, Vito removes his orange peel fangs —and tellingly, it is at this moment that he erupts into the coughing fit that results in his collapse. Playing pretend with his grandson has been too much of a physical strain on his body; Vito gives up his monster act, and gives up the ghost. Likewise, Vito’s performance of power as Don has been the ultimate exertion in his life. He has structured his whole life and family around the power and persona of Don Corleone, and the toll ends up being too much to handle: Vito crumbles and falls in the tomato garden. He lies on the ground, next to the ripe, or possibly overripe, tomatoes that have burdened the vine branch with their own weight and have fallen to litter the soil.

At the very moment of Vito’s death, Coppola notably cuts to a more distant shot. The camera frames the tomato garden at the center of the backyard; in the confines of the garden lies Vito’s body. The image of Vito resting on the soil, the foundation of the garden, resonates with Vito’s role as the foundation of his family and business. He has worked and exerted himself completely to maintain the growth of his personal and family legacy. As a result, like the ripe tomatoes that must fall to make room for new ones, Vito must fall in order to make room for the new Don, his son.

There’s a sense that, even as this scene portrays the death of Vito Corleone, it also encapsulates his life. Vito has done everything in his power to plant, care for, and grow the seeds of his personal and business life. By laying the foundation for his generation and the generations to come after him, he has become the foundation. Coppola gives us as viewers five seconds to hear the wind and the birds chirping so that we register that this is a natural death — one that, for all its sadness, completes a cycle.

Daniel Arias is a graduating senior (’18) at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studies English Literature. In his spare time he binge-watches The Office for the millionth time.

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Inhale, Exhale: Cigarettes and the Power of Michael Corleone

in Tropes and Leitmotifs
Michael wreathed in the smoke of Enzo's cigarette

By Meaghan Allen

Few people smoke in Coppola’s The Godfather, and for many of those who do, the cigarette functions more as a prop than as an expression of an idea about their character. However, the moments that Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, chooses to smoke are exceptional, deliberate moments: the action is in fact an action and not something done absent-mindedly. Michael smokes his cigarettes with purpose, as an image of his authority—of his emotional and mental strength as Godfather-in-the-making.

The choice of a cigarette to represent Michael’s symbolic power is significant because a cigarette is not a latent, or concealed, object: it consumes; it burns; it has the potential to kill and destroy. It is a piece of death that fits between the fingers and is kissed as the smoker inhales its substance, filling the body with fire. A cigarette demands a certain sense of control and presence, and—when used consciously—can be evocative of raw force.

The subtle symbolism of cigarettes is developed especially across three scenes in The Godfather: the scene where Michael comes home after Vito has been shot; the scene where Michael stands guard for his father outside the hospital; and the scene in which Michael is officially named Don. Whether through Michael’s physical movements (in particular his handling of cigarettes and lighters) or through the visual composition of the scene’s frame, Coppola underscores that, for Michael, the cigarette serves as a totem of dominance, control, and cool authority.

***

In the scene where the Family deliberates after the shooting of Vito, we see five men sitting in the dark office of the Corleone home. The shot is a medium ensemble shot of Michael (his back to the camera), Tom Hagen (profile), Sonny (almost direct center), Clemenza (3/4 face viewable), and Tessio (most of his face obscured, so we see mainly the back of his head). The camera is located behind the Don’s table, in line with the perspective of someone sitting in the leather chair, an evocation of Vito’s presence despite his being in the hospital. Out of focus in the foreground are a few objects sitting on the table, elements of the mise-en-scene: a cup, a small business ledger, some unidentifiable (due to the shadows) desk trinkets, and a pack of cigarettes.

After the attempt on his life, the camera takes Vito’s place at his desk

The men are all talking, discussing how to proceed given the news that Sollozzo has nearly succeeded in murdering Vito. In the whirling current of the conversation, Michael—who has been silent—comments, “You gonna kill all those guys” (referring to Sollozzo, Barzini, Tattaglia), and Sonny barks back, “Hey Mikey stay out of it!” This abrupt response silences Michael, and his lack of voice is tangible, a void in the overlapping whir of conversation. A beat later, though, he turns his head, and his face is now in profile. He turns his head further, giving the camera a full view of his face, and looks on the desk, possibly for some hint of encouragement from his missing father, to find his voice: he sees the pack of cigarettes. Michael gets out of his chair, walks very briefly out of the frame, and then re-enters in the foreground to grab a cigarette from the pack, which he tosses haphazardly back onto the table. He is now located in the dark shadows at the edge of the frame, his body a shapeless mass that morphs into the limits of the shot, becoming one with the shadows, not only of the scene but of the shadowy criminal underworld.

Michael reaching for the cigarettes on his father Vito’s desk

He is standing, meaning that the others must look up at him when they speak. Sonny points to Michael, says something incomprehensible regarding “Do me a favor” (which loosely recalls the opening scene between Vito [Michael] and Bonasera [Sonny] who comes to the Godfather for a ‘favor’)—a comment to which Michael does not respond verbally. Instead he moves back to his chair and sits, the cigarette firmly between his lips. In a few calculated movements Michael has not only foreshadowed his readiness to enter the family business by becoming one with the shadows of the frame and room, but he has also taken charge of the shot by seeking his emblematic cigarette.

Michael’s first cigarette in the film — part of a movement in which he comes to occlude our view of Sonny, the presumptive Don-in-waiting

In the composition of the medium ensemble shot, Sonny appears to be the focus, as the man in power, and Michael is presented as occupying a subordinate position, with his back to the camera. But by moving in the frame, coming closer to the camera, and therefore becoming a larger, more dominant presence, Michael has become the center of attention. He is now the man in power. Sonny may still be handling the logistics of business as the perceived head of the family, but Michael is the interesting, active presence. He captures the camera’s gaze, and he does so to light a cigarette.

This cigarette is not any mere cigarette: it is Michael’s first cigarette in the film, and it was presumably Vito’s as it was on his desk. This cigarette, this token of strength and leadership, comes from the reigning head of the family. Even if the cigarette was not originally Vito’s, it is coming from a place of power by being in the office, on the Don’s desk. When it enters Michael’s mouth and he inhales the essence of the cigarette and has it fill his body, it endows him with metaphorical authority.

***

Enzo’s trembling hands, as he tries to light a cigarette

The symbolic power of this cigarette carries over and is heightened in the next significant cigarette scene, which occurs between Enzo, the baker, and Michael outside the hospital later that night. Enzo’s hands are shaking uncontrollably as he reaches into his coat pocket for his pack of smokes. He and Michael have just successfully deferred an attack on Don Corleone, who has been shot and is recovering in the hospital, by standing out by the front gate of the hospital posing as armed body guards. The close-up shot pans from Enzo’s hands retrieving a cigarette up towards his face, the camera gracefully following the movement of his hands. The further towards his mouth his hand moves, the more violently he begins to shake in intense spasms. He turns his face away to scan his surroundings in an attempt to collect his bearings; the clicking of the lighter as he struggles to strike it can be heard.

We cut to a close-up of Enzo’s hand unsuccessfully igniting the lighter; he fumbles repeatedly, unable to control his hand muscles enough to turn the flint wheel and strike the flame. Michael’s hands then reach into the frame. The camera subtly follows Michael’s hands as they successfully turn the flint wheel on the first attempt and a strong flame flares. The frame holds, and Enzo leans down into Michael’s hands to light his cigarette. As Enzo pulls out of the frame, the camera angle cuts towards a medium close-up of Enzo and Michael, the focus of the shot now on Michael: he is looking down at his hands with intense concentration, his face enveloped in the smoke exhaled by Enzo’s cigarette. We then cut to a close up of Michael’s hands still holding the lighter, the lid still up; he pauses, briefly, before snapping the lid shut as police sirens enter the soundscape.

Michael calmly lighting Enzo’s cigarette
Michael wreathed in the smoke of Enzo’s cigarette

There is a lot going on in this particular encounter, one that lasts only twenty seconds of an almost three-hour film. What is revealed about Michael’s character is crucial. This scene outside the hospital occurs immediately after Michael pledges his allegiance to his father and by implication the family, declaring at Vito’s bedside that he is finally ‘with’ them. Michael has now officially entered the criminal underworld, posing as an armed mafioso, and he has done so with grace and courage. Despite the high risk and tension of a difficult situation he maintains his composure.

The juxtaposition of Enzo’s shaking hands with Michael’s steady hands underlines that Michael is capable of staying rational, calm, collected, and cool in this monstrous syndicate. He is in full control of his emotions, thoughts, and actions—embodying a composure that is absolutely necessary if he wishes to follow in his father’s footsteps and become Don. Also noteworthy is the choreography of power expressed by the gestures: Enzo bends down to light his cigarette, but Michael does not move his hands towards Enzo’s face. Michael is the provider of light, sustenance, and protection; Enzo merely receives these gifts.

The source of these gifts, a lighter, also carries a great deal of symbolic resonance. A lighter is an object capable of complete destruction: it has the capacity to burn all obstacles that stand in the way, and it furnishes fuel for the totemic cigarettes that Michael smokes. This small, sleek item, unassuming in its power, might be said to find a parallel in the character of Michael—the decorated war veteran, the ‘good kid’ who becomes the meticulous, cold-blooded, murderous Godfather by the end of the film. The lighter and its essential companion the cigarette have begun to function, then, as a cinematic trope expressing Michael’s control as Don, his observant nature, and his ability to destroy and be the hand of death. In short, they suggest his complete patriarchal (possibly phallic) power as Godfather.

***

Michael twirls a cigarette lighter after having his authority challenged

The final compelling scene of Michael’s smoking occurs at a transitional moment in his rise as Godfather, when Vito first places Michael in charge. In this scene, which again occurs in the family office, the shot switches from a brief ensemble shot of Michael sitting beneath the lamp, the only source of light in the shuttered room, to a medium shot of Michael in his chair. His legs are crossed and he is twirling his lighter in his hand as he talks of moving the family’s business to Nevada. He is in a suit (wearing the same tie he does at the baptism), and his body is active, his fingers lightly tapping the lighter and his crossed leg restlessly bouncing. His authority as Don is not being taken seriously – Clemenza and Tessio keep turning to Vito, not Michael, for instruction. It is not until after the brief dialogue between Vito, Clemenza, and Tessio, where Vito declares “Be a friend to Michael,” that Michael’s dominion as Don takes hold.

This absolute reign begins when the shot again becomes a medium ensemble and Michael ascends from his chair beneath the light to stand assertively behind the Don’s desk. As he takes his place, it is clear that he now has a lit cigarette in his hand. His voice is more confident and demanding, and he not only has physical power over Clemenza and Tessio (who are now sitting below him), but he also has his token of authority securely between his two fingers. Michael begins to hand down a series of authoritative decisions.

Cigarette in hand, Michael claims his authority: “There are things being negotiated that will solve all your problems”

The film cuts to a middle shot of Carlo as it is revealed he will be in charge in Nevada; it cuts to a middle shot of Tom, who will no longer be consigliere but instead the family lawyer in Nevada (the shot lingers to gauge Tom’s reaction); then we cut to a medium close-up shot of Michael, who is still standing. The cigarette has moved out of the frame but the smoke can be seen languidly drifting up—a reminder that it is still there, burning away, mixing in the air that Michael inhales to speak. The smoke mimics Michael’s thoughts and actions, curling and twisting like his soul as he adapts to the complex situations presented throughout the film.

Michael’s hands do not shake as he holds a thread of death in them, the ability to destroy and conquer evoked by a single image: the cigarette. Its source of power, the lighter, a small compact brass box, has the ability to burn and consume everything that gets in its way; it is a portable inferno of judgment—not so far from Michael during the infamous baptism sequence.

***

While these three scenes suggest the arc of Michael’s development via his handling of cigarettes, cigarettes are Michael’s companion and totem in three other scenes too. In the anticipation of ‘the meet’ with Sollozzo, Michael gently places a cigarette between his lips in the family kitchen to keep his calm while Sonny and Tom get anxious; when Mo Green challenges Michael in Las Vegas, Michael lights a cigarette as he prepares to tell Mo how things should be, simultaneously twirling his lighter as he does so (possibly alluding to Mo’s eventual death); and finally, Michael lights two cigarettes in the last scene of the film after Connie accuses him of murdering Carlo and Kay earnestly presses him on whether he had Carlo killed. He lights up, first, when he is giving her his ‘one-time-only’ answer about the true nature of his business; and he lights up again when he is framed by the door as Kay prepares drinks in the foreground and members of the family filter into his office.

For Michael, smoking allows for a form of meditation and deliberation that is also at the heart of his newfound power. Through the methodical rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, he achieves a cool control that becomes the personal signature of his brand of dominance. Held gently but confidently between the two fingers of Michael’s hand, the cigarette claims its place in the hands of the Godfather whose hands do not shake, the man who does not allow the strings of the family business to tangle. Michael is the one who holds the strings taut and with care, all the while enveloped in the drifting smoke of power.

Meaghan Allen (Cal ’17) currently teaches high school humanities in the Bay Area, and will soon be pursuing a Master’s Degree in Cultural Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She delivered a commencement speech at the 2017 Berkeley English Department graduation.

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A Bitter-Suite Romance: Michael and Kay’s Hotel Scene

in Anatomy of a Scene/The Craft of The Godfather

By Max Sala

Many scenes in The Godfather—Connie and Carlo’s wedding, the baptism and assassination montage—are full of self-conscious bravura, but it’s the quieter, shorter scenes that lend the film its emotional depth and narrative intrigue. Consider Michael and Kay’s hotel scene: lasting seventy-five seconds, and with only 9 lines of dialogue, this scene courses by, brief and seemingly unexceptional. The episodes that follow—Michael’s visit to his father at the hospital, McCluskey’s assault on Michael—eclipse this scene and perhaps push it to the back of the viewer’s consciousness.

But let us return to the hotel. If we inspect the scene’s formal features—those of sound, mise-en-scène, and cinematography—we can see how those features help establish a narrative problem for the couple’s relationship. Indeed, even without a close analysis, the tension between Michael and Kay is striking. This scene is the first time they experience that tension, but it lingers and refuses resolution, even at the film’s end. In this way, the hotel scene functions as a crucial marker within The Godfather’s plot, a harbinger of the clanging discord that comes to define Michael and Kay’s relationship.

***

The transition to the scene establishes an atmosphere of tension. Two unidentified men drive Michael into the city to meet Kay at the hotel. The camera jump-cuts from a shot of Michael in the backseat to the car’s bumper. We watch the car pass a flashing yellow streetlight on its right side. It is nighttime, the road is clear, and the only sound effects we hear are the tires hissing against the asphalt. This shot lasts only twelve seconds but establishes a sequence and tone. The direct sound of the tires seems menacing and heightens the peril of events so far—Vito Corleone’s attack, Paulie Gatto’s assassination.

A slow dissolve transitions us into the hotel room and is joined with a sound bridge, Irving Berlin’s “All My Life.” This song—a slow-tempo ballad often performed by a female vocalist addressing her lover—presents a surprising counterpoint to the preceding events, easing us into the scene and suggesting an emotional uplift in the narrative. It overlaps with the dialogue and is part of the film’s diegesis: the song seems to play somewhere in the background. The music is muted and subtle, softly complementing the dinner’s romantic atmosphere—a small round table and white tablecloth; red wine and steak; Kay’s lipstick-red blouse with a sweetheart neckline and puffed sleeves, Michael’s oxford shirt and tie. A lamp in the corner provides diffused light that illuminates Kay’s face. Her cheeks look cherubic; her skin, soft and warm.

These details of the mise-en-scène recall, and seem to recreate, the moment between Michael and Kay at Connie and Carlo Rizzi’s wedding, when they were eating by themselves with red wine and a white tablecloth, in formal attire, under soft-quality outdoor lighting. Berlin’s song plays with the romance of that moment and underscores these formal features, establishing an intimate and enchanting mood:

I just want the right to love you

All of my life

Just the right to take care of you

All of my life

His lyrics suggest a storybook-like romance, a budding passion that charges each person’s enduring commitment to one another. The brass section’s dreamy crescendos, the percussion section’s dramatic yet steady beat: these musical features seem to frame Michael and Kay’s relationship through the sweet dreamwork of Tin Pan Alley.

Alas, these formal features only suggest intimacy; they actually function as ironic counterpoints to the scene’s undercurrents of discord. In fact, what we are watching is the dissolution of a romance, or at least the dissolution of the more idealized romance that the film initially depicts. This dinner is sour.

***

Consider the conversation between Michael and Kay. Initially, fifteen seconds of silence precede their dialogue. Besides the background music, we only hear sound effects of their meal—forks scraping plates, clothes rustling, the dull thud of Michael setting his wine glass on the table. Their silence creates an edgy atmosphere and implies some dilemma before any dialogue even occurs. Once it does begin, the dialogue is brief; each character speaks using one-sentence replies. Kay poses quick questions: can she accompany Michael to the hospital? When she will see him again (a question she repeats when at first Michael avoids answering her)? Kay uses the imperative mood when she speaks: she appears and is literally dependent on Michael.

Michael’s replies, meanwhile, are short and vague: he denies Kay’s requests to accompany him, declares that he does not want Kay to “get involved,” and avoids addressing when they will meet again. Michael uses the indicative mood—he makes decisions and is in control. Their conversation could simply reveal the sorts of tensions that beset all romantic relationships eventually, but we cannot help but feel something larger is at stake for this relationship.

The halting rhythm of the camera draws out the scene’s feeling of awkwardness. The scene’s establishing shot shows Kay sitting at the dinner table. The camera frames her using a point-of-view vantage and positions us in a medium close-up. Immediately we notice her red blouse, princess-length pearl necklace, coiffed hair, and hesitant face. Kay appears vulnerable, and since that vulnerability charges the establishing shot, we know it will inform the scene. The camera transitions to Michael wadding his napkin, looking down and avoiding eye contact with Kay.

This counter shot uses Michael’s icy attitude as a response to Kay’s diffidence, enabling the camera to characterize Kay as subordinate, as though she needs something from Michael. A brief medium two-shot reveals both characters across from one another at the table. Here the camera captures their disengagement. Their initial silence emphasizes the physical distance the camera exposes, and as a result the dinner feels forced and uncomfortable. We feel the discomfort—Kay’s pain and Michael’s angst.

Once the dialogue begins, the camera reemploys a shot/counter shot technique that parallels Michael and Kay’s responses until the scene ends. Each counter shot lasts approximately five seconds, and the more we watch, the more engrossed we become by the dialogue:

KAY: When will I see you again?

MICHAEL: Go back to New Hampshire, and I’ll call you at your parents’ house.

KAY: When will I see you again, Michael?

MICHAEL: I don’t know.

As the camera alternates between Kay and Michael, the montage produces two effects. First, the shots isolate each spoken line, underscore them as wooden and clipped, and intimate the anxiety Michael and Kay both suppress. Second, we become anxious. We identify with Kay’s vulnerability and await Michael’s replies, anticipating each counter shot. Yet because he is so evasive, and since their emotional turmoil functions as the subtext of the scene, we are left in suspense, with more questions than answers, frustrated and dissatisfied. At this point, the scene’s romantic picture crumbles. We realize now that Berlin’s song functions more as a lament for Michael and Kay’s romance than as an expression of it.

***

We end with a shot of Kay staring at her wine glass. The camera once again positions us at a medium close-up, reinforcing her pain and hesitation. We know Sollozzo’s attack has unnerved Michael. We might foresee his looming retaliation. Perhaps we even correctly infer his ultimate fate from these character developments. But empathizing with Kay’s pain, we question if her relationship with Michael will last.

This loose end unsettles us. It is true, of course, that Michael and Kay do ultimately reunite. It is also true that, as an outsider to the Corleone world, Kay is presented at first as a figure for the audience: when Michael explains his family to her in the wedding scene, he is in effect explaining his family to us in the audience, and she becomes a key figure of identification for us (up to the very last moment of the film). Our anxiety derives less from a fear that they will indeed break up, and more from the scene’s tragic irony: Kay’s world hopelessly opposes Michael’s, and yet she loves him. Whatever form her relationship with Michael does take, Kay—dependent, vulnerable, and unlike Michael in too many ways—will remain relegated to the Corleone family’s periphery. This alienation accounts for why she appears dependent and vulnerable: we sense too that, since Michael will always subordinate Kay to the family business, her alienation will persist.

This scene, then, does not merely establish a narrative problem. It reveals a fatal flaw in their relationship—the gulf between Michael and Kay that, whatever the melody playing in the background, neither one can bridge.

Max Sala studies Rhetoric and English at Cal. After watching her flaunt her silky smooth hair in a Noxzema commercial, Max realized he was Meredith Baxter in one of his past lives.

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Men of the House: Modes of Masculinity in The Godfather

in Character Studies

By Janani Hariharan

In The Godfather, director Francis Ford Coppola introduces the lead character Michael Corleone in the most curious of ways: almost thirteen minutes after the film has begun, Michael walks into his sister’s extravagant wedding, wearing a full Marines Corps uniform with a non-Italian-American woman on his arm.

This choice on Michael’s part, and on the part of Coppola, signals how The Godfather — though produced in the early 1970s — is a film that reflects on the mid-1940s, a time when masculinity was being redefined in the wake of the Second World War. Historian Corinna Peniston-Bird argues that during the war, “opportunities for contraction, transformation and resistance were limited. Men did not have a choice whether to confirm or reject hegemonic [military] masculinity.” But what happened once the war ended, when men had to use their bodies outside of war? What happened when decorated war heroes like Michael had to come home and redefine their manhood without wartime’s existing framework?

This problem is tackled in The Godfather through Michael but extends to every man in his family. The Godfather dramatizes this crisis of masculinity through male characters’ interactions with other men. While Vito uses restrained movements to exert influence, Sonny’s big, brash, impulsive actions take up space. Michael, meanwhile, takes a page out of both their books, using his intelligence and audacity to command authority. Insofar as the film equates masculinity with power, these important male characters in the film use their bodies in different ways to secure their patriarchal positions at the head of the family.

***

Power expressed in a small gesture: Vito signals for a drink for Bonasera

Vito Corleone controls his movements impeccably, using his body in only the most understated of ways to convey a sense of omnipotent authority over other men. This becomes evident as soon as the movie begins: the first time we as viewers lay eyes on any part of Vito, the camera faces Bonasera from over Vito’s shoulder. Bonasera, sitting on the other side of Vito’s desk, begins to sob at the plight of his daughter’s suffering. We see not a commanding body towering over Bonasera but an out-of-focus hand in the foreground, gesturing to a capo to bring Bonasera a drink in consolation, which he gratefully accepts.

Vito with the kitten: calculated gentleness

With just the use of one out-of-focus hand, the film situates Vito’s authority in methodical action and institutional relevance. His is a masculinity characterized by the deference and obedience of other powerful men — a masculinity that doesn’t need to exert power actively because the institution he has built on his own terms does it for him. Soon after the camera cuts to face Vito, we see him petting a small cat on his lap as he discusses matters of life or death with Bonasera. The cat, sprawled on his lap, luxuriates in his attention and infuses a playful energy into an otherwise dark and brooding room. Past critics have pointed to the cat as representative of hidden claws under Vito’s subdued façade. To me, however, a subtler detail stands out, particularly when Bonasera makes the grave mistake of asking Vito, “How much shall I pay you?” Vito immediately looks up at him from the corner of his eyes, affronted, and stops playing with the cat. He puts the cat on the table as if to mean serious business, stands up, and calmly confronts Bonasera about his infraction: “Bonasera, Bonasera. What have I done to make you treat me so disrespectfully?”

Playtime is over: the Don dispenses with the kitten

The cat in Vito’s hands is a symbol of the judicious way in which he wields power: he plays with the cat and gives it what it wants until he decides playtime is over. The Don giveth, and the Don taketh away, so to speak. These first few scenes illustrate what I would call Vito’s calculated gentleness: his body language is characterized by restraint, which highlights the authority he draws from simply being the head of the family and being revered and feared by so many.

Tenderness without calculation: the Don with his grandson

Of course, Vito’s authority changes after he steps down from his position as the copo dei capi. Vito becomes more of a family man, indulging in wine and time with his grandchildren. In an uncharacteristically tender moment toward the end of the film, we see Vito playing with his grandson in the garden. He presses an orange peel against his teeth to scare the child and lets him spray him with a water gun as they run around through the orange plants.

Poignantly, this is when his body gives out and he passes away. “I spend my life trying not to be careless,” Vito had admitted to Michael just moments before the film cuts to the garden scene. You would think that being a Mafioso is more life-threatening than being a grandfather, so it seems particularly biting that during his most unprotected moment in the film, he dies. Vito’s masculinity and power rest on the foundation of the institution he has built; when he finally moves without formal restraint, his vulnerability is not allowed to last. Within the scope of being a being a don, tenderness — when it’s not calculated — becomes weakness.

***

Reckless self-indulgence: Sonny with the bridesmaid

This weakness becomes apparent after an attempt is made on Vito’s life by a rival family, and the film offers up his oldest son, Sonny, as a solution to this newly created vacuum of power. But if Vito spends his life trying not to be careless, Sonny is a man who spends his life doing the complete opposite. Brash and impulsive, Sonny wields his body in intensely physical, violent ways; he asserts a hypermasculinity in relation to those around him, men and women alike. During Connie’s wedding, Sonny flirts with the maid of honor as his wife Sandra sits at another table. Soon after, we see Sonny and the bridesmaid in a bathroom having rough sex up against a door. Tom Hagen goes looking for him at Vito’s request and knocks on the door. “Sonny, are you in there? … the old man wants to see you,” Tom calls from the outside. “Yeah, one minute,” Sonny responds, before continuing with his pursuit.

If Vito maintains his masculinity through restraint in order to keep the family in power, Sonny asserts his through reckless self-indulgence, prioritizing his own needs and desires over those of the family. A particularly telling moment later on in the film illustrates this difference of worldview between father and son. In a meeting about the possible growth of the drug trade in their area, Vito and Sonny learn from a fellow Mafioso that the Tattaglia family would be willing to work together to ensure the Corleone family’s security. Sonny, immediately interested, butts into the conversation: “You’re telling me that the Tattaglias would guarantee our invest—” But Vito does not allow him to finish. “Wait a minute,” Vito tells Sonny, as he looks back at him, irked and disappointed, and proceeds to elegantly divert the conversation away from the infraction.

“Santino, what’s the matter with you?”

After the meeting ends, Vito tells Sonny to stay behind and reproaches him: “Santino … what’s the matter with you? I think your brain is going soft from all that comedy you’re playing with that young girl. Never tell anybody outside the family what you’re thinking again.” Sonny, like a disobedient child who refuses to listen, looks away and rolls his eyes at the scolding. Through this interaction, we see that Sonny’s intelligence and competence as a man and a leader is frustrated by his impulsive desire to disobey the configuration of norms and codes as set by Vito. His refusal to practice restraint and judiciousness in making decisions upsets Vito, and it is ultimately what leads to his downfall.

Sonny, exacting vengeance on Carlo

Yet Sonny loves his family as fiercely as he indulges in his own whims and fancies — and as the film progresses, these two passions create a recipe for disaster. Sonny finds his sister Connie with bruises all over her face, ostensibly because she had been abused by her husband Carlo. “Sonny, please don’t do anything. Please don’t do anything,” Connie pleads, recognizing where Sonny’s mind would immediately go. “What am I going to do? Make that baby an orphan before he’s born?” Sonny says as he holds her. In the scene that immediately follows, Sonny jumps out of a car with a baseball bat and chases Carlo down. “If you touch my sister again, I’ll kill you,” Sonny says through gritted teeth, after having beaten him to a pulp.

The fruit of vengeance: Sonny’s death

While it may seem like a justified retribution — a black eye for a black eye — it is this hotheadedness that triggers Sonny’s downfall. After another violent altercation between Connie and Carlo, Sonny receives a call from Connie. “You wait right there,” he says, and jumps into a car and drives off angrily, despite pleas from Tom to stop or at least slow down. “Go after him, go on!” Tom tells other members of the family, and they get into a car to follow him. Sonny ultimately drives off to his demise as he is ambushed at a tollbooth by machine gunfire, in a set-up orchestrated by enemies of the family with the help of Carlo.

If Sonny had not been so quick to attack Carlo after the first incident, he may have never made an enemy out of Carlo and would not have met such a gruesome and sudden death. Minutes after the assailants drive away, Tom’s men arrive at the scene only to find Sonny lying dead in the middle of the road. At the very least, if Sonny had waited for others to join him before he drove away to confront Carlo, he would have had some form of reinforcement during the ambush. Unlike Vito, Sonny is neither calculated nor gentle, relying on brutish force and carnal instinct to use his body and exert power. His masculinity ultimately proves to be an unfeasible solution to the vacuum of power in the wake of Vito’s attack.

***

Sonny’s response to a threat: artless aggression

Sonny’s death leaves his younger brother, Michael, as the most viable option to take the helm of the Corleone family. If Vito’s quiet authority and Sonny’s careless impulsiveness occupy opposite ends of the spectrum of masculinity presented in the film, Michael’s masculinity lies squarely in the middle. He is intelligent and collected but unforgiving: he has the tact of his father and the audacity of his brother. A telling difference between Sonny’s and Michael’s body language is highlighted during the two brothers’ meeting with Clemenza, Tom, and Tessio, as the five discuss how to handle Sollozzo’s request to discuss a truce. Sonny unsurprisingly raises his voice at the idea of Sollozzo’s proposition, pacing the room aggressively and yelling at those who suggest hearing Sollozzo out. “No more meetings, no more discussions, no more Sollozzo tricks,” Sonny yells, towering over Tom. “Do me a favor, Tom, no more advice on how to patch things up. Just help me win.” Michael, on the other hand, sits stoically on a plush chair, watching the scene unfold. After a brief moment of silence, Michael enters into the conversation. “We can’t wait,” he says calmly, remaining seated. “I don’t care what Sollozzo says about a deal, he’s going to kill Pop. That’s it.”

Michael’s response to the same threat: a methodical plan of action

Interestingly, Sonny and Michael want the same thing: they both think it’s wiser to strike now rather than give Sollozzo the benefit of the doubt. This is indicative of their potential to both be sound leaders. However, what Sonny articulates via artless aggression, Michael expresses in a methodical plan of action. “They want to have a meeting with me, right? … Let’s set the meeting,” Michael says, as he goes on to detail how they will orchestrate the ambush and dodge any possible retaliation.

We might see both Vito and Michael as self-made men — or self-made Dons — though they take different routes to that same destination. While Vito built the institution of the Corleone family from the ground-up, Michael comes of age over the course of the film and makes himself into a man by virtue of avenging an attempt on his father’s life. We later see that Michael successfully carries out the plan for the Corleone family, unflinchingly putting bullets in Sollozzo’s and Captain McCluskey’s heads and ending the threat to this father’s life. Insofar as Vito possesses a calculated gentleness and Sonny does not, Michael learns from their shortcomings to realize a calculated ruthlessness. He is a man who does not strike unless it is absolutely necessary — but does not hesitate to get his hands dirty when he must.

Calculated ruthlessness: Michael with Carlo

Michael’s newfound, calculated ruthlessness is powerfully evoked in the movie’s bloody climax, in which the camera cuts between the baptism of his godson and the assassinations of his rivals. But Michael’s metamorphosis is even more strikingly dramatized in a scene soon after, when Michael confronts Carlo about his complicity in Sonny’s murder. “Sit down,” he tells Carlo, as he pulls up a chair and takes a seat next to him. He pats Carlo on the shoulder and calmly reassures him: “Don’t be afraid. … Do you think I’d make my sister a widow?” Michael tells Carlo that he will have to leave for Las Vegas and hands him a plane ticket. “Only don’t tell me you’re innocent because it insults my intelligence. … Now, who approached you?” Michael asks. When Carlo finally admits to his involvement, Michael directs him to a car that is supposed to take him to an airport. Clemenza, sitting in the backseat, garrotes Carlo to his death, as Michael watches from the outside.

Michael, in the vicinity of violence: the murder of Carlo

For all the talk that we hear of Vito “taking care of business” toward the beginning of the film, we never once see him personally enact violence or be in the vicinity of it. Michael, on the other hand, both tactfully extracts a confession and also watches his brother-in-law lose his life at his own order, without so much as a flinch. The film establishes Michael’s masculinity relationally through the men that came before him: he learns from his father’s distaste for violence and his brother’s carelessness to become a true, successful copo dei capi of the Corlene family.

Michael’s consolidation of power proves to be a fitting end to the first installment of The Godfather trilogy, which is primarily interested in charting the jostle for power between and within families to establish a new socio-political hierarchy within the organized crime circuit in mid-1940s America. In the post-war context, men grappled with how to express their masculinity and assert their dominance outside the battlefield.

The film encapsulates this struggle by moving through two different modes of masculinity — through Vito and Sonny — before settling on the only viable option in Michael, whose calculated ruthlessness secures the survival and prosperity of the family. The other Dons have been vanquished, and there are no other characters within the family who might take its helm: the film underscores how Fredo’s feebleness and lack of intelligence and Tom’s non-Sicilian heritage effectively take them out of consideration for the leadership of the family, while the women of the film are shut out of that form of power entirely. Michael stands alone, unchallenged — his character having “successfully” resolved the film’s complex exploration of the relationship between gender and power in the post-war era.

Janani Hariharan (Cal ’18) is a senior studying Business Administration and English. She may have been much too young when she first watched The Godfather twelve years ago, but she is using this project to help her recover as she continues to explore the implications of gender and its performance in her favorite works.
Work Cited

Linsey Robb and Juliette Pattinson, Men, Masculinities and Male Culture in the Second World War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

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Pop, Flash, Bang: Color Accents in The Godfather

in The Craft of The Godfather

By Katerina Marovich

The Godfather is a sensually ingenious movie: it lulls its viewers into a dream state with scenes of comfortable warmth, then shocks us awake through punchy pops of drama and action. This rhythm is developed, in no small part, through Francis Ford Coppola’s distinct and painterly use of color. The visual scenes of the film—brushed with broad washes of color, while featuring sharp points of accent—give us many clues and guides into the powerful world of Don Corleone and his “family business.” There is an overwhelming sense of warmth to what we see onscreen: the general palette holds soft tones of orange, sienna, and mahogany—colors that draw in the viewer and make them feel like one of the family, cozily perched in the Don’s snug office or falling in love with Apollonia alongside Michael in Sicily. Yet it’s the accents—the colors that accentuate and ‘pop’—that drive the most interest in each scene and offer the truest signs of action and meaning.

To understand these meticulous placements and punches of color, let us first delve into the most iconic example: Vito Corleone’s red rose in the opening scene.

Don Corleone in his office, making a deal with Bonasera

We are first introduced to Don Corleone through this vivid image of him in his tuxedo, in the dark room, with the bright red rose sported on his lapel. Our eye is immediately drawn to this gleaming source of color, as this red rose promptly becomes an image carried through The Godfather’s iconography in and out of the film itself.

The red rose, highlighted in the promotion of the film

The rose, with its splash of color, is featured prominently in the posters and marketing for the film. Yet what does this red rose represent? Most obviously it is the symbol associated with love and romance. Placed over the Don’s left breast, or over his heart, it may represent passion or foretell the spilling of blood. In retrospect we can see how it foreshadows the circumstances of the Don’s downfall (how his love of his family takes his business into a crisis) as well as his ultimately peaceful end (his death of a heart attack). All of this is pulled through this pinhole image of the red rose against all the darkness surrounding him.

The Godfather in his office, surrounded by his family

Even as the scene pulls away, the red rose is at the center of the frame, pin-pricking the Don’s heart with incredible precision. Although the rest of the frame is set in the soft warm oranges and browns that we grow accustomed to, this red-hot image on the breast of the Don presses all of his warmth and his love of family into a single center. From another angle, we might say that the entire family center is found within Vito—or that the passion and love and emphasis on family all derive from Vito Corleone’s own vision.

A moment at Vito Corleone’s funeral

This image of the red rose returns, in a more minor key, at the Don’s funeral, as the mafiosos each leave a red rose on the grave at his burial. Barzini and the other mafiosos nonchalantly lob the roses onto the grave of the late Don, without any semblance of emotion or grace. The passion and love that these roses represent to the Don die and are left alongside Vito Corleone, and we are left with the dark mercilessness of Michael to replace him. The powerful passion that held the family center is no longer at the center as it was in the opening scene of the film, but now tossed rather unceremoniously to the grave.

However, the bright red rose is not the only warm accent that punctuates drastic images within the film and creates an indelible moment in the film. Another beautiful example is seen when Vito Corleone goes to the market and is subsequently shot by men sent by Sollozzo, “The Turk.”

Edward Hopper, “New York Movie”

This single image epitomizes the entire scene, which unfolds in an incredibly beautiful and aesthetic way. Notice the composition of the colors in this frame, the darkness and coolness that envelops most of the frame in the bottom left-hand side. Yet the pop of warmth and orange draws the eye to the upper right-hand corner. The shot is at a dizzying angle up and away: the camera is elevated to a birds-eye view that offers both an objective and an artfully tasteful representation of the moment. The angle disorients the viewer, pulling the emotion out of the moment directly, and viewing the sequence as a ‘whole picture.’ The image recalls the genre of American realist painting—for example, Edward Hopper’s New York Movie.

A genre entirely true to the subject matter that attempts to depict the moment in a scrupulous way that also appeals to the senses. In Coppola’s American Realism, the oranges that spill onto the street speak to the life being drained from Vito as he is shot in the street—a metaphor for the blood being spilled—and stand for the disarray of the family as well. The Don descends from the warmth and falls into the cool darkness of the street on both a physical and metaphorical level.

Vito Corleone’s wounds

After this moment, the last instance of a warm color we see is once again the red accent of dripping blood from Vito himself. He is then drowned in a wash of cool tones and dark colors as we lose sight of this bright flash of red. We are left not knowing whether the Don is alive or dead, as the darkness of the scene envelops his entire person and pulls away our knowledge of his life. This is a distinct turn in the movie as well, as the power turns from Vito Corleone to his sons, and there is an incredibly dark shift in the way the business is run. The movie drifts into this darkness just as Vito Corleone slips to the darkened pavement in this scene.

To fully understand the impact of these pops of color surrounding Vito Corleone and his mode of managing the family business, we might contrast them with the final scene with Michael taking over for Vito in the office in which it all began.

Michael in his office as the newly sanctioned Don

In this moment, the hues of the warm browns and oranges are dampened, deepened, almost entirely muted with the exception of Michael’s stark white shirt at the center. As opposed to this whiteness presenting purity, it can instead be seen as a beacon of harsh light. The source of all attention, much less comforting and aesthetically sympathetic than Vito’s romantic red rose. We are left with the cooled earth-tones of Michael rather than the warmth of reds and oranges associated with the late Don, and forebodingly end the movie in deep darkness. All the warmth of the family business that the viewer has come to associate with the Corleone family throughout the movie has been entirely sucked out. Nothing remains but Michael’s stark, brisk coolness.

Katerina Marovich (Cal ’18) is a senior English major from Northern California planning on taking her English degree into the publishing field.

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Coppola’s Reluctant Voyeurism: Gendered Violence in The Godfather

in The Craft of The Godfather

By Julia Delgadillo

Cinema is a medium that, even in the more progressive present, is largely dominated by men. As Laura Mulvey has famously suggested, this domination has caused a clear masculine bias in how films are shot and presented to viewers who, sometimes unknowingly, consume examples of harmful masculinity. In her landmark essay “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey identifies some of these harmful techniques—prominent among them the scopophilia of the male-directed camera and the sadistic punishment of women—while citing Alfred Hitchcock’s films as prime examples.

Yet there is often a complex relationship between the larger tradition of male-dominated cinema and the work of a single director—as might be seen in the case of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Though the New Hollywood of the 1970s often reinforced “the male gaze,” Coppola deliberately does not use the more popular approach of sadistic punishment, rejecting the Hitchcockian way of violence. What is most interesting about The Godfather, though, is how it negates these  conventions: Coppola created innovation not only through his manipulation of the film’s formal elements, but also through its depictions of the punishment of women.

The Godfather is a film that is obsessed with depicting male abjection—abjection understood with reference to Julia Kristeva’s “Approaching Abjection,” which defines the abject as something that is unsafely other; something that is not a definition of the self, but is within the self; something that is not a symbol of death or decay or other forms of shame within the self, but evidence that these shameful processes exist despite the self’s attempts to suppress them. More than an abstract concept, the “abject” evokes the repressed elements of the body, with fluids like blood, vomit, and feces being the best example. Not only is The Godfather obsessed with showing the moral decay of its male characters, but when it comes to the depictions of violence, male violence is shown in its entirety, with no restrictions obscuring any form of abjection.

A hyperviolent murder to match a hypermasculine protagonist: the death of Sonny

The most violent onscreen male death, in terms of the abject, is the death of Sonny Corleone. Seemingly punished for his own insatiable rage and confidence in elements of traditional masculinity, Sonny is murdered in full view. When his death begins, he is seated inside his car as the bullets begin to pierce his body and cause visible bleeding, visible abjection. His death does not end in the obstructed view of the car, however, and continues as he steps outside, not allowing a moment of rest during his hyper-violent massacre. If there is a depiction of sadistic punishment in the film, it arrives through Sonny’s death, as he is punished for being too masculine; his protracted death is performed for the unobstructed view of the camera, and so he perishes with his abjection, shame, and decay in full view—dehumanized in his demise.

The same hyperviolent treatment is not extended to the women in the film. The death that is most violent in nature and outcome is the murder of Michael’s Italian wife Apollonia, and although the manner in which she dies is harsh , the impact of this death is not as evident because of the scene’s lack of visual violence. The car explodes in full view, but we do not see the full impact of the violence on her body. The violence against her is lethal, but there is no abjection present to further shame her. The violence is instantaneous; there’s no prolonging of the agony.

***

The sequence which comes closest to the Hitchcockian tradition of sadistic punishment is the sequence in which Connie gets beaten by her husband after reacting emotionally to a call that seems to indicate an affair. Still, even though this scene is set up for an act of sadistic punishment against women, Coppola refuses to use the Hitchcockian conventions, instead allowing Connie to be punished off screen: doorways obstruct the violence, setting it in a closed space that is not completely explored by the camera. The moments in which Connie is being visibly abused by her husband are few throughout the scene, but while we see the belt hitting her body, we do not see any signs of abjection. She does not bleed, she does not bruise, she only screams in an act which alludes to pain, but does not provide proof of its existence as blood does. Both Connie and Sonny’s punishments end in a scream, but while Sonny is in an open space, Connie is out of the frame.

In the scene of Connie’s beating, the camera represents a reluctant voyeur—one who is curious, perhaps horrified, at the abuse, but does not feel the need to insert him- or herself into the scene.

Moreover, because of its frequent placement behind doorways, the camera in this scene does not identify with Carlo, the masculine punisher, as it would in the Hitchcockian convention. To make a fine but necessary distinction: the scene is voyeuristic, but not in a scopophilic sense. The camera looms over places of domesticity, but it does not fixate on the female. Instead, the camera represents a reluctant voyeur, one who is curious, perhaps horrified, at the abuse, but does not feel the need to insert him- or herself  in these scenes of violence, and instead observes quietly and curiously as violence is committed.

Violence and punishment in film do not necessarily need to relate to the physical or the abject. In some cases, violence can be considered a destructive force separate from the physical. Although Coppola may reject American cinema’s tradition of sadistic punishment, there are definite limits on how he chooses to imagine the women in his film.  In the same sequence, in which Connie is a victim of domestic abuse, the mise-en-scene conveys the limits within which Connie imagines herself and lives her life. The spaces she inhabits—and destroys—are filled with staples of domesticity. Connie breaks plates in the kitchen, she tears up the dining room, and she gets beaten in the bedroom.

Breaking plates, spilling food and wine, throwing poker chips: Connie destroys the illusion of their happy home

Yet even when Connie has the brief power to act on her own agency and destroy, she is only allowed to destroy within the confines of her stereotypical gender roles. While she does spill the chips of the living room’s poker table—the only masculine objects she touches in the scene—they are not damaged beyond repair like the other objects in the home.

What we see when Connie is being beaten: a pink bedroom full of signifiers of female fragility and submissiveness

When the sequence comes to an end, the camera lingers on the image of the bedroom, which matches Connie’s own infantilized image. The bedsheets and curtains are in the same shade of pink as her silk nightgown, a shade of pink that is most often associated with a youthful femininity and innocence, one which codes the wearers as delicate or fragile. On top of the silk bedsheets is a stuffed rabbit, another object which signifies Connie as a girl, not a woman. A girl to be disciplined and controlled by the patriarchal figures of her father, brothers, and husband, not a woman with her own sense of agency. Lastly, the images of Japanese women in kimonos that hang over her bed reinforce this impression: not only do they signify an obvious fragility and femininity, but also these images have been fetishized in the West, and falsely and unjustly associated with submissiveness. The combination of these two indicators of femininity—the softness and fragility of the pinks; the submissive and silent geishas frame Connie as a person who is expected, simply, to please her man and submit to him.

In the end, the acts of violence against Connie were used as bait to lure Sonny to his death, furthering the constraints women face in the universe of The Godfather. They exist only as objects for the men to use, whether it be sexually, romantically, in the roles of cooks and housewives, or as pawns in their never-ending battle to maintain their hyper-masculine ideas of dominance. While Coppola does not necessarily partake in the traditional on-screen, voyeuristic violence against women as seen in classic Hollywood films, The Godfather perpetuates the oppression against women in the sense of confining them to spaces and roles that reduce them to ideas of submissive beings without agency. Coppola gives us, then, both an untraditional way of framing them through his camera and a traditional way of framing women, in a larger sense, as characters.

Julia Delgadillo (Cal ’18) is a senior majoring in Film Studies and an aspiring writer/director. She is currently writing a senior thesis titled Monsters of the Mind: Manifestations of Mental Illnesses in Contemporary Horror Films.

 

Works Cited

Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 833-44.

Julia Kristeva and John Lechte, “Approaching Abjection,” Oxford Literary Review 5:1/2 (1982), 125-149.

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A Son’s Devotion to His Father: Michael and Vito’s Garden Scene

in Anatomy of a Scene/Character Studies

By Maria De Jesus Ramos Mendez

Michael (left) and Vito (center) in the dark and enclosed garden, discussing the future of the family business

We begin the scene in a noticeably dark garden: Michael Corleone has his back to us on the left, while his father, Vito Corleone, looks away to the right. They are meeting to go over Michael’s possible assassination from a traitor in the business. The scene of their meeting — in a garden —strikes a different note from earlier Godfather scenes, in which business is handled indoors, and in dark and private rooms. Yet it is not so different: the fencing encloses the garden and gives it an exclusive feel, and the lighting is gray rather than sunny and bright, suggesting the death that looms over both Don Vito and Michael (between the previous attempt on Vito’s life and a possible future attempt on Michael’s).

Although the scene is set in a garden, which might evoke the work of women (gardening) or the play of children (a suggestion taken up by the bicycle in the background), we see that the ground is mostly dirt with some big trees near the dark concrete border mentioned earlier. Too, the placement of Don Vito and Michael at the edge of the garden and not in the middle—where there are rows of vegetables being cultivated —reinforces the idea that they are not in the garden to pass the time but to go over a plan to keep Michael safe. Michael is, after all, living his life “on the edge,” and so it is fitting that he confers with his father on the edge of the garden rather than in its more sunny center. The atmosphere may be more informal than usual in the Corleone family business, but there’s no question of its seriousness. In fact, the nature that surrounds Michael and Vito acts as a framework that preserves the transfer of power between father and son as a natural and conventional gesture.

A study in contrasts: black hair vs. gray hair, new clothes vs. faded clothes

The same frame allows us to take notice of Vito Corleone and how he has been worn down by age. His hair is a dull gray, with white accents; his skin is wrinkled; he wears stubble, as if he has stopped keeping up appearances. Another critical point about the first frame is how Vito Corleone isn’t looking directly at Michael. Instead, his eyes are low and looking elsewhere. In the same manner, we don’t have access to Michael’s face. Our only way to discern how Michael is feeling at this particular moment is through his body. He leans towards his father in a concerned and caring manner.

However, moments later, the camera shifts, and we see Michael’s face and only the back of Vito Corleone’s head. Unlike Vito Corleone, Michael’s hair is black, his face is young-looking, and even his clothes are more polished compared to Vito Corleone’s old style and almost faded shirt. The difference in clothes accentuates how Vito Corleone has retired as the head of the family business and can wear comfortable clothes and be outdoors.

We come back to Don Vito as he tells Michael that he has been drinking more wine. The brief moment presents a shift in mood. Don Vito drinking the wine makes the scene appear more casual. In the background we can hear the birds chirping; the conversation eventually turns to them talking about Michael’s family, with a focus on his son. The mention of Michael’s son and his ability to read the funny papers lightens the mood; for the first and only time in the scene, Vito’s face spreads into a smile and we feel his affection for his family.

Michael looks to his father, his back toward us, while Vito looks down at the wine in his hand
Vito smiles as he faces Michael and thinks about his grandchild
Half in shadow, half in sun: Vito contemplating the paths he’d hoped Michael would follow

The happiness vanishes fairly quickly, and the scene continues to dramatize the disconnect between Michael and Don Vito. Vito and Michael’s lack of eye contact suggests many things at once. First, as part of different generations, they are constantly seeing things from a different perspective. Don Vito is still in the old habit of going over plans, and Michael has to continue reassuring him that he has already taken care of things. Second, there is a guardedness to the warmth between them: constant eye contact might be dangerous — too affectionate, too soft, for this father and son. As Robert Towne, who was brought in to script this scene, has suggested, “they couldn’t just outwardly declare their love for each other.” Lastly, there’s the possibility that Don Vito can’t look at Michael because he can’t literally face the reality that his son has become the new Don Corleone.

This last suggestion is taken up by Vito’s dialogue in the last part of the scene, which brings out both the tenderness and guardedness of their rapport. Vito gets up from his seat and sits closer to Michael, making the space between him and Michael significantly smaller. Even though Don Corleone stands up, he doesn’t have a strong presence nor much authority in the frame because his eyes are still looking down and his walk to the seat is sluggish. The scene exposes his old age even more by closing in on his aged features.

Here the lighting underscores Don Corleone’s smallness. Despite the fact that Don Corleone is closer to the screen because of where he is seated, his appearance is darkened, and Michael’s face is lit up in profile. The lighting naturally forces our eyes to focus on Michael’s face, making us see Don Corleone as a mere shadow, almost insignificant. Under the safety of the shadows, Don Corleone permits himself to utter the words, “But I never wanted this for you.” The confession enables the scene to reach a higher level of intimacy without the need for light or eye contact because the words carry all the weight. This instance of vulnerability communicates how important the family is to Vito, so much so that he taps into the unconventional tenderness of fatherhood. The sense of vulnerability is heightened by the shadow that drapes Vito’s face — a shadow that, given Vito’s age, seems not unrelated to the shadow of death.

Michael and Vito’s bodies are positioned towards each other, but the difference in lighting (Michael’s face made lighter and Vito’s darker) makes it appear that they are looking past each other

An alternative reading of this particular moment might suggest that Michael and his father are two sides of the same coin. The main difference is that Don Corleone has his eyes looking to the left as he reflects on his past, while the frame forces Michael to look to the light, towards the future.

Coppola’s particular framing of the back and forth between father and son leaves us asking why they don’t share the screen with full faces at the same time. Perhaps the camera purposefully only grants one or the other to stress the difference in generations and how that affects the future of the godfather role. After all, this scene was written so that there could be “a visible transfer of power from father to son.” The scene wraps up with Don Corleone kissing Michael on the cheek, giving last-minute warning of the traitor, and then walking off the frame of the lens. Immediately, we see Michael lay down.

A closing frame: Michael, slumped on the patio chair, carries the weight of the family

The last frame with Michael slumped in a pillowed chair conveys the weight he now bears. In the scene as a whole, Michael has become newly sympathetic — he’s framed as the son who wants to free his elderly father from the burden that is work. At the close of the scene, we see that he has taken on that burden, along with the conviction that he is the new Don Corleone. Having given the viewer that assurance, the scene fades out to the next.

Maria De Jesus Ramos Mendez (Cal ’18) is a senior studying English and Education. She is committed to fulfilling her passion for teaching literature in high school. She has taken up multiple teaching positions in hopes of gaining experience and refining her skills as an educator. When she’s not reading her novels or teaching, she enjoys the company of her husband and their beautiful little girl.

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