Tag archive

murder

Navigating Coppola’s Maze: Editing in The Godfather

in The Craft of The Godfather

By Sarah Rivka

A film is written thrice — in pre-production through screenwriting, in production through shooting, and in post-production through editing. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather was written (and re-written) in the editing room by a total of six editors, only two of whom, William Reynolds and Peter Zinner, were credited. Coppola’s biggest struggle, edit-wise, was to reduce the film to a length that Paramount Studios could stomach.

According to Harlan Lebo in The Godfather Legacy, “By the time principal photography was completed, Coppola had shot 500,000 feet of potentially usable footage, or more than ninety hours of material.” Coppola repeatedly removed and replaced scenes, often to “appease the studio,” resulting in the edit becoming a “maze,” with multiple scenes sliced and abandoned on the cutting room floor. (Lebo 188) The work was an epic exercise in reduction that won Reynolds and Zinner a nomination for the 1973 Academy Award in Editing.

The essence of cinema is editing. It’s the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.

— Francis Ford Coppola

Completing their labyrinthine edit, Coppola and his team managed to create contrasting rhythms that amplified violent scenes. Through its varying rhythmic tools—from continuous action to hard cuts and cross dissolves—The Godfather lulls the audience into submission in order to intensify the impact of violent action when it arrives. The rhythm of the film’s editing thereby mirrors the rhythm of the Corleone family, which strives to maintain an equilibrium but often resorts to violence in order to reach it.

***

Rather than employ a non-linear editing style where time is out of order (as famously done in Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction), The Godfather is edited in continuous action, with scenes passing in chronological order from start to finish. Coppola’s use of continuous action helps create his lulling ambiance. As we sit in scenes for long periods of time—scenes in which no violence occurs—we fall into the balance of the Corleone family carrying out business. Rhythmically, the majority of the film exhibits this slow, brooding pace.

Within said rhythm, one editing tool that Reynolds and Zinner employ is the transitional cross dissolve. A cross dissolve is the overlapping of two images in either two different scenes or the same scene. In contrast to hard cuts, where there is no visual overlap, cross dissolves are a way to slow down action, creating a gradual and therefore comforting effect.

This lulling and brooding ambiance causes the dispersed moments of violence to feel increasingly terrifying. When those moments of violence arise, both the film and viewer are bombarded by a rush of adrenaline. In the gruesome scene of Woltz finding his prized horse’s severed head at the foot of his bed, for instance, we open with multiple cross dissolves over exterior shots of his home, sprinkled with the sound of morning crickets. This establishes an idyllic morning before the horror. Similar to other parts of the film, it is a calm before a storm.

a series of cross-dissolves
uncut take of Woltz in bed, waking up

After the idyllic California cross-dissolve setup, the horse’s head is revealed through a long take. Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis has suggested, famously, that “[m]usic is the space between the notes. It’s not the notes you play; it’s the notes you don’t play,” and a similar principle applies to the language of film. A lack of cuts is often more powerful than countless dramatic splices. Had Reynolds and Zinner employed quick cuts here, the horrific reveal of Woltz’s severed horse’s head would read as a modern-day slasher film, which Coppola specifically aimed to avoid so that The Godfather would not fall “[t]oo much into the Corman Horror film tradition.” (Coppola, The Godfather Notebook)

The long take of Woltz waking up, discovering blood, and finding the horse’s head, all within the same shot, creates a sickening feeling that the audience can’t escape. We are forced to experience pain in real-time with Woltz. There are a couple of rhythmic beats resting on the head, making it all that much more terrifying and visceral. The shot holds on the horse’s head for the first two beats of Woltz’s scream, exacerbating the visceral nature of the horse’s killing. We do not cut until after two screams.

While Woltz screams, we visually cut farther and farther back to static shots, amplifying his sense of loss and powerlessness in this predicament. In contrast to the idyllic cross dissolves of exterior shots at the opening of this scene, these hard cuts at the scene’s finish intensify the sense of discomfort.

hard cuts moving outward: Woltz’s shock

***

Two scenes that further underscore the potential of a long take without edit are Bonasera’s opening monologue and Connie’s confrontation with her husband Carlo. In the opening monologue, we fade in and there is no hard cut, or any cut for that matter, for four minutes. The first hard cut of the film is when Marlon Brando’s character of Vito is revealed. Because this is The Godfather’s primary cut, it signifies his prominence as a character.

Bonasera’s opening monologue—a long take
first cut of the film, revealing Don Corleone

The scene in which Connie struggles to confront Carlo also showcases the power of allowing a long take to play without editing. We follow her from the kitchen, to the dining room, to the parlor, back to the kitchen and into the hallway with the knife—and all without any cut. There is no edit until after she is holding the knife; at that moment we cut to her going in the bedroom. Just as when we experienced Woltz finding his horse’s head, we are stuck in real time with Connie, vicariously trapped in her pain. This scarcity of edits also allows the actors to fully actualize their performance, further intensifying the audience’s experience.

Connie’s fight with Carlo—a long take

***

No scene in The Godfather is more famous, editing-wise, than the baptism scene—the film’s bravura climax. This scene utilizes the editing technique known as cross-cutting, or parallel editing. In parallel editing, two or more scenes are woven together. These two scenes may be occurring simultaneously or happening at various times, in a montage manner. While it is likely that the baptism and murders occur within a similar time frame, the sense that the film may be breaking, for the first time, from its continuous action underlines this scene’s importance.

hands on Connie’s baby being prepared for baptism; hands on a gun being prepared for a murder

The use of parallel editing allows for stark juxtapositions—sharp contrasts in tone, and often in concept. Michael is becoming a godfather in two senses—to his niece, and to his mafia family. We open in the church, far away and cutting closer and closer in to Connie’s baby (played by Coppola’s now director-daughter Sofia). The first cut we see dramatizing this contrast takes us from the hands of Michael and Kay, holding Connie’s baby, to the hands of another adult, holding a gun. This is the first juxtaposition where the audience can draw parallels between the two worlds in which Michael vows himself to live. Had Reynolds and Zinner edited these as separate scenes, not back-and-forth, the audience would not have the same thematic guide from the filmmakers.

We cut from the gun’s preparation to Michael, whose composure illusrtates how he ruminates, coldly, on the imminent deaths. The baby meanwhile has gone from crying to a state of calmness; there’s a slow in the editing and a pause—another calm before the storm. As the organ builds, Michael says “I do” to renouncing Satan, his sins, and becoming godfather, of baby and mafia. The parallel pre-killing cuts quickly together and the baby is once again wailing, furthering the emotional impact. As seen below, the first parallel cut where he renounces Satan is followed by a murder.

the first parallel edit between Michael’s renunciation of Satan and a ‘hit’ that he’s ordered

We then cut back to Michael, who says “I do renounce him.” Afterwards, we are pulled into another murder. Along with the organ soundtrack, this cross-cutting creates a rhythm that punctuates each murderous beat. Between each of the following murders, there is at least one cut back to Michael, suggesting his responsibility for the action carried out in his family’s name.

The other four murders that Michael ordered—each punctuated with shots of Michael in between 

***

In their maze of an edit, Coppola, Reynolds, and Zinner crafted a film of varying rhythmic qualities, allowing it to return to an equilibrium after moments of high tension and violence. The film’s lulling rhythm is reflective of the balance that Michael Corleone struggles to achieve for his family. In his mafia world, these moments of violence are inevitable—and he often succumbs. Rather than editing these scenes into ones that glorify horror, Reynolds and Zinner made them cogent and visceral. The Corleone family, we sense, is stuck in a labyrinth of their own making, perpetually attempting to restore stability and without an exit in sight.

Sarah Rivka (Cal ’19) is a junior majoring in Linguistics with a minor in Creative Writing. She recently returned to school after traveling and working as a freelance video editor. Outside of class, she spends time at UC Berkeley’s radio station DJing soul, jazz, rocksteady, highlife, poems, pop, and more under the moniker Feel Good Weird.

Works Cited

Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather Notebook (New York: Regan Arts, 2016).

Harlan Lebo, The Godfather Legacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).

 

You might be interested in

The Murder of Luca Brasi: The Curiously Moving Death of a Henchman

in Anatomy of a Scene/Character Studies
Luca Brasi getting strangled, his eyes vacant and his tongue poking his right cheek

By Jenna Allen

The scene begins with the camera positioned at a low angle, hovering just above ground level. We are transported into a setting never before seen, one that is fashionable, well-decorated, Art Deco-themed, and visually intriguing. It is a mere hallway but spacious, a series of platforms and stairs—pristine, white, heavily mirrored, gold-accented, and possessing an opulence that plainly states “luxury.”

We see many reflections of Luca Brasi in this Art Deco, heavily mirrored luxurious hallway—but we feel there’s one essential Luca

We see the lone figure of Luca, whose back faces the camera, dressed in all black and ascending the stairs. His garments are dark-toned, contrasting with the surge of brightness that is the background. His looming stature fills up almost the entirety of vertical space from ground to ceiling, as he ascends with a casual, confident gait. He is out of place—a dark, lonely figure situated among a landscape of brilliant white. When he reaches the top he removes his coat and, if we were unsure before about the identity of the tall figure, the wide profile allows us to see him clearly now: it’s Luca Brasi, Don Corleone’s most valued henchman.

The surrounding mirrors display his dark demeanor—his sober, calm professionalism—in multiple dimensions, but there seems to be one essential Luca. He is, indeed, a professional. He is a man sent out on a mission—a mission by Don Corleone.

There is something ironic about Luca’s presence here, and it is not simply his appearance. From the previous scene, we already know that Luca is to prepare the bait, to feign discontent with the Corleone family, and to ultimately test the waters for this newly emerging character, Sollozzo. Luca’s loyalty is executed in the form of a betrayal—one that is acted, of course. Thus, when Luca first steps foot into the club, with the intention to carry out the Don’s plan, a silent tension smothers the air. This is all a test.

It is a test for Sollozzo—in the most obvious sense, we want to know if he can be trusted—but more so it is a test for Luca, our principal interest in this scene. We are here directed to see how Luca will fare, this loyal, eagerly-obliging man who has been thrust into the Don’s dirty work. We cannot help having some stored attachment for this man, who first endears himself to us at the wedding with his poorly performed thank you to the Don. Thus, when Luca dies on an errand of loyalty, we register heavy tremors of shock. A sense of loss, keyed to the corruption of Sollozzo and Tattaglia, begins to color The Godfather, often exploding upon us in the most sudden and savage of ways..

Though the impact of Luca’s death scene has much to do with surprise, it also has deeper, more complex roots. Our emotional response to Luca’s death hinges on what we’ve come to know about him: at this point in our experience of the film, he is not just some brawny, dispensable crony, but rather an actualized, round character.  In Puzo’s novel, Luca Brasi’s loyalty to Don Corleone is established through a long history of violence—murders committed on Corleone’s behalf. (Annotated Godfather, 75) In the film, Brasi is a much-abbreviated version of this ruthless killer, but he is fleshed out just enough, and with singular idiosyncrasies, to draw our attachment.

* * *

First impression-wise, it is difficult for the viewer to focus on any aspect of Brasi other than his gigantism. He possesses all the properties of a menacing assassin whose sheer bulk and size instantly disclose his raw strength. Kay echoes this notion at the wedding, remarking to Michael in a low tone, “See that scary guy over there?” The actor who fills this “scary guy” role is 6’6” Lenny Montana, an ex-wrestler who had been known by the moniker “The Zebra Kid” and was the World Champion at one point. (Annotated Godfather, 37) Such a figure inadvertently dwarfs all the wedding guests around him.

Luca, the “scary guy,” practicing and fumbling his lines

But the longer the camera focuses upon Brasi, the more we see of his contrasting, almost endearing interiority. The “big scary man” who is talking to himself is actually frozen in deep concentration, fumbling and repeating the same words over and over again. He strains himself in the midst of merriment. Everyone around him is alight with joy and then there is Brasi, mumbling to himself, a heap of nerves. There is something sweet about a man who does not match the fear he inspires—who is quickly deemed the ‘scary’ guy while possessing a slightly softer, grateful side within.

The death of Brasi is much more than transactional—not “strictly business,” to use a phrase from the film. It is emotionally affecting.

By suppressing Puzo’s version of Brasi, who is marred by a more unforgivable past, Coppola gives us a Brasi who is known only by his loyalty. This Brasi exhausts himself with perfecting a memorized speech of gratitude, and even gives money afterward for the bridal purse of the Don’s daughter. Yes, he kills for Don Corleone, but he also receives an invitation to an exclusive family wedding; we come to know him purely through this bond to Don Corleone. His death, then, is much more than transactional – not “strictly business,” to use a phrase from the film. It is emotionally affecting —the poignant consequence of his “pledge [of] never ending loyalty.”

***

At the start of the scene that leads to his death, we already know what Luca Brasi really is. He is a fabricated defector who must, for now, bury his unshakable allegiance to Corleone. When he steps into this lavish place of meeting, we as viewers are thrust into a moment of waiting, a moment of pressing uncertainty. The gold ornamentation, the trendy aesthetics, the overall unspoiled feel—burgundy walls, golden dim lights, everything shrouded in shadow: all these elements foster a mellow ambiance. Surely, no violence can erupt in a place as sedate and sophisticated as this? And even if it does, we have faith in the reliable, tried-and-true Brasi.

When we meet the figures of Bruno Tattaglia and Virgil Sollozzo inside, there is something about them that blends into this cool, fashionable setting. This is the Italian-American Mafia—sleek entrepreneurs, cleverly veiled criminals—and this is where they meet, as businesspeople accustomed to a tableau of luxury. Tattaglia immediately sets the tone, introducing himself as if he were all smiles and good cheer: “Luca! I’m Bruno Tattaglia.” He effortlessly assumes a businessman’s air of affability, embodying a type of bold cordiality that is difficult to second-guess.

“I know.” Brasi’s curtness marks a break with the manufactured pleasantries. Brasi, in fact, seems incongruously situated here from the start. The inaptness of the meeting is magnified by his unrelenting stoniness.

Meanwhile the camera angle captures the scene from the characters’ torsos up, panning back and forth frequently, with equal attention capturing each expression. Tattaglia maintains an easy casual aura, standing directly under a cascade of light, smiling as he speaks, professional and almost jovial. When Sollozzo enters, taking his place beside Bruno, he mimics this air of friendliness.

The opposing sides are clear contrasts in this way. Sollozzo, chatty and encouraging, leads the conversation with a piercing, alert gaze. He dresses warmly, in welcoming beige and camel-colored tones—all in all, appearing as a lighter flash of color against Luca, who is on the opposite side, darkly attired, stoic and shadowed, with a reserved nature that seems unwittingly out of place.

As with many scenes in The Godfather, we could not possibly have guessed the coming action. In a brief, preceding scene, Brasi, in preparation, dons a bullet-proof vest while he loads his gun. “The audience is probably waiting for the vest to come into play,” Coppola writes in his notebook. “This is a beautiful piece of misdirection.” (Annotated Godfather, 75)

The business pauses for a moment, as Brasi, thinking the ‘deal’ over, takes out a cigarette. Then the quiet, steady hum of this scene is shattered in an instant. With swift movements and efficient teamwork, the violence occurs almost too quickly to even process. Tattaglia drops his amiable facade, and the camera zooms in as he grabs firmly onto Brasi’s arm. Next, a knife plunges into the frame and lands with a tell-tale thud into Brasi’s restrained hand.

We hear a simultaneous scream, made more unsettling by its deepness, and by our awareness that it comes from a grown man who cannot suppress the anguish of his pain. And just like that, without warning, we are ejected at once from the scene’s mellow, easygoing tempo to one of fast-paced horror. By the time the garrote is placed around Brasi’s throat by an unknown assailant, we want Luca to overpower him, to use brute strength or even his gun to turn the outcome around. Ultimately, we just want his suffering to stop.

But there is no easy escape. Instead of ceasing, Brasi’s strangulation is extended as long as possible. In this striking, visually repulsive moment, we are forced to endure his death in its entirety. Luca’s gasps become softer. His face becomes tinged with a purple, bruised color. His eyes are pushed out of their sockets and become two vacant bulges as his tongue sticks unnaturally outside his mouth. In preproduction, Coppola’s special effects memo reads, “This is probably the most difficult effect in the movie.” Luca’s dying moments here are backed by sufficient research to capture all the unpleasant physiological changes that occur realistically with strangulation. (Annotated Godfather, 76) This scene holds nothing back. Once the choking Brasi ripens to the complexion of a grape, and his limp figure starts to slip under the table, we have to accept the imminence of his death.

Yet Luca’s drawn-out suffering and the morbidly jarring violence of this scene are not inserted in the film simply for the sake of violence, simply to titillate or transfix the viewer. Brasi’s suffering is key to the film’s greater significance, as this short scene marks a monumental turning point within it. From his death alone, The Godfather forges its overarching conflict and defines the ensuing direction of the plot. It takes one scene to dramatically color Sollozzo and Tattaglia as merciless villains.

The murder of Luca Brasi colors Sollozzo and Tattaglia as merciless villains, and seeds feelings of shock, disgust, betrayal, and sadness—out of which emerges the heightened question, “What next?”

The scene seeds, within the audience, feelings of shock, disgust, betrayal, and sadness—out of which emerges a heightened wonder of ‘What next?’ Moreover, Luca’s eventual death does not mean an end to the violence; it is, in fact, the jump starter for it. Brasi’s death, then, opens onto many forms of loss—the loss of a trusted friend, the loss of peace among the Five Families, and all the human losses that we anticipate will arrive with the unprecedented storm that is about reach the Corleones.

Jenna Allen (’18) is a Cal undergrad working on her B.A. in English Literature.
Works Cited

Jenny M. Jones, The Annotated Godfather (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007).

You might be interested in

“Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli”: The Hit Man as Family Man

in Anatomy of a Scene

By Sterling Farrance

In a film as eminently quotable as Coppola’s The Godfather, perhaps only one choice line emerged solely from improvisation: “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.” Neither the shooting script n­­­or the novel mentions cannolis, but Coppola had his own childhood memories to draw this detail from: he remembered the specific white boxes that his father would bring home after work. That said, it was not Coppola who generated the line: Clemenza’s “Take the cannoli” line was an improvisation on the part of actor Richard Castellano, who portrayed him. The line became the favorite of many of The Godfather’s cast and crew, including Michael Chapman, a cameraman who would later, as cinematographer, become famous for his work on Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, among other great films. (The Annotated Godfather)

While the history behind this little tidbit of Hollywood magic is indeed fascinating, the line itself stands out because, in tandem with the scenes around it, it condenses so much about the values on display in The Godfather: in the world of the Corleones, family comes before all else, protecting children is imperative, and business is business.

***

An image of Clemenza's home
Clemenza’s cozy home

Peter Clemenza has been assigned the grim duty of assuring that Paulie is punished for the attack on Vito Corleone, and this is where the sequence leading up to the cannolis begins. In this first scene, we see Clemenza’s smaller family unit and get a sense of his home life. This short sequence personalizes the larger mob family and conveys many of the themes found in the film: the immigrant dream of American middle-class bliss, the need to care for and protect the family, and the untrustworthy and false front of business. Clemenza’s home is cozy, and seemingly of the type to be found in a place like Long Island. There are kids playing in the street and driveway, and we can hear laughter and joyous voices. The car that’s parked in the driveway is postwar and is shiny and gorgeous. Strife is conspicuously absent here; Clemenza’s home life is warm, and even idyllic. This seems to be the very life that Vito left Sicily for.

When are you going to be home?
Clemenza's wife looks approvingly at him
Look at my sweet husband!

The camera cuts in to the doorstep, and Clemenza talks with his wife. They speak in the rhythm of a couple married for many years. Clemenza has his back turned to the camera, so his wife’s face, dialogue, and motions grab our attention, just as she is trying to grab her husband’s attention before he leaves for work. She wants to know when he’ll be home, and lovingly blows him a kiss after he tells her it will be late. She smiles after him as he walks away, as if to say “what a good man, what a good life I have.” To her, it’s just another day and nothing in Clemenza’s demeanor has given away that he’s on a brutal mission. He’s already in character, already putting up the false front he must maintain to deflect Paulie’s suspicion and keep the hit moving smoothly.

As he climbs into the car, she calls after him “Don’t forget the cannoli!” Clemenza replies, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” We tend to want to chuckle a bit, or at least smile: his repeated “yeahs” seem to convey “Oh that wife, how she nags, but she’s really a good one, and I love her, and won’t forget those cannolis.” But the humdrum dialogue not only personalizes this family unit, and through extension the larger Corleone mob family, but also suggests the importance of a certain level of comfort, of the pleasure that comes with that comfort. In the American dream of prosperity, it’s not enough simply to feed your family; one needs the treats that come from keeping that slightly more privileged existence.

Paulie nervously asks Rocco to move from his spot in the back seat
Paulie: not a very good actor
Clemenza advises Paulie to "Watch the kids"
Clemenza: thinking about the family

As Clemenza sits in the car, Paulie’s anxiety is readily apparent. He nervously looks at Rocco in the back seat and tells him to move, explaining that he needs a better view of the car’s rear. Paulie is fooling nobody, but this doesn’t matter. Clemenza doesn’t even show that he’s noticed, and Rocco moves without comment. Paulie is no actor, while Clemenza has a cold and routine manner. This is what’s needed to protect the family, and to keep the business moving. As they begin to pull out of the driveway, Clemenza sternly warns Paulie to “watch out for the kids while you’re backing out.” Like Vito who cares so deeply about the welfare of his children, Clemenza, even in moments of intense focus and responsibility, is looking out for his own children.

***

Notably, this unflinching drive to protect the family is exactly what led us to this scene in the first place. Paulie has seemingly betrayed Vito—and thus the family—by selling him out. In The Godfather, this kind of betrayal is the worst of all sins. We see the matter discussed, in the Corleone family office, just before the viewer spends time in front of Clemenza’s cozy abode.

Paulie coughs in a contrived manner in front of Sonny Corleone, who -- after he leaves the room -- order that he be killed
From fake cough to a hit planned

In the middle of deliberations about the fate of the family, Paulie enters the room with a message, handkerchief in hand, coughing a very pitifully fake sounding cough. Sonny sees through this faux-illness and doesn’t believe it’s a coincidence that Vito was shot the day Paulie was “sick.” Paulie, meanwhile, seems to foolishly think the family has gone soft enough not to catch him, but his poor acting underscores that he doesn’t have what it takes to handle the business world of the film. As soon as Paulie leaves the room, Sonny sternly orders the hit, telling Clemenza to make it the first thing on his list. Not only is betrayal the worst of all sins, necessitating an immediate death sentence, but there can be no time wasted.

***

Clemenza is just the man to enact the necessary care and protection of the family. Beneath Clemenza’s calm exterior, he is calculating—planning and taking precise action. Before Clemenza, Rocco, and Paulie have even left his driveway, Clemenza starts planning. The family business must move much quicker than before to deal with the myriad problems arising from the shooting of the Don. Clemenza begins discussing arrangements for safehouses to protect the family. This begins to settle Paulie down a bit.

Clemenza plans “goin’ to the mattresses”

Though this planning might ease Paulie’s anxiety, it is also legitimate, and is in fact critical work. On the level of the plot, it makes Paulie feel comfortable and gives him the sense that business is running as usual, which will keep the hit running smoothly, with no struggle or risk of the attempt being thwarted. Rocco, who sits in the back seat ready to actually commit the murder, is also being groomed to take Paulie’s place. While Clemenza lays out safehouse instructions throughout the drive, he might as well be giving this information to Rocco. They can’t just waste the time it takes to drive to a rural place and kill Paulie; they must plan next steps as well. The family business cannot stop or even slow down.

As they drive along, they trade jokes. While these jokes work to lighten the tone with Paulie, they have a deeper subtext too. En route to the remote spot that will serve as the scene of Paulie’s death, Clemenza explains that the mattresses must be clean because they will be in use for a long while. Paulie assures him that they are: “They told me they exterminate them.” Rocco starts to laugh, and Clemenza exclaims, “Exterminate? That’s a bad word to use: exterminate! Get this guy. Watch out we don’t exterminate you!”

Paulie: "They're clean and exterminated" / Clemenza: "That's a bad word to use"
The beginning of a harsh joke
Clemenza says to Paulie, "Exterminate! Watch out so we don't exterminate you!" The car is shown driving a curving country road outside of Manhattan
The brutal punchline

On an instrumental level, Clemenza is keeping things light and jovial to prevent Paulie from suspecting anything: while instructing him to “watch out,” he is in fact disarming him. But this joke has a different level of meaning for viewers who see the hit coming: in light of the murder they have planned, this joke seems incredibly cold, harsh, and calculated. The three of them then joke about flatulence in Italian—a very crude and typical “Who farted? It wasn’t me, it must have been you!” bit of banter. Before the laughter and tone has the chance to shift, Clemenza crudely declares, “Pull over. I’ve got to take a leak.” The tone of the moment continues to be earthy, casual. This of course opens the opportunity for the actual killing, and all the humor has prevented Paulie from becoming too suspicious. He is shot while Clemenza urinates—as if to suggest that the killing is as routine, regular, and necessary as “taking a leak.”

An image of a car parked in the countryside alternates with images of Clemenza taking a leak
Zip. Bang, bang, bang!

The act itself is done swiftly and coldly while Clemenza urinates. He walks away, unzips, and almost immediately three gunshots are fired. The camera is close to Clemenza, and he turns his head just enough to allow the viewer to see his slight reaction. When the act happens, there is maybe a hint of unexpected sadness that plays over his face, but the dominant look is one of resignation—resignation, we imagine, to the necessity of this act. Meanwhile the camera is incredibly far away from Paulie and Rocco, far enough to keep the act impersonal, and far enough to show us the Statue of Liberty in the distant background. This kind of coldness and decisiveness is what has allowed the family to achieve the safety and the immigrant dream symbolized by that pillar of freedom, and only this cold slaying will allow them to keep it.

Clemenza tells Rocco, "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."
And let the quoting begin!

Clemenza tells Rocco, “Leave the gun,” which also means leave the car, the bloody body, the shattered windshield, and this whole horrific scene. Leave it to be a message; let it show the family has not gone soft, not gotten sloppy or stupid, and let it show what the cost of betrayal is. And then Clemenza gives the punchline: “take the cannoli.” He cannot leave that prized treat he has promised the family: otherwise what’s this all for? In the world of The Godfather, your word is your bond. He might have pushed away his wife with “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” but he wouldn’t dare forget her beloved cannolis. His conscientiousness lightly suggests the follow-through necessary to survive this film’s world (Michael is expert at follow-through). So Clemenza tells Rocco to reach into the bloody car for the special dessert. He is bringing back the cannoli, but also—thanks to the killing—a safer state for the family, one more secure and without the current threat of betrayal.

We can demonstrate why this scene is so important to the narrative, and we can illuminate how well executed it is; however, we may not have explained why everyone loves that quote. I know I count myself among its fans, but I can’t quite tell you why. I think it has something to do with the economy of its language—how, in the space of six words total, we get two sentences that convey so much about the core of this remarkable film. It’s a straight-up, practical line that advances the story very efficiently. But pure efficiency isn’t what makes great art. You can’t just leave the aesthetics and take the function. The quick rhythm, the parallel structure, and the decisiveness they register are appealing for reasons that go beyond mere efficiency. So maybe that’s why we adore these two quick lines: because they blend form and function at the highest level.

But let’s be real, we’d all be lying to ourselves—at least a little—if we don’t admit: it’s also totally badass.

Sterling Farrance is a writer/educator with a freshly minted B.A. in English and Creative Writing from UC Berkeley. An avid cinephile and lover of anachronistic media, he is looking forward to beginning an MFA at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California where he will write about how film changes one’s view of the world. This, of course, is mostly just an excuse for him to plow through his ever-growing laserdisc collection for the sake of “research.”

 

You might be interested in

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.

You might be interested in

Go to Top