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Sonny Corleone

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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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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A Family in Celebration, and in Transition: The Godfather’s Opening Wedding Scene

in Anatomy of a Scene/Character Studies

By Hansol Jung

The men in the wedding party in black, the bride in white, the women in the wedding party in pink. Michael Corleone is not in the photo.Early in the opening wedding scene of The Godfather, a photographer lines up the Corleone family, preparing a family photo to solemnize the marriage of Constanzia, or Connie, Corleone to Carlo Rizzi. Yet Vito Corleone, the Don of this Sicilian family, notes his youngest son’s absence and so stops the shot from being taken: “We’re not taking the picture without Michael.” A picture is forever, and Vito—the center of the family, and with an especially soft spot for his son Michael—insists that all must be present and all must be willing to play their part. What Vito has created through the Corleone family is represented in its purest and most picturesque form by Connie’s wedding, which is huge, vibrant, and cheerful.

But even as the scene dramatizes the splendor of the family, it also suggests, through the characters of Vito’s three sons, the cracks that will split it apart: Santino, or Sonny, is hot-headed and unfaithful; Alfredo, or Fredo, is drunk and immature; and Michael is at odds with his family, holding himself apart from its operations. This distance, however, is not easily made, and through his dialogue and personality comes another image of Michael, one who is entrenched within Sicilian family values and unable to shake the influence of his father. And so the wedding scene works as a representation of the Corleone family in all of its glory and grime, setting up a family at the height of its power and influence while subtly undermining it through ugly portrayals of its key players.

***

The wedding is a grandiose celebration, and rightfully so for a Corleone celebration: Vito has put in exhaustive work to be able to put on display the love and care he has for his daughter, and more generally, his entire family.

An image of the festive wedding from aboveIn the first shot following Vito’s dealings with Amerigo Bonasera, we glimpse the throng that has assembled for the event: though a tree covers half of the crowd, there are still dozens of visible people milling around, and by placing the camera far from the event, the individual people become a blur and turn into one huge sea of costumed bodies. The image suggests how, to the Corleones, a family should function: though the individuals that make up the larger family business are essential to its workings, they are all under the guise of one group and so are united by that group. Even with a sizable attendance already inside the estate, people can be seen still walking into the courtyard. Everyone, from tiny toddlers to their aging grandparents, must come and pay respects to Connie in this momentous event.

Still, the celebration wouldn’t be complete without the proper decoration and music, which Vito ensures are in tune with the rest of the festivities. Both the entranceway and courtyard are festooned with a huge overhanging of lights; no expense has been spared in the preparation of the party. The music jovially plays in the background and sets the scene for the constant dancing, which extends until the very last moments of the wedding scene. The orchestra that plays the music, visible later, is made up a great number of suited musicians—undoubtedly another considerable expense.

Yet Vito is not just a man who spends a lot of money to make his daughter’s wedding a great celebration; he’s the sort of father who actively shows his care with that money by partaking in the festivities, spending time with his family throughout despite his ongoing business deals behind the scenes. This scene fills the wedding with his attention and care as he dances with his wife in the midst of the crowd. Smiles on their faces, the couple waltz as Vito makes an inaudible comment to his wife that conveys the couple’s agreeable intimacy.

This scene is mirrored again at the end of the wedding: Vito leads his daughter through the crowd of clapping attendees, clutching her hand tightly. Holding hands is a sign of affection often seen between a parent and a young child, and in this context the meaning is still valid—perhaps even more so due to Connie’s older age and the likelihood that they no longer are so physically close. As Vito carefully lays his hand on her waist and they begin to waltz, Connie speaks inaudibly to him, causing them both to smile. When the scene cuts to a shot farther away from the two, Connie hugs him tightly as they continue their waltz. This increased physical affection suggests their own emotional intimacy, which they unabashedly display on stage.

***

Despite all the effort Vito puts into the celebration, he is undermined by each of his sons, who fail to share the same love and attention he puts into his family. Fredo, his second oldest son, is particularly marginalized within the framework of the wedding. He is introduced in a scene where he meets Michael and Kay Adams, Michael’s girlfriend.

Fredo inserting himself drunkenly between Michael and his girlfriend (later wife) Kay AdamsInstead of greeting Michael with care and love—as Tom Hagen does when he first sees Michael, and as an older brother should do after not having seen his younger brother in quite some time—Fredo flicks the back of Michael’s head. While this gesture suggests a kind of playful intimacy, it underscores Fredo’s immaturity and inability to socialize with people in a more dignified way. The blocking of the action in the scene—with Fredo kneeling between Michael and Kay—also conveys his awkwardness and divisiveness. Michael’s act of bringing Kay to the wedding shows his devotion to her and telegraphs that one day, they too might get married. When Fredo sits between them, he separates the two and effectively disrupts the natural state of the couple.

John Cazale, the actor who plays Fredo, draws out the character’s immaturity through his particular way of inhabiting the character. Cazale acts slightly too drunk, with his hands too active in touching both Michael and Kay and his way of speaking too oblivious to have a continuously flowing conversation. This is Fredo’s single scene of dialogue in the entire opening wedding sequence, and it makes clear that he is a son who lacks many of his father’s qualities. He is too drunk to function properly at the wedding, is unable to have mature social interactions, and fails to understand the intricacies of familial relationships.

***

Sonny offers crumpled bills ot an FBI agent after stomping on his cameraThough Sonny Corleone, the oldest son and therefore the eventual successor to the family business, shares few of Fredo’s character traits, he is also unlike his father in both personality and values. His reckless and impulsive nature is dramatized in his interaction with the FBI agents who are documenting, in an act of surveillance, the people who are attending the wedding. After unsuccessfully attempting to get the agents to leave and being met instead with a stoic face and an FBI ID, Sonny takes his frustration out on one of the agents, yanking his camera away and throwing it on the ground. Afterwards, he’s held back by Peter Clemenza; if Clemenza had not been there, Sonny would have likely thrown some punches. Then, in classic gangster fashion, he drops a couple of crumpled bills on the ground to pay for the broken camera.

This scene speaks volumes about Sonny, especially his inability to control his temper: once he fails to get what he wants, he will continue to take further action, no matter how irrational, to exact his petty revenge. Sonny has his own form of immaturity, that is, and although it is quite different from Fredo’s, it still is a huge character defect. By committing such irresponsible actions, he distances himself from his father. During the wedding, especially in his dealings with Amerigo Bonasera, Vito is defined by his poise, gracefulness, and eloquence. He does this not only to maintain control over intense situations, but to handle them maturely and ensure that they reflect well back on to him. By contrast, Sonny lacks the foresight to control his emotions, and fails to understand how his outbursts will reflect back upon his family.

If his personality suggests a mismatch with his father’s, the way Sonny treats his own family absolutely confirms this mismatch, setting him up as the antithesis of Vito. In a cruel irony, Sonny takes advantage of the drama around the celebration of a new family to cheat on his wife.

This moment from the wedding scene encapsulates well the cruelty of the irony. His wife is in the foreground, busy talking to other guests and joking about the size of his phallus—which in its own way is a form of endearment. Meanwhile Sonny is almost directly behind her, just having whispered into the bridesmaid’s ear to meet him in a more private setting. He is cheating on his wife literally behind her back, and her close proximity to him while he commits this act suggests how normal this sort of betrayal has become for him. He puts a little care into hiding his unfaithfulness, but his suspicious activities are not unnoticed by his wife, who looks behind her to find him, only to see that he is already gone.

Sonny’s willful disregard of his own family reveals the biggest possible contrast between him and his father: while Sonny is scheming to have sex in an act of unfaithfulness, his father dances with his wife on stage in an act of faithfulness. Vito makes it plain that he disapproves of Sonny’s actions in a later scene from the wedding sequence.

Vito to Sonny: "a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man"While talking to Johnny Fontane, he asks him if he spends time with his family, which Johnny replies affirmatively to. He follows up with a bit of moral instruction—“Because a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man”—and here he looks directly at Sonny, directing the line more to him than to Johnny. Vito doesn’t address the issue in a private one-on-one, but he doesn’t need to, as this line serves as his condemnation of Sonny’s act. And in this condemnation, he embarrasses his son for failing to be a “real man” and a proper Corleone father.

Structurally, the shot echoes the one earlier with Sonny’s wife: in both, Coppola places in the foreground a character who’s talking about Sonny and positions Sonny in the background. His placement in the background suggests his participation in suspicious activities and his attempts to keep them out of sight from his family. Consequently, Sonny is the opposite of Vito in both personality and moral conduct, and his obvious lack of belief in traditional Sicilian family values indicates how inappropriate he would be to succeed Vito as head of the Corleone family.

***

Michael enters the wedding in olive green military garb, accompanied by Kay Adams, a non-Italian-American While Michael may not be as immature as his two older brothers, the moment he walks into the wedding a distinction is already made between him and the rest of his family. As he walks into the estate with Kay, noticeably late—13 minutes already into the film to be exact—his military uniform sticks out like a sore thumb. Michael makes deliberate choices to differentiate himself from the rest of the Corleone family, showing up when he wants to instead of at the beginning of the wedding, wearing what he wants to instead of a tuxedo like the rest of his brothers, and bringing a non-Italian-American date (who herself chooses to wear a dress that is Americana in style). These choices construct his character as just another attendee and not a central member of the Corleone family. In his first interaction with a member of the family, Michael hears from Tom that his father is looking for him.

Coppola cuts to a close-up shot here, placing emphasis on both the importance of the statement as well as the secrecy of it—as it is family business—to ensure that Kay will not overhear. But Michael barely reciprocates, simply nodding before sitting back down to continue dining with Kay. This is a direct rejection of Vito, and more generally a rejection of any effort to craft stronger ties with his family and the dubious business they deal in.

Michael saying to Kay, "That's my family, Kay. It's not me."Michael’s decision to create a strong distinction between himself and his family is epitomized in a later scene in which he recounts the story of how Vito helped launch Johnny’s solo career. As he relates Vito’s criminal activities to Kay in vivid detail, he ends with the line “That’s my family Kay. It’s not me.” Michael makes it clear to Kay that he no longer feels a sense of belonging within his own family. It appears that Michael, decked out in his military uniform, is attempting to rebrand himself as a law-abiding, patriotic citizen — the exact opposite of a Corleone.

***

The opening wedding scene of The Godfather serves a dual purpose, revealing Vito’s love for the entire Corleone family and the standard of behavior he expects from them, while also exposing his three sons as failing to meet that standard. However, we can make a crucial distinction between the three sons: while Sonny and Fredo are both defined by their immature actions, Michael is Vito’s only son who chooses, on purpose, to fail to meet this standard.

Furthermore, we can see that, outside of his decisions to distance himself from the family, Michael is still a bearer of Sicilian values and culture: he talks about Sicilian family titles, recounts stories regarding his father, and even waltzes with his significant other, much like Vito is seen doing at various points in the wedding.

And so, with Michael finally present at the wedding, the photographer lines up the family once again. Michael stands with his family, even bringing in Kay despite her not being Italian-American nor his wife at this point. His presence in the picture hints that he may one day be ready to rejoin the Corleone family, but it won’t be to assimilate back into the previously established culture. Instead, it will be on his own terms, with his own standards of morality and his own family values.

A complete Corleone family, with Michael now posed in the family portrait

Hansol Jung (Cal ’20) is a sophomore majoring in English. A student with many aspirations, Hansol is part of various extracurriculars that align with his interests. At one point a Daily Californian Arts writer, Hansol now devotes his time to working as a vice president of the Korean-American Student Association on campus as well as the president of an awards-winning competitive advertising club, imagiCal.

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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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