Oranges=death

The use of symbolizes is very apparent in the movie The Godfather. Doorways, bedroom numbers, Kay’s scarlet dress: these are symbols that were seen throughout the whole movie that were all either a motif, and were repeated several times, or they were shown enough times that the audience should be able to recognize and address what they are representing. Another symbol, that can be argued is just an accident, is the relationship between oranges and death.

When Don Corleone is shot in the street of downtown, he left his car to go buy something from across the street and what was is that he needed to buy? Oranges. He was not killed in this scene and this scene is also one that compares him to Jesus Christ, so this scene could have a higher meaning but one of the main elements of this scene is the oranges.

As the movie goes on and Don continues to live and he becomes older and ill, his health and lively hood is questioned several times especially when he is outside talking to Michael and he is visibly aged and this is one of the first times that Don Corleone does not seem invincible. In the scene that Don Corleone dies in he is with the son of the Michael and Kay and they are playing and water plants in the garden. The oranges in this scene can easily be over looked and can go un-noticed at first but looking closely at the plants that are in the back round of this scene, they are orange trees.

After watering the plants, Don picks on of the oranges off the tree and cuts a piece and put the outside of it in his mouth as a playful joke and it actually works the opposite way that he wants it to, it upsets the child or than he is amused. After calming the child, he starts to playfully chase the child around the garden and he starts to cough and falls to his death.

The use of oranges as a symbol for death is used mainly around the character of Don Corleone. The oranges are not a direct symbol like something like the dead fishes would be but they are an apparent symbol when they are looked at as more than just oranges.

The use of doorways in the Godfather's final scene

Why did Francis Ford Coppola decide to shot the majority of his transition scenes through a doorway? Did he do this for the allusion that it creates or was it just to add change to his movie scenes? The use of doorways is for an obvious certain reason and was not just used because Francis like the way the shots looked, it was used for a certain but what is that reason?

The scene at the end of the movie is a scene that the use of the doorways is incredibly evident. When I first watched this scene, I was not completely aware of why Coppola would have out two doors and a closing door into the final scene. After re-watching the scene twice, I had an idea of what the doorways symbolized. When Kay is still in the office and she was asking Michael about what had happened with Carlos and if he had killed him Carlos. Kay had never seen him get Carlos killed but when he responds to her question finally, he lies to her and says that he did not kill Carlos. After that Kay leaves the room and the shot zooms out so that she is looking back at Michael inside his office with several other men (who start to refer to him as the Don) and then the door is shut on her and the movie ends.

Why were there doorways in that scene? I think that the doorways are a symbol for how little the woman that are involved or part of the Corleone family really understand about what is going on behind closed doors. When she leaves the room and we then see 2 doorways and she really does not know what is going on around the death of Carlos, all she knows is lies. Could the doorways symbolize how women are unaware of the real workings behind the Corleone family business?

The use of sounds to magnify a scene

When something happens there is always a chain reaction of effects. Some actions results in physical changes and some result in noises, sounds or smells. The Godfather is a movie and the ability to smell television still hasn’t had the technology developed; the main way to emphasize the scene that is taking place is either by picture and sound. The use of picture is evident though out any movie or scene on television because it is heavily relied upon but the use of sound to add to a scene is what sets different scenes and situations apart. When someone walks into a room, the scene changes but how does a producer show an emotional or environmental change?

One of the ways that Francis Ford Coppola uses sound to add the movie is very affective and it is one of the elements that make the first part of The Godfather such a rich and in-depth film to watch and enjoy. Coppola could have easily put a series of images together and he could have tried and portrayed his message that way but he decided to add certain, carefully chosen elements to make The Godfather come to life. Sound has been one of the elements that have really stood out me in the short amount of film that we have watched.

When Michael Corleone is at the hospital to visit his father and he goes outside with Enzo (the baker) and the police come into the scene there is an immediate change in the mood of the scene; why and what did this? It was not just the arrival of the police, who are portrayed as the “bad guys”, but there is something else. When I watch the scene for the first time I did not notice what it was and not until Mr. McGuigan stop the film and we re-watched it 2 times, was I able to determine what had affected the mood so much—it was the added sound that had set this scene apart from the one before. The sound that Coppola had added was thunder—how over rated right? Adding thunder when a bad guy comes in, how could we have not picked up on it when we first saw it? Francis Ford Coppola does such an amazing job of changing the mood by adding sounds that are unexpected but recognized; this adds an element to The Godfather that set it apart from any other B rated film. In the short amount of the film that we have seen, Coppola uses sounds to enhance a scene 2 distinctive times and in both cinereous he does it beautifully and has a lot of success.

The Don vs. Jesus Christ

Don Vito Corleone is the god father to all of the members of his family and he is the type of man that if you had a problem either with someone or something you knew exactly who to go to. Don was the main man in his family, he ran the family business and he was a very well respected man. Don was asked at the beginning of the film The Godfather to take care of a certain person for Bonasera and when he asked him much money he wanted, Don was immediately offended. Why was the fact that he asked “How much shall I pay you?”? Don has built his empire on respect, everything he does is for people that respect him and people that he respects and taking into account his reaction to the question of how much money he wanted was asked by Bonasera, he is a man that cannot be bought; you have to earn his respect.

When Don was out in downtown New York and he was buying fruit just across the street from his car, he was shot. Sollozzo was responsible for the shooting of Don and he made a second attempt to kill him when he was in the hospital but Michael Corleone made the decision that enough was enough and that something needed to be done and his father could not be treated like this. This is when the meeting with Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey was arranged, this is where they were both killed. When Don was shot, he was not shot once, not three times—he was shot 5 times. At first this seems as just a shooter that does not have good aim but really it means a lot more than it appears too.

There was another man who is seen as the father of all and is a very important figure to most people in the world, either in one form or another, who is this man? Jesus Christ. Jesus was also a figure that was seen as the father of the world and he was someone that was respected by most but still had haters that got the better of his life. He was not killed but he was also killed with 5 wounds. This allusion of both Don Corleone and Jesus Christ being compared in the way that they were killed is a connection between the two.

Was this on purpose or is Coppola a genius by accident? I think this was done on purpose and he has done this to further portray the message of the Don. Don Corleone was a man that had more power and had so much respect from the people around him that he was seen as such a treat and Jesus was also. The allusion that is created to connection the two characters is done in such a way that most people watching the film for enjoyment would not notice. That exactly why Francis Ford Cappola did it, his film is for more than just enjoyment and every movement, noise, and camera angle is done to portray his message and he does it so successfully that The Godfather will forever be a film that can be watched 100 times.

Answering the Call

When the movie “The Godfather” is compared to some of the concepts in the Hero’s Journey, there are many of the same archetypes. At the point that we are at so far in the film, I have seen some of archetypes. The main archetype that I have been able to compare from the two sources is Answering the Call. When Michael Corleone first enters the movie, he states that what the Dom and the rest of his family is doing is them and that he has no part in it and that is when he is refusing the Call. When his father is shot and sees how much he is needed he changes his outlook on what his family is doing and he answers the call and steps up into the role that his family needs him in. This change that he makes is an expression of characterization and when he is characterized in this way, his brothers, Sonny and Tom Hagen, are used as foils to show how much and in what ways he is changing.

In the short amount of the film that we have seen, it is hard to make a certain judgment on some of the characters because they have still been weak characters so far. Michael Corleone has been a weaker and not till of late and when his father was show has he really been a factor in anything that his family does. One of the character archetypes that I see Michael represents in Young Man from the Provinces. He returns home and claims that he is not his heritage and he when he sees all of the problems that have currently erupted with his family, his father being shot and Luca Brasi being killed, his has no choice but to become a part of it. He has a different outlook on the problems than Sonny and Tom Hagen have. The problems that have been seen before are solved in a different way with the addition of Michael.

The characterization of Michael Corleone

The characterization that is done with Michael Corleone and the foiling that is done with his brothers is one of the most distinctive literary features so far in the movie. As Michael returns to his home, he is not seen as the strongest characters and does not even associate himself with his family’s acts and business. He is seen as a weak character and does not have much of an input on what is happing around him with his family. He sticks out like a sore thumb at his sister’s wedding and does not involve him much. Not until the news that his father was shot, did he even show any emotional attachment to anything. When goes to the hospital to see his father and he thinks that he is too late and he is on the phone with Sonny and he tells him not to panic, it is the first time that anything of importance is put into his hands. He has the choice to either answer the call or to reject it and he choices to answer it. The second that he puts down the phone he is a different person, he takes all of the matters into his hands and he needs to act on his feet and deal with his unexpected situation on his hands. This is when the character of Michael Corleone changes into one of the main brothers and his jumps feet first into his family’s business.

The use of foil to show what kind of character Michael has become is very evident in the scene when their next move towards Captain McCluskey and Sollozzo is being decided. The position that the brothers are sitting makes the image of the fire and ice evident. The position Sonny one side and Tom Hagen on the other side with Michael in the middle, this is also show the symbolic archetype fire and ice. Sonny is the fire, hot under his collar and always wanting to settle things though violence and fighting and Tom Hagen being the ice, he thinks every action through before he does them and is able to put aside emotional influences and puts the educated decision forward. Michael is right in between the two, he is able to act with emotion when necessary but he thinks his acts through and his able to have an open mind about what is going on around him, which is the best of both worlds and will Michael farther than any of the other brothers.