This is the first introduction to a complete film analysis of The Godfather from 1972. It is still a work in progress and I hope to get it completed with all parts posted by the end of November. This is not meant as a full academic study, but the beginnings of exploring how sequencing, lighting, shot composition and music contribute to cinematic storytelling in great movies.
Unfortunately I am too young to have had the opportunity
to see The Godfather when it first
opened in 1972. I can recall seeing it in bits and pieces throughout my
childhood on television, cable and probably on video. Certain images resonated
and stuck in my mind: the garroting of Carlo and his kicking out the
windshield; Sonny’s violent death at the tollbooth; Sonny’s beating of Carlo on
the street; Jack Woltz waking to find himself covered in blood and the head of
his prized racehorse under the sheets; Michael’s killing of McCluskey and Sollozzo;
the final montage of the baptism inter-cut with the killings of the heads of
the five families. It is certainly no coincidence that the most violent scenes
are what stayed with me all my life. I never had any awareness of the plot of
the film until I watched the film in its entirety sometime when I was a
teenager.
