The Godfather is the story of a Mafia family. It follows the rise of Michael Corleone within the family. Michael was once a war hero and did not want to be involved in the family business. When his father is shot though, Michael takes revenge on the people who did it and becomes a part of the Mafia lifestyle. When his older brother is murdered, Michael ascends to become the boss of the family, and proves to be more ruthless than his father and brother combined. The scene that I am analyzing is one where Michael is becoming his nephew’s godfather at his baptism.
The Godfather is a traditionally edited movie. This particular scene however uses Eisenstein’s method of montage editing. Francis Ford Coppola uses hard cutting in order to show a stark contrast in the main character Michael Corleone. The scene begins with a shot of Michael’s godson. In the Catholic religion, a newborn baby is born with original sin. At the moment of its baptism, it is the most pure thing on earth; it has no sin.
The godfather is the baby’s guardian into life. The scene cuts to all the different assassins Michael has deployed to take out his enemies. It cuts back to the baptism and the priest asks Michael if he believes in god, Jesus, and the church. Michael replies yes. The scene cuts back to the assassins. The voice of the priest is heard giving the ceremony as the assassins prepare to kill.
The scene cuts back to Michael and the priest asks Michael if he rejects Satan and all his works. Michael replies yes and the scene cuts to the assassins, on Michael’s orders, killing his enemies. There are no special camera angles, with the exception of a few close-ups. The camera remains stationary.
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Aneroxia Nervosa SHOT BY SHOT ANALYSIS SHOT ONE CINEMATOGRAPHY: The points made where that the shot will start off as a birds eye view and zero in to a wide shot of a typical home. The point in this is to create a typical family home scene, in an ordinary neighbourhood so to emphasize that Craig is simply a bad egg and evoke emotion (in particular sympathy) from audience. A police car will enter ...
The meaning of the scene is inferred through the editing and the content. Coppola uses this montage in order to give the audience an insight into Michael. He contrasts religion and murder in order to show the complexity of Michael. The newly baptized baby is without sin, and Michael is his guardian into life. Michael is extremely sinful; he has ordered murder as he is taking the godfather vows. The use of religion and murder contrasted is representative of Michael himself.
It is used to show the mix of good and evil in him. In Hegel’s dialectic, Michael is the synthesis, a twisted mix of good and evil. The line between the two has become blurred for him. He claims to reject Satan yet he commits the worst sin. He claims to believe in god, yet does not follow the tenets of religion. He is the guardian of this child without sin, and he is full of sin.
Coppola chose to use a montage in this segment. The hard cuts between such polar opposites as baptism and murder reflects on the contrasts in the main character. Overall, Coppola used this segment to communicate how twisted Michael has become. Michael can no longer distinguish between good and evil or right and wrong.
He only evaluates his actions on whether or not they help him. It also shows the changes he has made in the movie. The baptism and the baby represent good, which he was in the beginning of the movie. The murders represent the evil man he has become. Coppola uses the montage sequence with the fast cutting between the contrasting images to show how quickly Michael has transformed from “the good son” to the head of a Mafia crime family. The Duality of Michael Corleone By Matthew GlassSMAD 461 March 22, 2000.
