Let us talk more about the movie, The Godfather. In the last blog I wrote, I gave general praises on the overall coolness of the movie, but this time let us look into the movie in a more detailed fashion. I will talk about the colors and lighting as well as some themes I thought about.
Let us look at one of the biggest concepts of cinematography that actually made the movie what it is today; the use of color and shadow. The cinematographer responsible, Gordon Willis, would get nothing less than a hug from me if I ever met him. From one of my inside sources, I hear that he originally used the overhead lighting in the beginning of the scene for Brando’s make up but saw something that could be worked with, thus continuing this effect throughout the whole movie. Good now that we are on the topic of the beginning, let us concentrate on the first twenty minutes of the movie so I can give you my examples of excellent cinematography. Come and take a visual walk with me.
When we think of criminal underworld what do we think of? We think of some bad deed happening in the shelter of darkness. We see crimes going on at night time. In conclusion there is general darkness to it, whether literally or psychologically. See how the movie starts. The beginning shots set the whole tone for the movie and we see this dark tone in the film. We can only see a person’s face as the camera slowly moves towards him. The light is above him so there are shadows under his eyes magnifying the hatred in his voice and we don’t even know who he is talking to. We have a setting of darkness and mystery already. Pretty sweet huh.
One theme that ties with this opening scene is the inside view of the family vs. the outside view. We constantly see two sides of the family but incorporated into one. We see the normal jovial side of the family and then we see the darkness business side of the family. We see them separately in some scenes and interwoven in others. The beginning of the movie is a perfect example because we see this bright busy wedding and then we see the business going on inside where it is dark and quiet. We see this theme of light transitioning to dark and large transitioning to small.
Another thought this brings is the concept of props used in the movies which ties directly with the theme I just expressed as well as the use of light and darkness. I would like to say the doors and windows serve as symbols in this movie and again I will use the first couple of scenes to illustrate this. We constantly see Don Corleone looking out of the window. We constantly see the door open and close as well. When the door opens we see people bustling and laughing and having fun, basically the concepts that make a family and accompanied with this is the happy jovial music but when the door closes all this vanishes. The doors and windows are the barriers that separate the blood relations family from the crime family. What I mean by this is that the business dealt in both sides are family business but in different aspects. One is happiness and connection and the other is crime, corruption and death. The doors and windows are used to physically show us the difference between these two.
Go and take a deep breath…go and stretch for five minutes and then come back. Don’t worry I am nearly done.
Ok back to my analysis. The cinematography is also used to help generate moods and feelings from the viewers as well as to have a psychological effect on us. Let us go to the hospital scene where Michael goes to visit his father after an attempt on his life had taken place and he was rushed to the hospital with five bullets in him (what a champion). When Michael gets out of the taxi, we already get a bad tingling in our bones because we feel that something isn’t right from the way the dark gothic hospital looms over him.
As he walks down the hallways our hearts are starting to get restless due to the empty hallways portrayed perfectly by the extreme long shots. All the while the tension inducing “something’s going to happen soon/horror music” isn’t helping with the beating heart situation either. He notices little things that say people left in haste like a half eaten sandwich and when he starts running the music quickens, making our hearts beat faster. When they move his father and we hear someone coming up the stairs, it’s the slow but volume increasing footsteps that make us even tenser. Do you see what I mean by the cinematography helps with the generation of certain moods? Ok good.
One of the scenes I really like is how they spend time to show Sicily culturally using cinematography. I really like movies that show the setting in detail so that we can get an aspect of what a setting is all about. When we first come to Sicily, we get this wide shot of a hilly countryside with houses sitting so finely on the hill. It is a bright sunny day and birds are singing. We are moved from this modern life to a life of simplicity. People are dressed as peasants with the traditional clothing. We see wide and long angle shots ranging from a whole landscape to simple streets. We have nice music playing in the background. I love Sicily and the portrayal of it just made me smile during this part of the movie.
Overall my comment is that the lighting which consisted of minimal lighting and under-exposure and also had a lot of yellow-red in it made the movie what it is and the quality gave it a kind of antiquity to it if you will. This also goes towards the themes and symbols from the movies. These symbols and themes make the movie what it is and hopefully one day when a movie about my life is made, cinematographer will use a creative style like the one used in The Godfather….well a bit brighter though.
I got the picture from http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/gallery/features/3170/take-five-with-gordon-willis.html
1 comment:
Great entry, Remi!
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