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God Father Symbolism

Decent Essays

The 1930's and 40's were a famous time for gangsters, mobs and mafias. The God Father directed by Francis Ford Coppola and written by Mario Puzo focuses on this era. Gangster genre films always seem to have dark colors and low lighting, usually an urban city location and outfitting is formal, props in these films are guns, cigars/cigarettes, drugs and money. Everything is put in a film for a reason and all these elements combine to create a typical gangster setting. But, The God Father was not a typical gangster film. Mario Puzo used many, if not all of these elements but he refined the gangster genre using intricate editing techinques. In the first scene at his daughters' wedding, Bonasera asks Don Carleone to avenge his daughters assaliant. The lighting in this scene was dark and the camera angles high and low symbolizing who had the most power. It worked for this particluar scene because they were doing a back door dealing and also showed us how Don Carleone was looked up to and respected by others. The film is set in 1940's New York, Don Corleone and his men are always seen in formal wear, and Corleone had a cigar in a number of scenes although we dont see stacks of money all the time it is shown to us indirectly when we see his mansion and expensive cars and fancy dinners. This also worked for the film because it was historically correct, 1940's New York was home to many mobsters and crime families and the outfits represented their status in society. In my opinion I

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