Deconstruction- The Godfather

Published by Jamie Ewan

Media Deconstruction – The Godfather part 1

The beginning of the scene opens with some old style music, what sounds to be a trumpet. There is a lack of credits, only showing the company who made the film, ‘Paramount Pictures’ and the name of film. This text is written in a style of text that appears to be quite sinister, possibly to suggest the nature of the film. As well as the text, there is a puppet string and a hand above the word ‘Godfather’ suggesting the controlling power of the Godfather.

After the title screen, the music and black screen fade out to a setting in a room, where we hear a male voice introduce the film by saying “I believe in America.” The male continues his conversation talking about a tragic act of violence involving his daughter that took place one night. This acts as a signifier to the audience as what the nature of the world the film is based in is like. Crime fuelled and corrupt. The mise-en-scene at this current point is a very very dark room with a slight sepia tone, with one male as the focal point with his white collar being the single area of lustre.

As the scene continues the camera slowly zooms out from the man who was speaking at a gradual pace, which stops at an over the shoulder shot of the man the speaker was addressing, still an enigma. As the scene progresses we are shown all the characters in the room. All wearing suits, suggesting they all have some sort of power or wealth, however the man being addressed by the male talking of his daughter has a red rose in his pocket, suggesting a form of importance. This could be interpreted as a connotation for danger due to the colour red, and the use of the rose as the beautiful life and death of the character. The msie-en-scene continues to stay roughly the same – a dark room with a sepia tone. After this, the scene appears to come to a close as communication stops, and music begins as the rest of the credits appear on screen.

The first scene of the film is a bank robbery, where the joker and his henchman are seen progressively breaking into the bank, how they go about the robbery, and the way the Joker himself functions as a criminal. The first shot of the Dark Knight set the theme and setting of the film. It is a tracking shot through the city in the day. Knowing there is about to be a bank robbery, it helps present the setting of the city as being crime filled and distorted. However, the music being played over this opening shot creates a sense of tension and secrecy, contradicting the feeling towards crime within the city – leading the audience to believe this is something extra-ordinary. The second shot is of one of the criminals dressed in all black with a clown mask on, firing a harpoon out of the window, seen from an over the shoulder shot looking out of a high up window over the city – suggesting crime is above the law within the city.

The third shot is a slow track shot of a clown mask. During the transition from the previous shot to this one, there is a very loud ‘boom’ of drums from the music, suggesting that this figure and clown mask being shown are of some sinister importance. However we do not yet know the identity of this character, meaning we can only assume who this person is, leaving the antagonist an enigma. What is interesting about this, however, is that this is filmed in the middle of a busy city street, and no one is giving the character a second look, reinforcing the idea that crime is above the law.

After this there is a shot of 2 criminals from the first shot ziplining over the city, simultaneously as this happens, the music becomes more intense suggesting something dramatic is about to happen. This shot is quickly cut to the next shot of 3 males in a car. The camera is steady suggesting organization amongst the criminals.

The final shot is of the enigma figure getting out of the car and the camera follows him as he quickly scans the area before entering the bank. All the characters are dressed in black with clown masks on and are wearing big trench coats, the enigma character is the only one with a large duffle back which we soon see is full of grenades.

The sound throughout this opening scene is nothing too dramatic in terms of music or effects, but a lot of natural sound, suggesting what is going on is nothing too dramatic or unordinary, therefore there is no need for music to add effect.