Interrogating the Classic Hollywood: On Thematic and Stylistic Revisionism of The Godfather

Abstract

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) is based upon the story of an Italian American crime group, the Corleone Family. On the one hand, its protagonists are basically outlaws, like the Prohibition-era gangster characters in the early 1930s’ gangster films. They isolate themselves from moral values of society by making themselves forces of private justice. On the other hand, unlike the gangsters in the classic Hollywood cinema, their decisions and actions are based upon a code of honor for their family. Don Corleone, the boss of the family, is a typical example of this double characterization. While he is a ruthlessly powerful boss of the Sicilian Mafiosi, he is also a loving and caring father who wished his son to have a respectable life legitimated by the legal power. This double characterization provides an effect of re-interrogating the contradictions and conflicts of American society beyond the context of the traditional American myth. Furthermore, this thematic reconfiguration of the protagonist is embodied by Coppola’s stylistic revisionism from découpage classique. The discreet camerawork for thematic development of the film includes zooming-in & out shots (opening scene and the scene of Michael’s decision for revenge after Sollozzo’s attack on his father), depth of field combined with soft focus (the bathroom scene in the restaurant), the two shot scene in Don Corleone’s conversation with Michael. This aesthetic achievement in Coppola’s camerawork has been indeed an unfathomable resource of creative freedom for both the New American Cinema of the 1970s and the current world cinema.