Analysis Of The Godfather

1194 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Techniques used in film analysis

Film 101 Tim Jackson Homework #1 January 29, 2014 1. Passive vs. Active Viewing Passive viewing of a film is the simple act of observing a movie solely for the entertainment or face value. Active viewing is digging deeper into the film, analyzing every aspect, and attempting to discover the meaning behind its creation. A passive viewer will look at the Godfather as an action movie about the Sicilian Mafia in the mid 1900s. An active viewer will be able to see much more. They will see the power struggle between the different Italian families, the dual lives that the Mafiosos have, and the transformation of Michael from an outsider to becoming the Don. One can also observe the slight undertones of racism and feminism through viewing the film actively. 2. Cinematic Language Cinematic language is the means and techniques the artist uses to convey the story to its viewers. These techniques consist of various angles, shots, effects, and editing. Take the first scene of the Godfather for example. Coppola begins the film with a close-up of the undertaker who is speaking. The background is completely dark with an overhead light over the speaker. This directs the attention of the audience to this one person. The camera slowly backs away ending up over the shoulder of Don Corleone, showing whom the undertaker is speaking too. This also is a means of showing the power of Don Corleone. These techniques all are means of how the artist wants to narrate the story. 3. Explicit Meaning The explicit meaning is the message a viewer can take from the surface of a movie either in its entirety or from certain parts. For example in Juno, in the scene where Mark and Vanessa are painting the room, one can see that that Vanessa is wearing an Alice in Ch... ... middle of paper ... ...rtray the story. 12. Feminist Analysis Feminist analysis is a form of analysis from a feminist’s perspective. This analysis will look at a film and focus on analyzing a female’s role in the film and gender inequalities. A feminist analysis of the Godfather will show that the males in the Godfather are strong characters while the females are weak. The males are the ones discussing the family business while the females are left out. Even when the men are sitting at the table together, Carlo Rizzi is seen trying to discuss business with Sonny and Sonny reprimands him for talking in front of the women at the dinner table. Carlo is also seen beating his wife Connie in a couple scenes while she is portrayed as defenseless against him. This interpretation of women in the 1940s is prevalent during that time period and they were still generally seen as being the weaker sex.

Show More
Related

  • Goodfellas Film Analysis

    691 Words  | 2 Pages

    The film “Goodfellas,” directed by Martin Scorsese, is loosely based on the true story of mobster Henry Hill’s career with the mafia. The main characters in this movie are Henry Hill, played by Ray Liota, who was part of the mafia, James Conway who was a stickup/hit man, played by Robert De Niro, and Tommy DeVito, played by Joe Pesci, who was another gangster. At the beginning of the film a young Hill is seen admiring the gangsters who spend time across the street at one of their establishments. Hill can be heard talking about how much he admired gangsters, and that all he ever wanted to be was a gangster. Throughout the movie the audience gets a sense of what life as a gangster in the criminal underworld might have been like.

    Read More

  • Roles In The Noir Double Indemnity And Michael Curtiz's 'Mildred Pierce'?

    1487 Words  | 3 Pages

    It may seem that the male characters in classical cinema are given power and control over female characters, but the relationships between characters in Billy Wilder’s 1944 noir Double Indemnity and Michael Curtiz’s 1945 drama Mildred Pierce are complex and do not conform to specific gender roles. Rather, both of these films feature female characters that are both controllers and the controlled. The characters Mildred Pierce and Phyllis Dietrichson hold both of these roles in their respective films but are inverses of each other: Mildred acts strongly and independently but is actually controlled emotionally and financially by others, while Phyllis is presented as submissive but is the grand manipulator. As such, these two films present different images of the “independent woman,” both of which are destined for failure.

    Read More

  • Bande De Filles Analysis

    1531 Words  | 4 Pages

    Power, especially in the hands of females, can be a force for immense societal changes. Director Sciamma plays with the role of power in the lives of the four girls, predominantly in the character of Lady. Lady’s sense of control, stems from winning hand on hand fights, but the opinion of the men around her lays the foundation of this empowerment. The more fights Lady wins, the more the men appear to respect her, yet as feminist Simone de Beauvoir explains “[n]o matter how kindly, how equally men treated me when I tried to participate in politics, when it came right down to it, they had more rights, so they had more power than I did (Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex- ix),” the “power” Lady obtained was provisional. Lady’s power was directly tied to the opinion of the men around her, in this scene, a portion of the boys sits on stairs physically higher than Lady, invoking a sense of power hierarchy and control. The boys only valued Lady when she successfully participated in the their world of violence, but this participation came with boundaries as “[w]omen can never become fully socialized into patriarchy- which in turn causes man to fear women and leads then, on the one hand, to establish very strict boundaries between their own sex and the female sex (Feminist theory 142).” The men had never truly incorporated Lady into their group, she had just

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Film Narrative "Wendy and Lucy"

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lehman, Peter and Luhr, William. Thinking About Movies: Watching, Questioning, Enjoying. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

    Read More

  • The Godfather Film Analysis Essay

    1627 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Godfather is most notably one of the most prolific films of its time. This "gangster" film displayed many transformations of permeating color to give the viewer observable cues in its mise en scene that drew one right into the movie. The dramatic acting set the tone of the film with a score that lifted the viewer right out of their seat in many scenes. The directing and cinematography made The Godfather ahead of its time. The nostalgic feel of family importance and the danger of revenge lets us into the life of the Mafia. Even though no other techniques would have given the viewer a feeling of inside the mob like the mise en scene of the power the godfather held, the characters are reinforced literally and figuratively because the story views the Mafia from the inside out, and the cinematography of the film gives it a dangerous and nostalgic feel.

    Read More

  • A Few Good Men Film Analysis

    1361 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gender and the portrayal of gender roles in a film is an intriguing topic. It is interesting to uncover the way women have been idealized in our films, which mirrors the sentiments of the society of that period in time. Consequently, the thesis of this essay is a feminist approach that seeks to compare and contrast the gender roles of two films. The selected films are A few Good Men and Some Like it Hot.

    Read More

  • Feminism in The Things They Carried by Tim O´brien

    1301 Words  | 3 Pages

    To understand feminism in the novel, one must first understand the feminist lens itself. OWL Purdue describes the lens as “the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Purdue). Feminism acts as both a commitment and a political movement that wants to end sexism in all forms. Most feminists generally disagree on many topics of the subject, however all have one common goal. These aspects affect The Things They Carry in a plethora of ways, mostly due to the fact that gender roles is a main theme. There are negative and positive aspects of the feminist lens. Positive contains the empowering of women and equality, whereas negative pertains to oppression and unequal rights. Both are covered in The Things They Carried from sex symbols to battle tor...

    Read More

  • Feminist Criticism In Frankenstein

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    The feminist perspective of looking at a work of literature includes examining how both sexes are portrayed

    Read More

  • The Lives of Others

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...successful collaboration of sound, colour, camera positioning and lighting are instrumental in portraying these themes. The techniques used heighten the suspense, drama and mood of each scene and enhance the film in order to convey to the spectator the intended messages.

    Read More

  • The Role of Women in Screwball Comedy Films

    4993 Words  | 10 Pages

    Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.

    Read More

  • Alien (1979): Alien: Feminism In The Film Alien

    1901 Words  | 4 Pages

    Susan Jeffords’ journal entry “The Battle of the Big Mamas” does agree that the film contains feminist themes throughout; however she feels as if it doesn’t give off the message the producers were originally going for. Jeffords criticizes the film for presenting a “feminism that can succeed only by making women ‘alien’ to themselves” (Jeffords 75). Jeffords argues that women “accept the point of view of a corporate masculinity at the expense of relations between women” (76). This point can see be seen throughout the decades as women purposely drop their feminine touch in order to gain the respect as an equal that women feel they deserve. Jeffords emphasizes that the film encourages women to leave behind all feminist qualities and to act like a man in order to be equal with man. This gives a very different point of view from the other sources, which highly support that the film praises feminism and its true qualities

    Read More

  • Feminism In The Maltese Falcon And The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

    2408 Words  | 5 Pages

    Feminism is the conviction that members of both the male and female gender should be treated equally in all situations in political, economic and socio-cultural settings. It involves activities put in place in support of the interests and just treatment of females. One major way through which feminism manifests itself in the society today is through books and movies. Authors and movie directors depict feminist in their works by using events and characters to bring out how women are looked at and treated in the society. Over the years, Feminism has gradually changed in terms of its nature and the characteristics of the people who took up the belief of feminism (Lyman, 264). Feminists have gradually changed from being about equal rights for men and women to a whole range of complex issues, with the emergence of issues such as radical feminism and the improvements in the amount of knowledge and power that feminists hold (Harnois, 122). This paper takes a look at aspects of feminism present in America and in Britain by analyzing selected situations from two books, The Maltese Falcon and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

    Read More

  • Comparing Feminism in Frankenstein and Dracula

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the texts we have read in English thus far have been feminist issues. Such issues range from how the author published the book to direct, open statements concerning feminist matters. The different ways to present feminist issues is even directly spoken of in one of the essays we read and discussed. The less obvious of these feminist critiques is found buried within the texts, however, and must be read carefully to understand their full meaning- or to even see them.

    Read More

  • Family in The Godfather

    960 Words  | 2 Pages

    Does family matter? Yes- family always matters. It is necessary to have some sort of family structure in order to have a stable foundation. This need for stability and structure is how the family survives and the children find safety. In the movies The Godfather and Scarface we will discover how the two differ when it comes to family and family business. These two patriarchs have different views on family and how the family is involved in the business. In this discovery one struggles to gain and maintain power- but looses everything in the process. While the other maintains the family through peace negotiations and understanding business and revenge can not always go hand and hand in order for the family to survive.

    Read More

  • Essay On Feminist Theory

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    Feminist theory helps to analyze gender inequality and its themes which are discrimination, sexual objectification, oppression, stereotyping and so on.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of The Godfather

Open Document