I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of films we watched in class this semester making it difficult to pick my favorite. However, I had never previously watched The Godfather, but by the end of the semester I had re-watched the trilogy twice. The variety and depth of the characters was what first grasped my attention, and as the story line progressed throughout the trilogy I enjoyed watching the characters grow in their own unique way. Yet, as I grew to understand more about Italian history and culture surrounding the Mafia, I grew to appreciate new aspects of the film and others like it.
For example, I began to pay closer attention to a film’s cinematography and camera movements. The blood oranges Coppola placed throughout the movie took on a new significance for me, once I learned their relation to Sicily and their foreshadowing of violence. The up close and personal way the camera moved throughout the film also played a tremendous role in how Coppola’s audience viewed his characters. The multiple head and shoulder shots made the entire movie either feel like I was in on a secret or new each of the characters personally, which only add to a pleasurable movie watching experience.
The most creative film which I found to portray organized crime in this aspect however, was the film At War with Love. There were so many hidden and metaphorical scenes throughout the movie, that finding them became a new form of entertainment for me. The symbolism of colors used throughout different scenes as well as the greater implications of the fall of both the political and religious statues of the Madonna and Mussolini served to add greater depth to an already intriguing story. The soundtrack also was interesting as light-hearted music was used to tell a serious story of war and international corruption.
To me, The Godfather and other mafia centered films and television shows such as The Sopranos, Angela, or Gomorrah, were no longer just “gangster movies” or tv shows, but they became complex social critics, that continue to be relevant today.
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