In the movie The Godfather, Coppola chooses to frame a multitude of shots with a door frame. The use of shots through windows or glass is also noticeable. The motif of doors in the movie are representative of both exits and extrances - the transitions between lives of organized crime and normal lives.
In the beginning of the movie, the sudden transition from darkness and quiet in Don Corleone's house and his daughter's wedding is startling. It is as if the doors represent the underground, hidden transactions that go on within the mafia. As soon as the camera moves outside, the scene becomes cheerful and bright.
When Luca Brasi puts on his bulletproof vest and picks up his gun, the shot was framed with a door. This could have been symbolic of how infiltrating the Tattaglias was an inside job. The incorporation of doors in various shots lead the viewer to feel as if they are looking in, almost spying on mafia activity.
When Sonny receives a call and discovers Sollozzo has Tom Hagen, his wife is separated from him at many different times by doorframes. This is symbolic of a divide between the women and the men, considering only the men are involved in mafia activity.
When Michael steps into a telephone booth to call Sonny, Kay is automatically isolated from him as we see her face outside the telephone booth through the glass. This is again a representative of the divide between mafia life and other relationships, making the the transitions between the lives of the Corleone men and normal people evident.
Coppola's use of doors is deliberate, and it is undoubtable that he is trying to convey a certain concept - I will be looking for other possibilities of ideas he may have as we go through the movie.
I agree with your post – Coppola has certainly chosen to use doors as a motif throughout the movie. I think Coppola's focus on doors is interesting, as a door (or even simply a doorframe) is quite a universal idea, that, depending on the situation, can be representative of a divider or transition between two areas, but also of something that connects them. Like you have stated, it seems Coppola is using doors to show the stark separation between mafia and normal life in "The Godfather".
ReplyDeleteTo add to your examples of doors within the movie, I will point out the scene where Luca Brazi gets murdered. After walking down the long, relatively peaceful hallway, he goes into the room where his eventual death awaits him, through a door. For a few seconds, the camera stays outside the room, showing Luca walking in the background and the glass frosted with the fish design in the foreground. Coppola appears to be pointing out to the viewers that something will happen to this room, different from the eventless hallway previously shown. This is yet another instance of Coppola using doors as a filmic device.