INT 1/2 MEDIA STUDIES: The Godfather

[melaniegormley]

Narative

Narative is how the story is structured or shaped. There is two different Narative structures, the todorovian Narative and the hero's journey.

Joseph Campbell's: The Hero's Journey
In his book ' The Hero With a Thousand Faces ' (1949) Joseph Campbell describes how popular myths and stories from cultures all over the world follow the same basic structure. He calls the structure ' The Hero's Journey '. It has been taught to scriptwriters and is very commen device in films.

The structure that fits closest to the Godfather is the Hero's Journey.

Stage one - The hero is introduced in an ORDINARY WORLD
- Michael has a happy life with Kay and nothing todo with the family buisness, which is all dealt with by his father.

Stage two - The hero is RELUCTANTLY called to adventure
- He is forced to become involved when his father is shot.

Stage three - He crosses the FIRST FRESHOLD
- He has to overcome sollozo.

Stage four - He is helped by a MENTOR
- The Don , Clamenza ( gun advice )

Stage five - He encounters TESTS, ENEMIES and ALLIES
- The rival families enventually kill Sonny. The Don makes peace with the other Families and tries to go legitimate in vegas until Tessio betrays him.

Stage six - He faces a SUPREME ORDEAL
- Michael settles all family buisness by shotting the heads of the other families, Mo Green freom vegas and Carlo.

Stage seven - The hero will experience a RESURRECTION and be REWARDED
- Michael is recognised as the new Don.

The Godfather can also fit into the Todorovian structure.

Equilibrium - The opening scene at the wedding. Don carleone is head of buisness and Michael is there but not part of the buisness.

Disruption - The assination attempt of the Don.

Recognition of disruption- At the hospital when Michael relises he has to become involved in buisness. When he is beaten up by police who are working for sollozo.

Attempts to repair disruption - When they go to vegas and try and buy the casino , also when Sonny is killed. The sicily scene, Cafe scene, Batism scene scene - where michael has his enemys killed.

New Equilibrium - Order is reinstated. The difference is that now Michael is the Don.

By Melanie , Rhianne , Stuart and Hayden

[elizabeth]

Language in the key scenes

Language - is what techniques have been used in the making of this film.

There are two different kinds of codes they are Technical codes and Cultural codes.

The Technical codes are use of camera, Lighting, Sound track, Voice-over, editing and use of colour.

The Cultural codes are setting, Actions, Dialogue, props, costumes and use of colour.

Opening scene: The wedding scene

Micheal's costume in the wedding scene is different from everyone else in the family. This shows Micheal is differnet from the rest of the family.
When the old man is dancing with the young girl this action shows and creates a sympathic respresentation of the mafia.

Cafe scene

This scene is important as it shows that Micheal is now part of the family business. Micheal also shows Solozzo and the police cheif this action.

Sissili Scene

Shows Micheal tranform from American to part of the family business.

By Caitlin Campbell

[Dayna Binnie]

Institutions.

Internal - Budget, Certificate, Studio
External - law, The Mafia, BBFC, Paramount, Brando, Francis Ford Coppola.


The Mafia
Italian American Civil rights league = a front for the mafia!
Controlled location and shooting. If the league said no filming there would be no filming. Also the league said no reference should be made to the "Mafia" or "Cosa Nostra" (The Mafia had a big input in this film as they did not want to be portrayed in the wrong way, the mafia told them they were not allowed to say 'Mafia' or 'Cosa Nostra').

Irony: The Mafia level the film and the representations; they smartened up to match the image of the film.

"The Godfather"
Budget - Money aloud to be spent on the film. 2.5 million but then changed to 6.5 million.

Studio - Paramount. They were going into liquidation and the 'Godfather' saved the company, although they made the film 5 minutes longer and Francis Ford Coppola's ending was changed.

Certificate - 18. Due to the law change in 1972 they were allowed to make gangsters seem 'good'.

law - U.S production code of 1930-1934 "The Sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of the crime" (not allowed to show revenge, not allowed to portray that revenge is GOOD). Consequences of the Relaxation of the Production Code - A gangster film could finally feature Italian Americans, The audience could be allowed to see films in which they could identify the criminals, where revenge seems justified and where crimes go unpunished.

[aidan]

Audience

Slow reveres shoulder shoot this scene looks patriarchal this shoot shows his patriarchal this is linked to musicality (target audience ).

They are talking in English then at the end they say grazie preqo (Italian) this it to appeal to a big audience.

“let the first child be a male” = musicality

Woman are siffers = musicality

“you can acted like a man” represents the theme of musicality

Females cooking represents the theme of musicality

Have a lot of different nationals to make a lager target audients

Deferent recoding :- the police because it make them look cropped we can tell this by Capt. McCaskey sends the police/boy grads away from the hospital so he can get someone to go and kill Don Coralony

Preferred Reading :-
men - basiced on musicality
- most of the actors are men

Italian-Americans
who are not In the mafia - can see what the mafia is about
- represents Italians and Americans

Italian-Americans - “they aren’t killers they just do justices”
who are not In the mafia - represents Italians and Americans

Woman - the actress are hot
- the romantic since in Sicily
- the females want to mother Michael
Aidan

[missmcgrory]

Excellent work, guys. Just waiting for one more group to upload their notes before the test tomorrow (Wednesday) - REPRESENTATION!

Some quick notes: 1) This is how you spell Sicily.
2) I don't remember a discussion in class about the attractiveness of the actresses? You mean the male actors may appeal to some women in the audience? Avoid informal terms like 'hot'.
3) The theme is masculinity, not musicality. That's a totally different thing.
4) institutions - you mention some institutions but do not explain the impact they had on the text. How did Brando influence the making of the text? How did Francis Ford Coppola influence it (i.e. which sections of the film are clearly in his unique style?) Also, paramount - I was looking for detail about Robert Evans's influence and the changed ending etc.

[missmcgrory]

PS The word we were using to discuss the female characters in the film is cyphers. I think this is causing some confusion. It just means 'non-person' or 'person of no importance'. We were saying this applies to the women in the film because they are not important to the story, but are always in the background.

From dictionary.com (SEE NUMBER 6):


Collins World English Dictionary
cipher or cypher (ˈsaɪfə)

— n
1. a method of secret writing using substitution or transposition of letters according to a key
2. a secret message
3. the key to a secret message
4. an obsolete name for zero
5. any of the Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, etc, to 9) or the Arabic system of numbering as a whole
6. a person or thing of no importance; nonentity

[missmcgrory]

Audience:

Who is the target audience?
What is in the text to appeal to them?
I think the point about getting to see how the mafia works only really applies to fans of the gangster genre. What else is in the film to appeal to fans of this genre? Name some genre markers.

For Italian-americans, link to representations. The film is based on the negative stereotype of italians being linked to the mafia. Some italians/italian-americans would therefore differentially decode the film. However, there is alsop (arguably) a more positive stereotype of italians in there too (loyal to family, traditional customs, lots of pasta, the romance of the scenery in Sicily...) Some italian-americans might like this, while others might still find it offensive, as it is still a stereotype. (Think of representations of Scottish people in the media as wearing kilts, eating haggis etc etc).

Your notes mention the theme of masculinity a lot, but you need to show that this is there to appeal to a largely MALE target audience.

[missmcgrory]

We also need more specific examples of scenes/characters/quotations from the film.

[lucymatheson]

BOOM. Representation.

Representation is what messages are conveyed and how different groups of people are represented in this text.

Good Stereotypes
A good stereotype of Italian Americans in The Godfather is that the family are very traditional and are seen eating pasta and drinking wine a lot such as the scene where Clemenza teaches Michael to cook.
Another good stereotype of Italian Americans and the Mafia is that they are very family-orientated and loyal, for example when Don Corleone says 'a man who doesn't spend time with his family, can never be a real man.' or when Sonny beats up Carlo for being violent towards his sister.

Bad Stereotypes
However the Godfather is based on the portrayal that all Italian Americans are involved with the Mafia. This could be linked with target audience because of how Italian Americans would differentially decode The Godfather and be offended by the portrayal of Italian Americans as criminals.

A bad stereotype of women in the Godfather is that they are hysterical and ridiculous, for example when Connie finds out that Carlo is having an affair and starts to smash up everything in their house.

The police are also badly represented in the Godfather as being corrupt and irrational such as Capt. McClusky who punches Michael and who is working for one of the Five Families.

Non-Stereotypes
There is a non-stereotype in The Godfather of gangsters being well dresses, well spoken, traditional and having principles, for example when Don Corleone refuses to take part in selling drugs. Francis Ford Coppola included this non-stereotype because of the Mafia threatening him and the actors and Paramount as they were scared of how the film would show them and what it would reveal about how they worked. This is linked with institutions as the Mafia were closely involved in the making of the film, with members being cast as extras and being hired as advisors and their influence on representation of their representation was an external institution in the form of the Italian Amercan Civil Rights league.

[missmcgrory]

Well done, Lucy! Those are some excellent representation notes. BOOM!

[missmcgrory]

Some further info on FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS:

Paramount was in financial trouble at the time of production and was desperate for a "big hit" to boost business, hence the pressure Coppola faced during filming. They wanted The Godfather to appeal to a wide audience and threatened Coppola with a "violence coach" to make the film more exciting. Coppola added a few more violent scenes to keep the studio happy. The scene in which Connie smashed kitchen dishes after finding out Carlo was cheating was added for this reason.

The film was originally budgeted for $2 million, and was scripted as a modern adaptation. However, when Coppola got his hands on the script, he was adamant that it be set in the same time period as the book, from 1945 to 1955. This required a large number of second unit shots, some of which embarrassed Coppola at the time.

Remember, some of the New York car shots used stock footage - this was to cut costs.

[missmcgrory]

This will be very helpful for you when revising:

godfather.wikia.com/wiki/The_Godfather_(film)

[missmcgrory]

Here's another very interesting atricle from Vanity Fair about the making of the Godfather. It contains lots of interesting information about institutions:

www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/03/godfather200903#gotopage1

[missmcgrory]

NOTES FROM THURSDAY 22/09/11 (Going over the practise NAB)

AUDIENCE REACTIONS
What?
Accepting the preferred reading and enjoying –

Who?
ANY one of the target audience groups:
-fans of the gangster genre
- men – late teens upwards
-women
-Italian-Americans in the mafia
-other Italian-Americans

Reasons why they would have this reaction:
List features that would appeal to them (e.g. fans of the gangster genre – list the gangster genre markers in your notes) WITH MANY SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT (E.g. concrete jungle setting- the film is set in New York)



2. Differentially decoding and not enjoying/being offended

Who? Italian-Americans, the police, women, people who disapprove on moral grounds+

Why? List features and GIVE LOADS OF EXAMPLES. E.g. people disapproving on moral grounds: you end up sympathising with criminals (Michael is the hero, we feel sad when Marlon Brando dies, in the scene with Bonasera the mafia is shown to be motivated by friendship/justice). They would also dislike the violence, some of which is particularly gruesome e.g. the baptism scene where we see Moe Greene being shot in the eye, the horse’s head in Jack Woltz’s bed is shocking, as is the brutal shooting of Sonny, the close up on Luca Brazi’s face as he is being strangled makes it unpleasant to watch.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

Int 2 candidates should focus on The Hero's Journey. For extra credit, you may wish to mention the existence of multiple narrative structures within the text, but state that you are going to focus on the Hero's Journey as that is the one that fits the film best.

Why was the Hero’s Journey used?
Joseph Campbell wrote a book in 1949 called ‘The Hero With a Thousand Faces’ where he studied stories and myths from throughout history around the world and said that good stories all have the same structure. From this he came up with ‘The Hero’s Journey’. As it has appeared in stories throughout history, it clearly appeals to audiences. It is taught to scriptwriters and is very popular with film-makers because of its well-dpcumented appeal. It is recognisable, familiar and satisfying for the audience. It fits well with The Godfather’s mythic resonances (Robin Hood type fo story with the mafia stealing from the rich to help those in need).

[missmcgrory]

Mode of Address notes 27/09/11



Audience
Key Term for Int 2:
Mode of address

This concerns the way in which a text SPEAKS to the audience. This can make the audience have different emotional reactions: they can feel shocked, they can feel informed, they can feel sympathetic, they can feel fear for a character they know something bad is going to happen to etc….

The two main modes of address I want us to focus on are:

RESTRICTED NARRATION:
The narration follows events as the hero experiences them. It can create real shock as the audience don’t know what to expect. (Examples from'The Godfather': the horse’s head, when Appollonia’s car blows up, when Sonny is killed, when Luca Brazi is killed, when Vito is shot, when Michael finds out Tessio betrayed him.)


OMNISCIENT NARRATION:
When the camera leaves the main character/s to show the audience something the characters don’t know. It can create dramatic irony as it gives the audience privileged information and can be used to build the tension. (when Kay believes Michael’s lie at the end that he didn’t have Carlo killed – we see how Michael has changed and so has his relationship with Kay)