CHAPTER 6: THE COSTUME DESIGN
Tom Santopietro: I think Anna Hill Johnstone in the first Godfather film and Theodora Van Runkle in Part II were very sensitive to both character and setting, but also to the aesthetic of the production designers. Nothing is left to chance in a Francis Ford Coppola movie and you can be sure that Johnstone and Van Runkle collaborated with production designer Dean Tavoularis.
Costume is used throughout The Godfather to delineate character, beginning with the opening wedding scene. In that wedding sequence, Don Corleone is dressed differently than Michael who arrives in his traditional Marine uniform—the Ivy League son who has pursued, at this point, the more traditional Anglo-American route. Sonny is the flashiest in his tuxedo—it’s double breasted with shoulder padding. He wears a pinky ring and you notice his cufflinks. Tells you he’s the peacock among the three sons. Sonny’s clothes all say, “Look at me—I’m the toughest and I’m the prince who will turn King.” He beats up Carlo while wearing an unbuttoned gray suit but he’s sporting black and white spectator shoes that are very noticeable.
I think the attention to detail in the costuming influenced gangster style to be more realistic. The stereotypical style found in the original Scarface is gone—there are no ridiculously wide pinstripes that scream “Look, I’m a gangster!” The subsequent films like GoodFellas were very true to character. They appear exactly how the characters would have dressed at that time and in that setting. The characters in GoodFellas or Casino dress in the clothes of the 60s and 70s, and dress differently in New York City than in Las Vegas. When the new millennium brought us The Sopranos, those characters did not dress like Michael. They were now the mobsters as your suburban neighbor next door and their clothes reflected the look of the time—lots of velour, lots of track suits. These mobsters talked all the time—to each other, to psychiatrists—the old code of silence was gone and the relaxed, casual clothes reflected this. No one in The Sopranos is buttoned up. The clothes found in The Godfather helped ground the characters as products of their environment and time—they are realistic, recognizable people.
The clothes are an essential and beautifully rendered part of the entire design aesthetic. These clothes do not draw attention to themselves for the designer’s sake—many designers want to be noticed, which is the wrong reason for a design no matter how eye catching it is. Instead, these clothes define character, from the slightest bit of casual wear to the most formal of attire.
CHAPTER 7: THE CINEMATOGRAPHY
Roy H. Wagner, ASC, FRPS (cinematographer, Beauty and the Beast, Quantum Leap): Gordon Willis’ photography for The Godfather required any serious filmmaker to observe a master redefining the art of cinematography and storytelling. Willis’ efforts were not just relegated to cinematography but to all other filmmaking disciplines. We all were exposed to a new way of seeing and interpreting.
Ernest Dickerson, ASC (cinematographer, Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X; director, Juice): The Godfather was so evocative of the era of the late 1940s by replicating the look of old Kodachrome, especially when exposed to tungsten lighting. But also his character lighting with his revolutionary use of soft toplight which, purposely, denied us access to Don Corleone's eyes which are the windows to his soul. This was similar to James Wong Howe's approach to Burt Lancaster's character in Sweet Smell of Success in 1957.
Roger Deakins, CBE, ASC, BSC (cinematographer, The Shawshank Redemption, Blade Runner 2049): Gordon Willis’ work on The Godfather was and still is an inspiration for me. He was the “prince of darkness” and “master of shadow.”
Richard Crudo, ASC (cinematographer, American Pie, Brooklyn Rules; president, American Society of Cinematographers 2003-2006 and 2013-2016): Gordon Willis, ASC was the greatest influencer of cinematography during film's last Golden Age, which lasted from about 1969 through 1983. Fifty years later, his work on The Godfather remains the touchstone by which so much of what we now take for granted visually is measured. In that instance, he not only changed the way movies looked, he changed the way audiences look at movies.
M. David Mullen, ASC (cinematographer, The Love Witch, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; co-editor, American Cinematographer Manual Eleventh Edition): The Godfather is rightly celebrated for its lighting, but the dramatic strength of Gordon Willis’ frames comes from how that lighting works with his compositions. He constantly manages to create an image that is both simple and direct, drawing your eye to what is important, and yet also nuanced and layered. I think the fact that he favored the 40mm focal length for medium and wide shots, with the camera backed up, rather than work close to the subject with a wider-angle lens, gives the film a somewhat observational tone.
Ernest Dickerson, ASC: Once Gordy locked into what the look of a film would be, he maintained strict control over that throughout the shoot. He developed a close relationship with the New York lab, Du-Art, which also became my favorite lab. Gordy influenced them to develop that close cinematographer/lab relationship and that was something I greatly enjoyed when photographing my films. They worked with me in maintaining the control of the look, especially when I stretched the limits of the film stocks with exposure, color temperatures, etc.
Roy H. Wagner, ASC, FRPS: For many years Willis was not allowed into the common Hollywood fellowship because he refused to play by the rules. His was a great gift for any filmmaker who chose to partner with him. He had a very strong opinion and forced those he worked with to argue why he might be wrong. Looking at the images of The Godfather, Klute and countless other films including the other two Godfathers suggest that he was truly an author, possibly an autocrat and yet a recognizable expressionist with his own unique visual signature.
CHAPTER 8: THE EDITING
Saul Pincus (editor, Nocturne, My Five Wives): I had the pleasure of meeting Walter Murch a few decades ago when he was up in Toronto. This was when Michael Ondaatje was shadowing him, doing research for the book about Murch and editing called The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film that was published a few years later. Now, Murch did not edit the first Godfather, but he was involved in the sound design. So his presentation at the event I was at focused on the scene in the restaurant where Michael Corleone kills Sollozzo and the police captain, where so much of the tension is created by you wondering whether Michael can go through with it, whether the gun will be there for him. There are two more key elements: Pacino's performance, which channels that expectation, and the sounds of the subway cars outside, which amplify the tension as they reveal, sonically, how the tension is only increasing through the scene. Simple, but very effective. This sort of thoughtfulness can be found across all three Godfather pictures, and I think it's a big reason they have their impact. One has to acknowledge that these films work on both the conscious and subconscious levels very well. In music, well-written counterpoint usually has the effect of making a melody appear to flow faster. That example applies to this, I think. I'll resist calling The Godfather a picture that is just visually edited well; it's a film where we really don't realize how much of the sound editing (not to mention the music) choices make up the total editorial experience—the sandwich—that's the film. The deft counterpointing of conscious and subconscious moments in picture and sound are ripe throughout.
Harlan Lebo: Hard to believe The Godfather is three hours long!
Paul Hirsch, ACE (editor, Ray, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; co-editor, Star Wars): The length of The Godfather is a function of interest, and the screenplay and the cast were compelling. Brando was at the top of his game. The ingredients combined to make magic.
Saul Pincus: That reminds me of how The Godfather is cut with an emphasis not so much on those who are speaking, but those who are listening. And how many of the nuances of the great performances in the film are available to us because Coppola was trying to give credibility to the drama by choosing to filter them that way.
