It is a virtuoso stretch of filmmaking: Coppola brings his large cast onstage so artfully that we are drawn at once into the Godfather’s world. By the end of the wedding sequence, most of the main characters will have been introduced, and we will know essential things about their personalities.
And then they would fear you.”Īs the day continues, there are two more scenes in the Godfather’s darkened study, intercut with scenes from the wedding outside.
And if, by chance, an honest man like yourself should make enemies. The Godfather’s reply will underpin the entire movie: “Why did you go to the police? Why didn’t you come to me first? What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you’d come to me in friendship, then this scum that ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. “I went to the police, like a good American,” the man says. Don Vito asks why he did not come to him immediately. A man has come to ask for punishment for his daughter’s rapist. It is the wedding day of Vito Corleone’s daughter, and on such a day a Sicilian must grant any reasonable request. It is significant that the first shot is inside a dark, shuttered room. There is one commandment, spoken by Michael ( Al Pacino): “Don’t ever take sides against the family.” The real world is replaced by an authoritarian patriarchy where power and justice flow from the Godfather, and the only villains are traitors. That is its secret, its charm, its spell in a way, it has shaped the public perception of the Mafia ever since. The story views the Mafia from the inside.