While I feel a good book can beat any movie , I do love cinema’s unique ability to tell a tale. It can convey a story through a combination of image composition, acting, sound, lighting, set design, costumes, dialogue (and the lack of), etc. The loose term for this is mise en scène.
I’ll be looking at a few scenes in future posts, and highlight what I feel are (if I may channel my inner Chris Farley) really awesome examples of this. First up, The Godfather…
The Godfather (1972, Director Francis Ford Coppola)
The Godfather have many fantastic examples of using sound, images and/or dialogue together to inform a scene, but I will focus on Luca Brasi . Let’s look at two scenes involving the killing of Don Vito Corleone’s enforcer Luca Brasi. Earlier in the film, he is directed by Don Corleone (Marlon Brando), head of the Corleone family, to infiltrate the rival Tattaglia family by feigning dissatisfaction with the Don. I am going to assume anyone reading this has at least seen this movie once. If not, in the words of Shia Le Beouf – JUST DO IT!
During this scene, we see Luca Brasi meeting members of the Tattaglia family in what appears to be an empty hotel bar. The camera pans and follows him entering the bar entrance, but does not follow him through the door. Instead, the camera continues to pan from the doorway to outside the bar, observing Luca Brasi through the glass window. The edge of the glass pane is etched with images of a pair of fish in the left foreground, and Luca Brasi in the right background. Bruno Tattaglia is at the bar, and eventually Sollozzo appears to talk with Luca Brasi about joining forces.
Ultimately Luca Brasi is killed in the bar, and the last shot is from the same perspective through the glass pane with the etched fishes, his limp body falling to the ground.
Later in the film, the Corleone family (sans the injured Don) are meeting in the Don’s study, when someone delivers a fish in a bulletproof vest. Clemenza tells Don Corleone’s son Sonny, “It’s a Sicilian message – it means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes”.
At this point, the earlier scene’s image composition now takes on additional resonance. By composing the image with Luca Brasi and the fishes in the earlier scene, director Coppola visually foreshadows the metaphoric Sicilian message that signifies his demise.
I found this video that does a great job of summarizing this (props to TheFilmSpectrum on YouTube).
That was awesome…
The Phantom Dentist 