Analysis Of The Opening Scene Of The Godfather

The opening of the Godfather starts with a non diegetic sound of the soundtrack playing against a black screen the soundtrack is distinctive to the film and can be easily identified with the film if someone has seen the film before. The next thing we here is dialogue from an Italian man we can tell he is Italian from his accent and that he's a male by the tone of his voice as his voice is of a low pitch and many female voices tend to be of a higher pitch. It then starts on an establishing shot of the guys face as he continues to speak throughout the shot, we can tell from his facial expressions he's worried and concerned. The camera then pans out and turns into a mid close up of the character speaking. The camera then continues to pan out to give us a bit more of an insight into where he is he seems do be in quite a classy room yet its quite dark and gloomy creating a real atmosphere to the film already.
We then see a shot reverse shot as we see the character from the point of view as the person he's addressing.We then hear the rather low,deep voice of the Godfather in the scene by this point we can see the contents of the room props like old fashioned telephones lamps and desks are shown within the shot. The shot then turns into a two shot as someone else moves into the scene and the Godfather whispers in the mans ears this shows us his authority showing he's en charge the main authority.
The fact that within the scene we can see the main character within the shot asking the Godfather for help it really gives us a sense and feel of his authority. The camera the turns to show us the Godfather one thing we notice as the camera begins to pan out and show everyone within the room is that everyone in the room is wearing a suit this is significant as its shows us that everyone has to be dressed very smartly if they want to get near to the Godfather and that all meeting carried out by him are very slick and professional.



 Opening Scene Of The Godfather



Timeline Of Title Sequence 

                                                                                                                                                         

6 seconds in                    42 seconds in                                          50 seconds in

Production company    Opening titles                                        The Title of the film

Paramount  Pictures    presenting the production company     The Godfather

for 17 seconds on screen  for 3 seconds on screen                         for 5 seconds on screen