Analysis of The Godfather opening sequence

In the Godfather onening sequence there is no acting, it is just titles to music. All the titles are white at the momment and the background is plain black. It starts with a graphic that looks like a hand holding the handle of a puppet the the strings run down into the titles, starting with the distributions companies Paramount Pictures and Francis Ford. It lingures on the titles until the strings reach the bottom and then follows them down to the next titles below which are the writer (Mario Puzo) and music (Nino Rola and Carmine Coppola). Finally the strings reveal the first main actor (Marlon Brando) who is a big Hollywood actor. It reveals a graphic of the actors face looking menicing still keeping with the white and black theme. The strings then carry on down the page.



The next actor revealed is Al Pacino, he again looks very menicing as his eyes open and look as if he's staring at the audience which could make them uncomfortable. He is a very prestigious Italian mafia actor, so it gives a strong clue to the audience that this is a mafia ganster style thriller. Another clue of the genre is the music, the music is all strings which plays a romantic typical Italian score which relates to the old fashioned mafia cults. The titles carry on revealing the actors James Cann, Robert Divall and Diane Heaton. It clearly shows the characters aren't as important because it moves on from them quicker than it does from the other two showing the audience they are supporting characters. Colour is finally added to the tilte sequence, a white graphic of what look like roses grow upwards and a a strip of red runs across the screen and into one flower. Making it not a blood red rose. This can forbode dead in the film because as the red runs into the rose is looks like blood. A red petal falls from the rose.




It now tracks the petal which is in the middle of the screen to show significance aswell as the strings which are at the sides of the screen still creating the titles. The strings then fade away and we are left as an audience watching the blood petal fall, still the music is playing. It stops traking the petal and lets it fall to the floor in which in then fades out and the puppeteer hand appears at the top of the screen, the string run down again but this time creating the white bold title of the film, The Godfather. The music has now peaked and is very powerful slightly overwhelming the audience to make them see that whoever is The Godfather has alot of power. In relation to power the graphic of the puppeteer hand indicates to the audience that The Godfather contros people the same way a puppeteer controls his puppets.