The Godfather

The opening begins with a very slow jazz soundtrack, which is typical of thrillers. A plain black background, which connotes wealth, death, mystery, and evil, is contrasted with white writing, which has connotations of coldness, fear, reverence, and again, death. The writing simply says 'The Godfather' with puppet strings attached to the word 'father'. This symbolises the control that the godfather in the film has, and, as the audience will discover, how he controls people below him like a puppeteer controls his puppets.

The title disapears and the audience is left with a black screen, emphasising the connotations of the colour black, and also adding mystery and suspense - we don't know what will follow. A male voice-over begins in an italian accent with the line "I believe in America", suggesting where the film is set, and we fade in to see the man (Pacino) who is speaking. The camera begins with a close up as he talks to the camera and the camera zooms out very slowly whilst he tells us about his daughter's rape. This is a thriller signifier as we instantly know a web of crime and corruption will be involved in the narrative. The mise en scene at this point is all dark, with only the man's collar being the only colour of white, reflecting the title screen with white contrasting with black. As we zoom out, however, we discover with the technique of an over the shoulder shot, that the man is infact talking to someone else. The shot now reveals brown mise en scene - a wooden table, with a couple of papers on, making it seem to the audience like some kind of office. The camera stops zooming out, and Pacino begins to cry, and is given a drink by another man (presumably alcoholic) which shows the audience the flaws of the protagonist - his emotion for his daughter, and his drinking habit. This sequence also reveals that our first thought that there was only one person present was incorrect - there are at least three men present, but it is still unknown where this is set and who the men are. The camera then tracks to focus on a close up of the two men whispering to each other, but we are unable to hear what they say.