Godfather Baptism Scene

After the death of Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando), his youngest son Michael (played by Al Pacino) is now the head of the Corleone crime family. With new responsibilities placed on his shoulders, Michael now orchestrates the murders of his rivals, the other head families, in order to take control as the dominant family. Through a five minute scene, the murders and the baptism of his nephew manage to intertwine a lot of prevalent themes in the Godfather (by Francis Ford Coppola), into a powerful scene where the ideas of loyalty, commitment to family, revenge, and personal transformation are shown.
The scene begins with a long shot of a dark Catholic church with the echo of an organ playing in the background, where Michael’s nephew is being baptised. As the baptism begins, the first shot of Michael is a medium shot and shows him gazing off elsewhere while having a very solemn, almost absent facial expression as if he has other things to worry about, which he does. With the wailing of baby and the priest’s voice repeating over the organs’ ominous music, the shot switches to Michael’s subordinates. Each one is shown in a different setting either preparing …show more content…
In the baptism scene, the two main characters shown are the baby, who is wearing white to signify purity in the Corleone family, and Michael, who wears a dark suit to represent the more sinister side of the family. Furthermore, the clothing choice of all Michael’s men all represents the coming of death in a way, as they all wear dark colors. Along with the clothing choice, the sounds of the music playing in the background allows the viewer to feel as if Michael is in all those different places at the same time. Even though he was only at the baptism, he is the one who is pulling the strings from the background, carefully calculating the right moments to move his pawns into