Series

The Godfather

3 prints

Gordon Willis's cinematography for The Godfather is among the most studied in film history. His use of extreme top-lighting created faces that dissolved into shadow, and his amber-brown palette made the Corleone world feel warm and close and inescapable. The orange motifs, fruit appearing before every act of violence, are color as prophecy. Part II's contrast between golden 1900s Sicily and cold 1950s Nevada traced a family's moral descent through light.