Watching the baptism montage in The Godfather (1972) is like watching a knight in shining armor trying into the mirror, solely to see a monster returning his gaze. There couldn’t have been a greater approach to sum up Michael Corleone’s (Al Pacino) fall from grace than this sequence of contrasting pictures: the baptism and the carnage.
The baptism: solemn, peaceable environment. Sacred organ tunes. Michael, or Uncle Mikey, holding his child nephew as his religious godfather, guiding him onto his righteous path, vowing to guard him.
The carnage: A number of mob bosses and heads of crime households being violently assassinated in broad daylight—on Michael’s directive.
As these pictures intercut with one another, we see Michael’s real-time metamorphosis from a golden boy and conflict hero into the monster he as soon as claimed he would by no means turn into.
The genius of this montage lies in the truth that, except for advancing the plot, it splits open the story’s protagonist, his soul, and reveals us how he’s going to exist in duality to any extent further: a loving, protecting household man and a chilly, calculating prison.
Michael’s Journey
Michael’s character arc is likely one of the most studied ones in cinema. His journey from an outsider who rejected his household’s prison legacy to somebody who grew to become its beating coronary heart is a good instance of character transformation.
The Gentleman
Michael as soon as reassured his anxious girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), saying, “That’s my household, Kay. That’s not me.” By saying this, he distanced himself from the whole lot that his household stood for. Kay believed him. We believed him. How may we not?
He was the one who broke away from the circle of violent energy that outlined his household. He was the one who fought in a conflict for a noble trigger. He was the one who epitomized the professional American future.
The Legal
That respectable distance between him and his household, nonetheless, was shattered when there was an try on his father, Vito’s (Marlon Brando), life. His brothers had been a dysfunctional duo—Sonny (James Caan) was too hot-headed to guide—or survive; Fredo (John Cazale) was too meek. The facility vacuum that constructed up threatened to destroy the household. So, when Michael took cost, his transformation started, not as his starvation for energy, however as a chilly, calculated, and reluctant determination.
Understanding the Montage
The baptism scene is a major instance of how Coppola makes use of his directorial imaginative and prescient and cinematic language to indicate Michael’s inside and exterior conflicts. In reality, many critics think about this scene a technical marvel due to how he crafts and makes use of each component to intensify the scene’s grinding irony.
Crosscut Enhancing Between Two Parallel Tracks
The baptism scene good points its impression from its use of parallel modifying, often known as crosscutting. Coppola intercuts between two realities which are taking place concurrently.
On one hand, the godly: the ornate church, the holy rites, the priest’s sacred phrases, and the anointing with holy water.
And, alternatively, we see the ungodly: the bloodbath of the rival crime-family bosses, one getting shot via the attention whereas one other being gunned down on the courthouse stairs or whereas caught in a revolving door.
These intercuts rework the church’s serene setting right into a holy backdrop in opposition to which the unholy purge unfolds.
Sound Design That Created Audio-Visible Paradox
Although these two visuals going down on the identical time are wildly reverse, the sound that echoes in each is identical: the hypnotic, virtually droning church organ tunes. This sound impact is what binds these two visuals collectively. It turns into the baptismal font at which Michael is anointed with blood.
Additionally, the organ tunes give the visuals of a bloodbath a form of formal, virtually ceremonial aura. It highlights the preordained nature of the violence, just like the preordained nature of the non secular ceremony.
The one sounds that disturb the regular stream of organ tunes are the priest’s phrases and the newborn’s crying. They turn into the image of innocence being destroyed with every gunshot.
Christening of a New Don
The scene has minimal dialogue; solely the ritualistic vows are exchanged between the priest and Michael. However that trade is paradoxical. When the priest asks Michael if he renounces Devil, all his works, and all his guarantees, Michael, every time, whereas standing earlier than God and with a straight face, affirms. “I do resign him,” he says—whereas his males are doing Devil’s work, simply as he had instructed them. The irony is that with each promise to resign sin, Michael descends deeper into it.
The baptism scene underscores Michael’s skilled victory and, ultimately, the theme of your entire trilogy—he has taken down his rivals and has a monopoly over the sinister energy that breathes within the lungs of his enterprise. He has saved his household. And but, on a private, human stage, he has sacrificed himself on the altar. He has damned himself for eternity.
When Michael says, “I resign Devil,” he isn’t renouncing Devil. He’s turning into one.
