Why Are These People Criticizing 'The Godfather' on Twitter Today?

Twitter is where you go to find out if people agree with you. If your echo chamber is sound, then you're never going to know the chaos going on outside. Still, sometimes the real world leaks in, and you're forced to confront things you wish you never saw. 

Like when I came across a tweet saying The Godfather was "underlit."

No, this wasn't a tweet from a confused Paramount executive from the past, but of a young filmmaker who followed it up with a short tutorial on how to light. Somewhere, cinematographer Gordon Willis is rolling in his grave. 

Several other users chimed in elsewhere that they didn't like the shot, either.

Normally, I wouldn't shame people for their tweets here. I firmly believe No Film School should be used to educate the masses in a collaborative effort to make better films and TV.

But this one time, allow me to smack some knuckles with my ruler. We have an excellent article explaining the film's look and feel. We have an explainer on film theory. 

When making the movie, Willis used hard light. He opted to light characters from either above or the side. He refuted the industry standard of using fill light to illuminate the other side of his actor's face.

In fact, Hollywood so preferred brightly lit films that studio executives were terrified of The Godfather prior to distribution.

The Godfather is dark because Michael Corleone's journey into the underworld is dark. Willis worked with director Francis Ford Coppola to make sure that the themes of the movie were allowed to live in darkness. His sumptuous shots are carefully planned. They fought tooth and nail to make sure Paramount didn't change them, back in the day. 

Don't believe me? Check out Screen Prism's breakdown of the cinematography of The Godfather:

Willis and Coppola worked together on all three Godfather films.

When Willis passed away in 2014, Coppola attempted to put his influence on the trilogy into words in a special edition of ASC Magazine:

"The word he used a lot was ‘structure,’ and by that, he meant that when you lay out a scene and decide how to shoot it, each shot [should have] a reason for existing. [To Gordy’s thinking,] the word ‘coverage’ wasn’t really about shooting the same thing from a bunch of different angles. If in one shot you excluded a particular character or just showed a piece of his arm, then in the next shot you [would reveal] who that arm belonged to. In other words, every shot shouldn’t have to do everything; the lens was very selective in what it showed, and each sequence was like building something out of bricks. Each brick contained a reason why it was the next brick—it had more information, or it showed something." 

Anyway, if someone took the time to just Google why the movie looked like that, the answers would be at their fingertips.

Many times, I log onto Twitter and see debates with people who simply have not done the research or asked about the director's intent behind something. People who are making movies in Hollywood have been vetted. That doesn't mean they are above criticism and critique, but in order to do that, you have to come equipped with the knowledge to debate, learn, and see intent.

Otherwise, you're the person who brought a cannoli to a gunfight. 

We hope that settles that. 

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.