The scene between Michael Corleone and Frank Pentangeli after the initial assassination attempt on Michael’s life uses wide-angle shots as well as slow shot-reverse shot technique to exemplify the gravity of the situation between Michael and Frank. Director Francis Ford Coppola intentionally has the primary shots set up at a far angle to encompass the setting at which the conversation is taking place in. The fact that Frank’s house used to be Michael’s father’s old house adds emphasis on the family aspect of the Italian crime business as well as how betrayed Michael feels when someone in his family tried to have him killed. Additionally, the landscape set-up of the shots literally give Michael space to add emphasis to the moments in which he yells that someone tried to kill him and his family. In this case, the delivery of the line acts to fill the entire room since the scene is shot at such a wide angle.
Moreover, when Michael is first introduced in the scene, he is in the far left corner of the shot while Frank enters the room from the far right corner, thus using the classic rule of thirds methods to draw equal parts attention to the actors on the screen, in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to the audience. This separation in distance also adds to the foreshadowing of what’s to come as Coppola is now building Michael to not just be a passive crime leader but one who is hell-bent on exacting revenge on those who tried to hurt his family. Michael starts in the shadows, by the curtains of the window, almost as if he was lurking in the shadows the whole time which adds an element of lethality to him.
One other important thing to note in the scene is the where the light sources are located in the room. For the entirety of the scene, the actors are dimly lit, mostly covered in shadows. This once again draws attention to the ominous nature of what the two men are involved in and exemplifies that feeling of death that comes with them. The light comes above the characters’ head, which casts the actors in an uneven shade of light and dark. The use of chiaroscuro in this scene helps the audience understand just how serious the matters being discussed are. This concept of light and dark also recurs in the film constantly, as scenes with death and murder are shot in almost pitch black conditions while light is only used to draw emphasis to characters’ faces or settings of celebration.
