Similarities Between The Godfather And Gangs Of New York

William Inhyuk Hyoung

MHIS-231-001

Jack Freeman

History of Film music final project

Film Score of The Godfather and Gangs of New york

The Godfather, 1972, is a film that won three Academy awards, Bst Picure, Best Actor - Brando- and Best Adapted Screenplay. Gangs of ew york, 2002, is a film that haswon he Academy Award for Best picture. Thirty years apart, both of the pictures portray the story of immigrant gangs or mobs of new york, and were praised as Modern day classics. In this essay I will ompare and contrast the scores of the film by two different composers from two different eras.

Nino Rota, the master film composer that scored the music for The Godfather was borin in Milan Italia, 1911. He was born to a musician’s family and was trained as a musician from young age. Nino was active as a classical composer and was fascinated by film music from 1940 and met Federico Felini, who is now remembered as one of the most successful Italian film directors of the 20th century, having won 5 Academy awards. In

1952 their first collaboration, The White Sheick was released and was praised by both the audience and the critics despite being the first work. Their second work, La Strada became a world hit and made both the film maker and the composer an international sensation. Nino Rota worked in many wonderful films such as the 1956 film War and Peace starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda, and White Nights, the 1957 film directed by Luchino Visconti.
In 1970 Nino Rota came to the United states and worked with Francis Ford Coppola and created the film score for The God Father. Although The God Father was funded by hollywood and was made in the USA, Nino Rota felt a strong ethnic connection to the film as The Godfather is a story of Italian-American Mafia. Numerous films about the mafia were created after the success of The Godfather but none of them seems to have created beautiful, emotional music that Nino Rota gave to The God father. Not only did Nino Rota won the Academy award and the Golden Globe through The God Father series but he also won a grammy and is remembered as one of the best film composers of the century.
Howard Shore composed the score for Gangs of New York. Hw as born in Canada in 1946 and was fascinated by Jazz in his youth and taught himself how to play the Saxophone. He majored in composition in Boston’s Berklee College of Music under proffessor John Bavicci. After his time in Berklee he toured as a member of a rockband called Lighthouse. He stumbled upon an opportunity to work on radio drama series for their music. In 1975, new york, he worked as the music director of Saturday Night Life and started to become world reknown.
Howard Shore’s first film music composition was for the Canadian film, I miss you, Hugs and Kisses. Then he worked with David Cronenberg for The Brood, 1979 and continued to work with David on Scanners, 1981, Videodrome, 1983, The fly, 1986, Dead Ringers 1988, Naked Lunch, 1991, and Madam butterfly 1993. He also worked during this period on After Hours, 1985, the famous Big, 1988, and The Silence of The Lambs 1991, Guilty as Sin and Sliver, Philadelphia, and Mrs. Doubtfire in 1993. Having worked on various genres of film he becomes a world reknown film composer. Howard Shore worked on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and left what is considered one of the 21st centry film score masterpiece. Howard Shore won consecutive Oscars in 2002 and 2004 for The Lord of The Rings , the fellow ship of the ring and The Return of the King. Skilled in portraying different moods and drama in different genre films, Howard Shore’s work on Gangs of New York no doubt contributed immensly to the unique and vibrant feel of the film.

The Godfather in short is a film that is ‘of the family’ ‘by the family’ and ‘for the family’. The motive of almost all the actions made by the protagonists of the film is family, in the way of the mafia. The Godfather is set in 1945 new york and conveys the story of Vito Corleone, the don and godfather of the Corleone family and Michael Corleone, his youngest son who becomes his successor. Gangs of New York is also heavily based on the idea of family, but in a slightly different sense. The theme of ethenic nationalism and Natives versus the Immigrants plays out to portray the violent struggle new york went through from 1840 to 1860. The story of Amsterdam Valon, the son of priest Valon, the leader of the Dead Rabbits - the Irish Cathoic immigrants’ gang - who fights William cutting or Bill the Butcher, who murdered his father and destroyed The Dead Rabbits. There are many similarities in plot between the two movies. In both movies, the son becomes the successor to his father becoming the leader of the gang. Both the movies were set in New york and describes the story of violent gangs or mobs. In both films the families are european immigrants, Italian in the God father, and Irish/English in Gangs of New York.
The Godfather begins with the Leit motif of The Godfather.

In ¾, the leitmotif with its astonishing feel, evokes the audience to focus on the dialogue between Don Coreleone (Marlon Brando) and a father who came to ask the godfather to avenge his daughter who have been raped. With the combination of Marlon Brando’s charismatic acting, the Godfather Leitmotif immediately sets the dark, charismatic, almost expressionist feel of the film. Gangs of New York begins with the sound of the Priest shaving with a knife. Howard Shore gently places strings followed by marching music. The beginning of Gangs of Newyork introduces many characters that will lead the film and throws the audience into the battlefield that is portrayed more like the dark ages or the middle ages than the 19th century new york. For audiences who must have expected the movie to have a dark, gritty Noir feel, the raw and barbaric feel of the opening scene and the music comes as surprising and

fresh.
The use of music in Gangs of New York is colorful, with a good combination of film score, source music and songs, like the City of New York in the nineteenth century filled with immigrants with different culture and ethnic identities. Towards the end of the film, a war breaks out between the new Dead Rabbits led by Amsterdam Valon and the Natives, led by Bill the butcher. This war is juxtaposed with the violent shooting by the police to the citizens of New york who rebelled against the unfair draft that was compulsary only for those who couldn’t afford to pay 300 dollars. A rather cheerful, Irish dance music consisted of Irish ethenic flute, strings and hand drums in 6/8. The Irish dance music soon goes silent as a canon ball drops in the middle of the battlefield of the gangs.
After a long brutal slaughter of the gangs by the Police and the military a delicate and sad theme is placed by howard Shore. The sad feel of the music represents how Amsterdam has mixed feelings for the murderer of his father and shows how his emotion towards Bill the butcher is not only ragebut also respect and sadness. Howard Shore’s use of big and small ensembles allows the film to make transitions between serious, dramatic moments and moments filled with black humor and cynicism and ties them together. The ‘Heights of Brooklyn’ theme is played in the very end of the film is perhaps the most cathartic of the film. The energetic strings with Irish fiddle and rock-drums juxtaposed with the building of the New York city while the story of the gangs become forgotten soon turns into a song by U2 ‘The Hands that built America’.
The music of The Godfather presents an excellent use of themes and leitmotifs that connect to characters and plots of the film. Howard Shore introduces mainly three principal leitmotifs in the film, including ‘Godfather’, ‘Michael’ and Sicily. The use of leitmotifs instantly tie the plot, characters, the mood together and immensly helps the audience to understand the characters. About one third through the movie, Michael visits the hospital where his father lies injured severely. A tension building music is played by the orchestra and the piano. A low note by the strings is sustained without a change. When Michael races to his father, the ‘Michael’ leitmotif is played as a funeral dirge with a slow pulse. (Hickman, 309) After Michael finds out that the guards have left he moves his father to another room for his safety and as Vito wakes up and faintly smiles at him, The godfather theme is heard with distorted harmony. Then when Michael confront Captain Mccluskey who teamed up with the enemy gang to kill Don Coreleone and saves his father and saves his father, A trumpet plays the Godfather theme as Michael comes back and enters the Coreleone house. The scene shows effective use of leitmotif not only evoking the characters Michael and Vito, but it also suggests the transformation of Michael, a soldier uninteredsted in the family’s mob identity, to the godfather, who is the leader and the protector of the family.
Nino Rota and Howard Shore both colored the stories of the immigrant son and his father with their film scores. ‘Brooklyn Heights” written by Shore and “Scicilian Pastorale” written by Rota both emphasize the dark feel and the ethenic identities of the two movies. The tranditional instrumention in Sicilian Pastorale that includdes an acoustic guitar with accordion, mandolin, and acoustic bass created an ‘Italian Mafia’ for The Godfather. Brooklyn Heights introduce a keltic feel by having a female singer singing in what appears to be Gaelic. The grand, dark, mystical, fable-like feel of the score completes the film very much like how Nino Rota breathed life in to The Godfather’s artistic identity.

Bibliography
“Gangs Of New York - Original Soundtrack | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards | AllMusic.” AllMusic. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 May 2015.
Hickman, Roger. Reel Music: Exploring 100 Years of Film Music. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.
“갱스 오브 뉴욕.” - 엔하위키 미러. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 May 2015.
“하워드 쇼어 (Howard Leslie Shore).” Movie vs. Musical. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 May 2015.