In Michael’s wedding scene, a beautiful long shot of the small Italian town follows the bride and groom’s procession, showcasing both Corleone’s natural richness in color and its plain and battered buildings. Sonny’s wife with a riff on someone’s-perhaps her husband’s-manhood This emphasis on reverence and religion is not displayed at Connie’s reception, where young women are playing guessing games about the size of someone’s manhood and Sonny is having extramarital sex with a bridesmaid upstairs. Their wedding is a sacred, holy union, and while the couple and the bride’s family will soon celebrate, the religious sacrament is the undisputed focus of the day. The priest and the wedding ceremony, rather than the reception, take center stage, and Michael and Apollonia, though joyful, wear formal expressions. Apollonia engages with guests at her modestly sized and decorated, quiet reception A reverent Michael and Apollonia bless themselves, kneeling respectfully before the Sicilian priestĪs noted in the screenplay, Michael’s wedding is “the same in feeling and texture as it might have been five hundred years ago,” with “all the ritual and pageantry, as it has always been, in Sicily.” This deeply Sicilian wedding illustrates Michael’s complete immersion in the Sicilian culture. Where Connie’s wedding features posy pink bridesmaids’ dresses, a performance from celebrity Johnny Fontane, and lots of dancing, Michael’s nuptials are quiet, small, and more serious, in the “Old World” fashion. The scenes of their celebration utilize warm, vivid colors and upbeat music accompanied by laughter, excited shouts, and singing, while Michael’s wedding looks muted and earthy, scored by a band playing a song that recalls the slow and almost mournful Godfather theme.
Wine flows freely, and several characters appear to be drunk. Connie’s enormous and intricate cake, a symbol of the family’s wealth, is presented to the party Guests cheer loudly and happily at Connie’s well-attended and expensively decorated receptionĬonnie and Carlo’s wedding is bright and loud. The Corleones showcase their prosperity and well-connectedness through the wedding, and Connie’s towering cake is the epitome of extravagance and excess. While Connie’s wedding features Sicilian traditions, like her wedding purse and songs sung in Italian, it does not diverge too sharply from a normal (though lavish) American wedding. Unlike his sister Connie’s sumptuous and lighthearted reception, Michael’s marriage to Apollonia is old-fashioned and deeply Sicilian.
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The two weddings in The Godfather differ from one another greatly.
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Yet he renews his commitment to his family in his own way - and the terms of this commitment are signaled by the contrast between the two weddings in the film (Michael’s and Connie’s) and by the development of his character between the two ceremonies. By partaking in an intensely traditional wedding with an equally traditional Italian bride in a town that bears his family’s name, Michael is wedding himself to the Old World of his father’s generation and to the violent path that he had previously rebelled against. Michael’s marriage to Apollonia, halfway through The Godfather, marks a metaphorical marriage to Sicily and the ways of his father.