Which godfather was the horse head

Similar to other parts of the film, it is a calm before a storm. A lack of cuts is often more powerful than countless dramatic splices. We are forced to experience pain in real-time with Woltz. There are a couple of rhythmic beats resting on the head, making it all that much more terrifying and visceral.

We do not cut until after two screams. While Woltz screams, we visually cut farther and farther back to static shots, amplifying his sense of loss and powerlessness in this predicament. In the opening monologue, we fade in and there is no hard cut, or any cut for that matter, for four minutes. The scene in which Connie struggles to confront Carlo also showcases the power of allowing a long take to play without editing. We follow her from the kitchen, to the dining room, to the parlor, back to the kitchen and into the hallway with the knife—and all without any cut.

There is no edit until after she is holding the knife; at that moment we cut to her going in the bedroom. This scene utilizes the editing technique known as cross-cutting, or parallel editing. In parallel editing, two or more scenes are woven together. These two scenes may be occurring simultaneously or happening at various times, in a montage manner.

The use of parallel editing allows for stark juxtapositions—sharp contrasts in tone, and often in concept. Films Books Games. The Godfather. Cuneo crime family Tattaglia crime family Barzini crime family Chicago Outfit Molinari crime family Greco crime family Falcone crime family.

Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? View source. History Talk 0. Everything in the book, he said, came from his imagination or through researching documented events, and there were no official reports of severed horse heads at that point although there have been several copycat incidents since then.

It was a real horse head, though. The plan was to use a fake, but director Francis Ford Coppola wasn't satisfied with that look, so crew members found a horse that was scheduled to die at a dog-food manufacturer. The scene was filmed when the horse's head arrived, packed in dry ice. It's also widely assumed Puzo did have real-life inspiration for the characters involved in this grisly plot twist -- specifically, that he based the character of Johnny Fontane on Frank Sinatra.

Fontane is a struggling singer and actor who, after the horse slaughter, gets the part in Woltz's film and goes on to win an Oscar. Sinatra allegedly used his Mafia ties to shake down Hollywood producers for parts. One of his targets was said to have been Harry Cohn, producer of the film "From Here to Eternity. Again, there's no indication that any horses were decapitated in the pursuit of this goal, but Sinatra was apparently so incensed by the rumors that he threatened and verbally abused Puzo in a Hollywood restaurant in He also successfully sued the BBC in for suggesting that he had been the inspiration for Fontane.

In the decades since "The Godfather" became a classic, the severed horse head has taken on a life of its own, for lack of a better phrase. It's now a common cultural reference, a punch line in sitcoms and shorthand for "you're dead. It's a scene Mario Puzo couldn't have come up with even in his wildest imagination.