Sound track for the The Godfather

The Soundtrack for The Godfather is one that definitely connotes high status and wealth; the reason

for this is because the instruments used in it are very classical. During the time that the film is set;

the 1940’s, the people that stereotypically listened to that type of music were rich people. There is

also an element of jazz in the soundtrack which helps establish that the film has mainly high class

characters in it. The soundtrack makes a big impact on audience appeal; stereotypically jazz is quite

an old fashioned genre of music that is not usually listened to in this day and age, and also not

during the time in which the film was distributed (1970’s) therefore people of an older generation

could hear the soundtrack and relate rather well to it; this helps the director to gain a mass audience

through the use of this soundtrack because higher class and older people will want to watch it. Also

because people can identify with this genre of music they may also use it to be entertained and also

to escape from the stresses of their lives; uses and gratification theory is applied here and can also

be used to target a specific audience.

Although we do not hear the whole song it seems as if the music is building up to something big

because in the soundtrack it slowly increases; this could lead to an enigma code because the

audience will be wondering why the music is getting more intense, leading them to think that a big

event will happen. The soundtrack also connotes sadness because of how slow and downbeat it is;

this could represent that the director is not glorifying the violence and crime that is predominant

throughout the film, but is showing the audience a realistic view of what it is like to be a gangster

during the 1940’s and that it was not all fast cars and money, but also a lot of hard work and

depressing times.