How are Doors symbolic throughout the movie? How do they create suspense?

     Throughout the film, there have been many scenes involving doors or doorways.  The fact that Coppola keeps incorporating doors into the film, means that there is an symbolic importance behind it.  There have been scenes in which the audience (people watching the film), are caught looking at a doorway with someone standing inside of it.  Coppola demonstrates the symbols of doors throughout this film because everything seems to be happening in a doorway; whether the action happening in the doorway is good or bad.  The doorway also seems to symbolize a new beginning to a part of life because it could represent how the person in that scene is going to venture off into a new part of their life or how they are going to go somewhere farther.  A very important example of this is how the doors could be used to show Michael entering a new part of his life. The door symbolizes Michael crossing the threshold which a new part to his life.  When you cross a threshold, it means you are attempting at something new in your life and stepping pushing away your fears.This symbolic figure shows how Michael is coming out of his comfort zone to begin something new only to protect his father. A door is an entrance but also an exist and in and inside but also an outside to something.  One could look at it this way by acknowledging the fact that when Michael is outside of the door, he is an outsider but when he is inside the door, he is more involved and apart of the family.  He stepped inside by choice only to protect his father.

     Doorways create suspense because we can see everything that’s happening in front of the camera, but nothing beyond or behind it;  it also seems that doors indicate something bad is going to happen.  Whenever a doorway is shown with someone inside with the camera angle zooming onto the character, it creates a lot of suspense as it seems almost as if someone is coming into the room.  When the camera is fixated like this, we aren’t able to see what is coming towards the character during that scene which is why it becomes suspenseful.  An example of doors creating suspense in the film was shown in the scene where Brasi was getting ready for his encounter with the Tattalgia family. The way he was being filmed seemed like something suspenseful was going to happen; like something was going to occur at that moment.