The Symbols of Oranges

     Throughout the movie, oranges have been used as a great extent.  Due to the fact that they have been used more than once, means that the colour orange most likely has a meaning or specific purpose for being used.  Coppola seemed to use the colour orange throughout scenes that involved death. The light was usually shown before someone was killed and it was a good indication to let us know that something was going to happen.  Once we caught on to the fact that the colour orange was a symbol of death, it became easier to depict what could happen. There could be something else that the colour orange represents however, the only example which we have come across is death.

      The first time that the colour orange was used was in scene where the Don had been shot.  He was going to the super market and he had purchased oranges.  This became a sign, because every time that death occurred, there was orange colour included.  An example was with the death of Luca Brasi.  He had gone to spy the Tattaglias however they killed him because they knew he had been sent by the Corleone family.  When Luca entered the restaurant, there was an orange colour and when he encountered the Tattaglias, they killed him right away.

     There was an example which really stood out to me, when the colour orange was used.  This was during the scene where the Corleone family had planned for Michael to kill Solozzo.  The unique aspect about this scene is that the backgorund light behind Michael was orange.  It was weird because we were aware that someone was going to be killed that night; we at least knew that this was the plan from previous scenes in the movie.  This scene stood out to me because even though we already knew that someone was going to be killed in thsi part of the movie, the colour orange was still used.  In the past Coppola had only used the colour orange to indicate that death was going to take place however, it's weird because we already knew that Solozzo and McCluskey were going to be killed by Michael.

     Orange is a very interesting symbol used by Coppola to represent death as he portrays this indirectly.  Ideally, death isn't represented by the colour orange; it's represented by something of a more darker colour.  Orange is a very bright colour and seems like it would only portray good events that occur.  Maybe Coppola was trying to indirectly tell us that death was approaching the character in the scene.  He didn't want to give away anything or make anything obvious which could be one of the reasons why he used the colour orange.  By incorporating this symbol, it makes it easier to investigate into reasons why the colour orange was used.