New York City, Sicily, Las Vegas

Empire State of Mind

The Godfather's action is spread over three killer vacation destinations (hey-o!) throughout the course of the late-1940s. First, there's New York City—bright lights, the high life, and mafia hits plotted in seedy backrooms (basically, everything everyone already associates with New York). That's where most of the action is set, along with the Godfather's nearby estate on Long Island.

New York isn't exactly a romantic destination in this movie, however. It's a hardscrabble place where people are riddling each other with bullets. New York demands street-smarts. It's also the place where the mafia's new business is taking hold—drug-dealing. NYC represents the claims of this scary, expanding modern world. It's the realm that Vito and Michael learn how to navigate as the story progresses.

You Don't Just Marry Your Spouse—You Marry Their Whole Family

Then, there's Sicily. Sicily is the Old Country, standing in contrast to New York. New York seems to be full of corrupt cops and gangsters, but Sicily is the kind of place with traditions and age-old customs (and gangsters—they're everywhere, apparently).

Michael courts his Sicilian wife by essentially dating her and her family. That's obviously not the way it would work in New York. But his pleasant idle ends there, when the mob murders his wife. The violence of NYC intrudes on his peaceful country lifestyle, and Michael has to re-enter the more brutal world.

The People You Shoot in the Face Here, Stay Dead Here

Finally, there's Vegas. Michael doesn't really spend that much time in Vegas—just enough to talk smack to Moe Greene—but it's another place that, like New York, represents the modern world that Michael needs to face down and take over.

He needs to bring the Corleones into the second half of the 20th century, dominating the casino industry that's rising in Vegas and preventing Barzini and Greene from getting the best of him. His preferred tool? Bullets.

Zooming In

Also, it's important not to forget the micro-settings—the placement and significance of individual scenes. Take the opening wedding scene, for example: You have people laughing and dancing outside, and then you have the secret, criminal world of the Don going on inside his office.

By switching back and forth between these two worlds, Coppola and Puzo demonstrate how this little mafia cosmos functions: On the outside, the Corleones are just like every other happy family, but on the inside, dark and shady dealings are going down.