Oranges are an important symbol in The Godfather, and their hidden meaning has become a commonly used shorthand in visual language. Adapted from the Mario Puzo novel of the same name, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 gangster epic revolves around aging mob boss Vito Corleone as he reluctantly hands the reins of his powerful criminal empire to his wayward son Michael. At the time of its release, The Godfather was briefly the highest-grossing movie ever made. Universally praised as a masterpiece, The Godfather is full of symbols and motifs for eagle-eyed viewers to spot.
The Godfather was also one of the cornerstones of the “New Hollywood” movement in which dark, edgy, violent, cynical movies unexpectedly became commercially viable. And it began a string of all-time great movies directed by Francis Ford Coppola, followed by The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now. From horses’ heads to offers that can’t be refused, many elements of The Godfather have entered the cultural zeitgeist. Oranges appear intermittently throughout the movie whenever something bad is about to happen. But the intention behind this motif isn’t the same as the meaning that the audience reads into it.
Oranges can be spotted all throughout The Godfather, and they always appear before character deaths or other shocking tragedies. When Vito Corleone is buying oranges in the street, he gets shot. As he falls to the ground, the oranges scatter across the street. Before the severed horse’s head appears in Jack Woltz’s bed, oranges are seen on the dinner table where he’s eating with Tom Hagen. Right before Vito’s death near the end of The Godfather, he’s peeling an orange and making faces with the rind in his mouth to amuse his grandson.
In every case, the oranges foreshadow a tragedy that is about to befall a character. When oranges appear, it’s a message to the audience telling them not to get too attached to whichever characters are in the scene. Once audiences know to watch out for oranges, it might seem like a spoiler to telegraph every tragic plot turn. If oranges appear before a death, the audience can see it coming. But each tragedy foreshadowed by oranges still arrives as a surprise because the form that tragedy takes is always different. No one could predict the decapitation of a horse, and Vito’s death by heart attack is subversively undramatic.
In his book about the making of The Godfather, Harlen Lebo claims the oranges featured in the classic gangster movie were intended to brighten up a gloomy set. “For [production designer] Dean Tavoularis, oranges were simply another carefully chosen complement to otherwise somberly dressed sets,” Leo writes in The Godfather Legacy (via Time). Tavoularis explained, “We knew this film wasn’t going to be about bright colors, and oranges make a nice contrast. I don’t remember anybody saying, ‘Hey, I like oranges as a symbolic message.’” One of the most iconic visual symbols in cinema history happened by coincidence. If storytellers stay true to the narrative, clever devices pop up naturally.
The influence of The Godfather’s iconic orange motif can be seen all over the crime genre. The color orange recurs in the build-up to Omar’s death in The Wire. In The Sopranos, Tony buys orange juice right before an attempt on his life. In Breaking Bad, a startled neighbor drops a bag of oranges when Walt returns to Albuquerque. During a stakeout in Point Break, a man is selling oranges on the street before bullets start flying. The Godfather is such a landmark in the genre that other crime movies and shows have taken to using its most familiar symbol – the oranges of death – as a recurring trope.
Oranges and their symbolism didn’t stop with the original 1972 The Godfather. The colorful fruit and the bad news they bore may have initially been a coincidence, but in The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990), Coppola and the others involved with the trilogy knew precisely what they were doing. More tragic and surprising deaths were juxtaposed with cheery oranges, and as audiences began to catch on to the trend, the symbol became all the more ominous. Now, upon reflection, The Godfather is a franchise entirely marked by oranges.