First, a note: I’m sorry this one took me so long to post. I had WAY too much to say. Believe it or not, this is the edited version.

So first off let’s figure out what we mean by structure. At first I was going to make an analogy between structure and a story’s bones, but on second thought, I’ve decided that it’s probably more accurate to think of structure — at least the way I’m going to talk about it — as also including the tendons in a story’s anatomy. It’s more than plot, after all, it’s also the escalation of tension, the sequence and manner of revelations, the turning points that drive the action. It’s the way the individual plot points hang together, the way the acts build on each other.

The better the storytelling, the harder it is to extricate structure from character and world. Writing about The Godfather proved a lot more difficult than I expected for this very reason. The film isn’t about a single character’s journey so much as it is about a huge shift in all the characters’ world. It’s about family and time and culture and choices and consequences. It’s about a father’s legacy. It’s about a regime change. One of the many reasons the structure of the film is so brilliant is because all of these elements are layered into the 27min opening sequence. The entirety of the rest of the film flows out of that infamous wedding scene.

As I talk about the way the story is told, I’m going to summarize the story WITH SPOILERS. You’ve been warned.
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