THE GODFATHER: CODA - The Death of Michael Corleone, Blu-ray (Paramount, 1990) Paramount Home Video

 On Christmas Day, 1990, I left the darkened recesses of my local movie palace feeling more than a tad forlorn. It wasn’t just the lousy weather – cold and drizzly – that had me down. You see, I had just born witness to the final chapter in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Godfather’ saga. And, while I had been able to recognize two things - first, that Coppola indeed, had made a valiant effort to remain vigilant and true to the characters first introduced to us nearly 2 decades before in the original movie and its first sequel, also, that the resultant conclusion could not help but offer a distinct deviation from the events left unfinished in Part II, as a contemplative Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), sat paralyzed in reflection of his own plight as the very Mafioso he had once sworn never to become – I really could not help – then - but think somehow Coppola’s farewell to this beloved and tragic crime family has somehow betrayed not only my expectations, but also his own desire to craft a truly memorable last act. If nothing else, the finale to Part III seemed to me a cheap stylistic repurposing too familiar for devotees of The Godfather saga to be considered either original or shocking, yet hardly familiar enough to be classified as an homage.  

Arguably, the making of The Godfather Part III (a title Coppola despised) was more a ‘labor’ than a labor of love; Robert Duvall, kick-starting with a note of dissention, calling the producers ‘cheap’ and absolutely refusing to an offer of $1.5 million to reprise his role as the family’s consigliere, Tom Hagen. That character was to have been central to the plot of the third movie. Duvall may have had ‘artistic’ reasons, suggesting to reporters clamoring for the inside scoop regarding his absence from the project, that the only reason to make another Godfather was to rape the legacy and reputation of the first two movies for some quick cash. Relatively speaking, Duvall’s salary paled to the $5 million roll-out for the services of Al Pacino, and Diane Keaton. But even Pacino had tried for more, initially demanding a cool $7 million plus a percentage of the gross to reprise his iconic role. To this, Coppola balked, as did the studio; Coppola, threatening to begin this third installment with Michael’s funeral, and evolve the story from there. Indeed, Coppola had not wanted to make Part III at all, believing everything he had wanted to say about the Corleone clan had already been fleshed out in his two Oscar-winning movies from the decade before, whose epic run times heralded a revival of the sixties’ road show vintage. But then Coppola was ‘persuaded’ to partake when Paramount explained they intended to proceed with or without him; a ludicrous notion that would have completely tainted the legacy of the first two movies.

Coppola’s apprehensions may have only been partly motivated by artistic integrity. Yet, in evolving the story, Coppola and his star, Al Pacino clashed on the portrayal of a recalcitrant, but increasingly remorseful Michael Corleone; Pacino, believing time had not withered, rather hardened the character’s resolve into a heartless and cruel crime lord. Given the movie’s central plot, a corporate take-over involving corrupt officials inside the Vatican Bank, it is rather interesting to take notice of the fact the Bank once owned a sizable chunk of Paramount Pictures’ stock.  Even more fascinating, perhaps, to recall two ‘minor’ incidents from 1981, the year Paramount actually hoped to make a third Godfather movie. Indeed, this was the year, then lowly screenwriter, David Paul Kirkpatrick arrived at the writer’s building to find it swarming with studio security, everyone in a kerfuffle because someone had defecated on the desk of the script administrator and crow-barred the story vault, removing all archival drafts and references to the original two Godfather movies. As it turns out, the excremental leftovers were an old ‘Mafia’ warning, not to proceed with Part III. And Coppola, who had received death threats during the making of the first sequel, absolutely refused to entertain offers for another movie to finish off the franchise. Ironically, most of the Mafia chieftains then were beholding to Coppola in their admiration. For them, Coppola had lent credence to their sub-culture, and, better still, had somehow managed to romanticize it for the general public. Better still, the clichés about life in the Mafia, as portrayed in these movies, began to rub off on the real thing – life imitating art when Hollywood’s homegrown ‘fixer’, Anthony Pellicano, smashed the window of a reporter’s car, leaving a single rose and a dead fish on her front seat.

The second incident also involved Kirkpatrick, when then fledgling producer, Don Simpson acquired the rights to David A. Yallop’s tell-all, In God’s Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I. Simpson believed the book, a critical investigation of the mysterious ‘death’ of the Pope, would become a runaway best seller and make one hell of a good movie besides. Neither prediction came to pass. And although Kirkpatrick did fly to Rome under the auspices of a wealthy ‘interested party’ who was later murdered, but declined an audience with the Pope, Simpson’s firing from Paramount shortly thereafter, and, the wiretapping of Kirkpatrick’s Westwood condo served as fairly sober reminders that something more sinister was afoot and meant to be let alone. Nevertheless, a good deal of Yallop’s theories and speculations would eventually find their way into The Godfather Part III. A perfectionist, Coppola was never entirely satisfied with this final result, his $6 million/six-month demands as writer, producer, and director, given short-shrift by Paramount to a bare million and barely six weeks to work on the script. The production was also tinged in unrelated tragedy when Rebecca Schaeffer, the winsome star of TV’s My Sister Sam, and strongly considered to play Michael’s daughter, Mary, was murdered by a stalker on the morning of her audition. From here, the part was bandied about with some very high-profile names thrown into the hopper, and, finally offered to Winona Ryder who hesitated and was ultimately replaced by Coppola’s daughter, Sofia – a decision both director and offspring would soon come to regret.

In hindsight, The Godfather: Part III just felt like a movie stitched together from compromises, with scenes like Michael instructing Vincent to ‘never let anyone know what you're thinking’ merely played in reverse, only now, ringing slightly tinny as regurgitated cliché derived from better work done elsewhere in the franchise. As a matter of record, in the original Godfather, Marlon Brando’s Vito gives Vincent’s father, Sonny (James Caan), the same advice. Coppola, in fact, had refused to partake of the proposed project in 1980, and Paramount spent a minor fortune on various screenplays, hoping to extend the life of the project by advancing the narrative to Michael’s son, Anthony – now, an adult, and inveigled in various plots to involve the CIA, the Mafia and an overthrow of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Virtually, every major writing talent working at the studio had their hand in these redrafts, from originator, Mario Puzo, to Michael Eisner and Don Simpson. Alas, or perhaps, mercifully, nothing gelled. Of the 12 screenplays commissioned by the studio, none were used. At this epoch, Coppola feebly agreed to try his hand at a new story of succession, involving Sonny’s illegitimate son, Vincent. Again, it came to not as Paramount bandied about names like Sidney Lumet, Costa-Gavras, Alan J. Pakula, Robert Benton, Michael Cimino, and Michael Mann to direct the movie. In desperation, the studio even briefly considered Sylvester Stallone to direct and star. By the time Coppola came around to rethinking his investment on the project, nearly a decade had passed. By then, the loss of Duvall (George Hamilton, taking over in an entirely different role as B.J. Harrison), was inevitable.  

Actress, Winona Ryder actually flew to Rome to begin shooting Mary’s scenes when exhaustion caused her to black out on the set. Rumors abounded the young star was either gravely ill or on drugs. But actually, Ryder’s work schedule had drained her of virtually all her physical resources and stamina. While she recuperated in hospital, Coppola recast the part with his own daughter – a decision that infuriated many of the other participants, some of whom even threatened to walk out. No one did. Thus, Ryder, initially intimidated with lawsuits from Paramount, instead graciously stepped aside for Sofia’s big debut. Reportedly, much of Sofia’s dialogue needed to be dubbed in post-production to rid her performance of its ‘Valley girl’ accent. Meanwhile, Robert DeNiro campaigned to play the part of Vincent Mancini – the illegitimate son of Michael’s late brother, Sonny. Despite their friendship, Coppola considered DeNiro only briefly as the actor’s age would have forced him to advance the character of Michael even further into his emeritus years to make DeNiro playing his nephew convincing. Instead, the role went to the considerably younger, Andy Garcia.

Given the picture’s premise, that of a rogue element working within Vatican City, complicit in illegal money laundering, organized crime, and, the murder of the Holy Father, it was little wonder the Vatican flat out refused to allow Coppola to shoot within its walls.  Part III did, in fact, chart a fairly daring course in exploring the death of Pope John Paul I, who passed away under mysterious circumstances on Sept. 29, 1978, a mere 33-days after assuming the papacy. The assumption in Yallop’s book, carried over into the movie, is that the Pope was murdered with some poisoned tea by archbishops and cardinals, fearful of his plans to reforms the Vatican Bank (the fictional Archbishop Gilday, thinly based on Paul Marcinkus, the Chicago-born archbishop who was then head of the Bank).  Also depicted, the murder of Swiss banker, Frederick Keinszig (Helmut Berger) paralleled the real-life death of Italian banker, Roberto Calvi, President of the Banco Ambrosiano. That bank had ties to both the Vatican and the Sicilian Mafia, but collapsed due to Calvi's shady international money exchanges. Not long thereafter, Calvi (having fled Italy to escape indictment) was found dangling from the Blackfriar's Bridge in London, with $15,000 in various currencies in his pocket. Art imitating life, indeed.

The Godfather Part III has several interesting anomalies to consider. First, the inclusion of two attractive twin sisters, prominently posed during a family portrait, though never actually introduced to us in the movie. In fact, these were supposed to be Sonny’s daughters, Kathryn and Francesca, featured as children in the original Godfather, and briefly glimpsed again in Part II. The part of Anthony, Michael and Kay's son, went to relative unknown, Franc D'Ambrosio after a slew of more popular actors vied for the chance. And although heavily criticized for casting his own daughter as Mary, Coppola always considered the Godfather movies a real/reel family affair. Talia Shire, once again marking her reprise as Michael’s sister, Connie in the movie is actually Coppola’s sister. His father, Carmine, composed the score to all three Godfather movies – the first, with Nino Rota’s assist. Francis’ mother, Italia, doubled for Mama Corleone, during the funeral scene in The Godfather: Part II (1974) when Morgana King, who appears in both movies as Michael’s mother, proved unavailable. No one seemed to care. But for Sophia’s casting, the critics lowered their boom en masse, on a then 18-yr.-old novice who had stepped in during the eleventh hour of pre-production to help daddy’s picture along, but was now being chastised for all but wrecking the movie’s ever-lasting appeal. Realistically, Sophia’s performance is not all that bad. Not great, I’ll grant you, and whiny in the extreme in spots. But she comes across as an 18-yr.-old girl, which arguably lends the part an air of naïve truthfulness that, arguably, no seasoned actress could have provided.  

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is not so much a ‘different’ movie from the one I screened Christmas Day, 1990, as it now appears to be a more formidable assemblage of that pre-existing footage, ever so slightly trimmed, rearranged, and with a new pro- and epilogue to compensate for the ‘rush job’ Coppola was committed to under Paramount’s insistence to meet a deadline for a holiday premiere. According to Coppola, the original ending had Michael and Kay reconciled after the opera and a dissolve to a church service where an assassin guns down Michael before getting shot; Michael, lying to Kay as he dies in her arms. Coppola decided against this, but retained the assassin from the original ending, re-orchestrating the attempt on Michael’s life so that he survives, only to bear witness to the murder of his beloved daughter; an incident ripped from sound designer, Richard Beggs own life. But that isn’t the way, Coda ends either. No, just like the original The Godfather Part III, Coda now holds an even more curious place in pop culture, concluding with Michael’s even more ambiguous survival rather than his death from natural causes. Part III was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture. And yet, its reputation ever since is that of an artistic flop. Fair enough, Part III is not a masterpiece. Even Coppola would likely concur with that assessment. But fairer still, it remains a quality piece of gangster-hokum.

In Coda’s re-edit, we lose the entire beginning to the original Part III: so, no flashback reminder for the audience to a younger Michael remembering the day he ordered the hit on his brother, Fredo; no montage depicting the elder Michael writing to his children, Anthony and Mary; no wallowing in a lot of sepia-tinted shots of Manhattan, circa 1970 (which frankly, never made much sense), and no church ceremony, honoring Michael. No, the new beginning introduces us to the sage Michael in his discussion with Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly) and Michael’s desire to give the Vatican $600 million for shares of Internazionale Immobiliare – a scene that first appeared in the 1990 cut some 40-full-minutes into the movie.  From here, we segue into Michael’s afterparty and Andy Garcia’s debut as Vincent, crystalizing his importance as a major player in the plot. Dramatically, we continue along a familiar path thereafter – the press conference, and Vincent’s ‘cute meet’ with Mary; Vincent’s quick pick-up of the nosy reporter, Grace Hamilton (Bridget Fonda) and her near murder after thug muscle hired by Joey Zasa (Joe Mantegna) quietly break into Vincent’s cheap little apartment, intent on putting a bullet through his head. The next major alteration follows the Atlantic City massacre of the Dons. The scene where Connie and Michael’s bodyguard, Al Neri (Richard Bright) side with Vincent’s decision to take out Zasa is gone, leaving the moment of execution in Little Italy a real surprise, discovered too late by Michael, who admonishes this triumvirate of conspirators in his hospital room later on.

The trims continue as Kay visits Michael in hospital to explain Anthony is leaving law school to pursue his operatic ambitions, the moment when Don Altobello (Eli Wallach) implores Michael to abandon his Internazionale Immobiliare deal left on the cutting room floor. A brief moment showing Don Tommasino (Vittorio Duse) being carried from his car to a wheelchair is also gone, leaving Michael’s bitter confession to Cardinal Lamberto (Raf Vallone) intact. Coppola’s penultimate assassination attempt on Michael, where Mary is mortally wounded on the steps of the opera house, has been tightened up. And here is where Coppola has made his most startling trims. In the original Part III, Michael’s hellacious screams as he coddles the lifeless body of his daughter were followed by a dissolve to his remembering a moment when they danced together, immediately followed by a montage of similar moments where Michael danced with Kay and Apolonia – his first wife, killed in a car bomb meant for him. All of these moments are gone. We now cut to Michael, aged and alone, putting on his sunglasses. In the original cut, a long shot quietly observed as Michael falls ill, slumps in his chair, and then dies. In Coda, we are spared these theatrics with a fade to black, followed by a title card with the quote, “When the Sicilians wish you ‘Cent ’anni’… it means ‘for long life.’ … and a Sicilian never forgets.”

Coda may not be so much ‘an improvement’ as a ‘reimagining’ of a movie that never deserved its reputation as an artistic turkey. In either cut, Michael Corleone is still left to grapple with the knowledge his entire life’s work has meant total sacrifice, not only of the principles he started out with after returning from the war as a decorated hero, but also the family he fought like hell to preserve in one form or another, only to wreck it all in the end. Likely, Coda will be viewed from a doubled-edged sword; Coppola’s ‘tinkering’, seen as that of a master architect, as yet dissatisfied with these deified celluloid monuments to his film-maker’s art. Perhaps, Part III’s reputation as the ‘Fredo’ of the family – unloved, lesser than, distorted and misshapen – was helpful in Coppola’s decision to rework it into a more succinct ‘director’s cut’. Reassessing Coda in comparison to Part III one can clearly recognize what the years have done to Coppola as a film-maker. At 81-years young, his approach to the material now seems not only more seasoned, but contemplative on the characters as the process by which the audience fell in love with these movies in the first place. What Coppola has done in Coda is to remove the superfluous bits that ever so slightly muddied the plot’s clarity, delayed its action, and convoluted the mystery.

And, as once upon a time Coppola never intended to make even a first sequel to his beloved 1972 original, to now observe his director’s calm and unafraid investment in reexamining the métier of the mob with a fresh pair of eyes, and, arguably, on his own terms, seems not as an apology for a movie Coppola did not want to make, but one he always knew he could do better.  While Coppola once entertained notions of committing to a fourth installment, to have charted Vincent’s rise to power in a story to parallel his own father’s early years, the death of writer, Mario Puzo effectively closed the door on these interests in moving beyond the original triumvirate of Godfather movies. So, Coda will likely be the last Godfather movie Francis Ford Coppola ever makes. Is it a great movie now? Was it a great movie then? The answer to both questions is – yes, perhaps, or not at all. It really depends on who you ask.

Contrary to Paramount’s marketing, when the studio decided to debut the trilogy in hi-def almost 12-years ago, it did so, only restoring the first two movies, but billing all three as ‘The Coppola Restorations.’  Alas, the bare bones effort on Part III left something to be desired. Now, with Coda, there is a lot more going on than just the 60 odd changes Coppola has made to his ‘final’ cut. Indeed, when the movie opened in 1990, dupes used to create fades and dissolves were extremely problematic, amplifying grain, distorting color density and softening image resolution. In reimagining Part III as Coda, the studio has allowed restoration expert, Robert A. Harris to go back to original elements from which a new composite of all fades and dissolves has been created. The results are vastly improved color saturation and far more refined detail, yielding a meticulously nuanced image with richer blacks and grain that appears indigenous to its source, rather than second-generation clumpy and thick. The net result is a 1080p transfer unlike anything the movie has appeared like before – even, during its theatrical run. Gone is that sort of jaundice-wash, once to have afflicted flesh tones severely. Colors now seem true to life, and better still, faithful to cinematographer, Gordon Willis and Coppola’s original intent, with bang-on beautiful contrast that perfectly captures the dark and enveloping warmth of many of the interiors, as well as the steely pallor of the urban city streets. Skin tones are bottom-line gorgeous. Point blank: the significant improvements to overall clarity and color timing deliver the good. This image is on the cusp of absolute perfection, like seeing the movie for the first time with a fresh pair of eyes.

Paramount provides a DTS 5.1 faultless audio to really give your speakers a workout.  Whether indulging in a sort of bone-chilling ambiance for the quieter, dialogue-driven conversations in the movie, or exploding full-on during the aggressive action sequences, Coda’s audio presentation here is a first-rate repurposing. Carmine Coppola’s score blossoms, as do the subtler breaks where dialogue is front and center, the focus of our story. Truly – no complaints. Rather disappointingly, we get only a new introduction to the movie from Coppola, barely lasting a minute-and-a-half. It would have been prudent for Coppola to provide a new audio commentary, explaining the logic behind his reboot, or, at least, to include the extras that were on the original Part III Blu. But no – all of those has been shorn in favor a ‘movie only’ release. That said, it is rather difficult to be disappointed. I still don’t know which version of the movie I prefer. I rather liked the original finale, Michael’s whole life flashing before him moments before he keeled over and died. Is the new ending better? Debatable. Is Coda’s new hi-def rendering head over heels an improvement on the old Blu?  Irrefutably, yes! Does a slightly finessed Part III warrant a ‘double dip’ into your wallet? Judge for yourself and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

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