![]() ![]() The second installment uses parallel flashbacks to contrast Michael’s family situation in 1958 with that of his father (Robert de Niro) in 1919. His real motive is revenge on the mobsters that betrayed his father in Part 1. His line, “We’re all part of the same hypocrisy” is the key, because Michael isn’t true to any of his vows. Coppola and Puzo reverse course to show the ruthless Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) grow cold and hard, destroying his Family’s values in the process of consolidating power. If the first movie was the crowd-pleaser, The Godfather Part II is the work of art. He’s just another American making a living in an unfair playing field. The commitment of Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) to the concept of Family humanizes the gangster. We’d just spent 20 years watching movies in which gangster betrayals were cold and corporate, and no friend or relative was safe ( The Brothers Rico, Point Blank). ![]() The mafia soap opera has plenty of trendy violence, with the inference that power and violence are part and parcel of all business and politics. And when was the industry going to acknowledge that Marlon Brando was box office poison?įrancis Coppola instead reaffirmed the power of classic Hollywood storytelling, adding touches taken from the operatic style of Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti. A year earlier the trade papers predicted failure for Paramount’s deep dive into a genre that had recently failed to pan out for Kirk Douglas ( The Brotherhood) and a touted European import ( The Sicilian Clan). The Godfather shifted the gangster figure from the bandit-hoodlum margins to the center of the American Dream: the immigration story, the family values story. Meanwhile, professor Howard Suber was holding a UCLA film school class on movie genres, where I heard a lot of bright input describing the movie as a genre reboot. The audiences that waited on long lines in Westwood knew they were in for something big. The original 1972 The Godfather followed Love Story as THE blockbuster that American media howled everyone needed to see. If you were born in this century and know little about The Godfather Trilogy, by all means see them before reading anything by anybody - you’ll be in for a treat. And is there anything to be gained by a re-cut for his excellent Peggy Sue Got Married? All we can say now is that we’d love to see a super restoration of Coppola’s You’re a Big Boy Now. I remarked that a Roger Corman-Filmgroup cheapie can now be acknowledged as high-rank horror. ![]() returned just last year to his first acknowledged feature, which resulted in a new Blu-ray for Dementia 13. It’s also great to see the improvements Coppola made to his Cotton Club Encore they make a great film even better. The saving grace is that the original 1979 picture we saw can still be seen, and on 4K, to boot. But that’s perfectly fine - we all knew there were several movies in that shoot and it’s good to see the material. Coppola has returned repeatedly to Apocalypse Now, radically changing it in ways that didn’t do much for me. You’ll note that I’ve never reviewed a Star Wars movie, because none of the original three pictures are available on anything newer than laserdisc. When he’s revised his older pictures he’s not obliterated the original versions. 3) The set also doesn’t cost $200, as reported earlier.įrancis Coppola has shown admirable judgment with his back catalog of film hits. 2) According to Paramount’s specs, only the 4K set will have the older cuts of Godfather Part III. Here’s the basics, trying to correct some misinformation I once saw online: 1) this 4K UHD disc set contains newly restored, newly remastered encodings of the Godfather films I and Part II plus three cuts of Coppola’s Godfather Part III in 4K, the theatrical and earlier re-cut versions, plus the 2020 director’s cut Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. Francis Coppola can’t be faulted for not wanting to revive the old expanded ‘Saga’ cut from network TV - and this release gives us sparkling 4K and digital presentations, including all three variants of Godfather III: theatrical, the 1991 recut and the recent director’s cut Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.ġ972-2020 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 50th Anniversary / Street Date Ma/ Available from Amazon / 90.99 Harris, and this new remastered 4K set retains that very good work. The whole trilogy was given an impressive restoration by Robert A. The most prestigious franchise in the Paramount corral hasn’t dimmed in esteem or popularity despite its somewhat lesser third installment.
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