The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration
by Francis Ford Coppola
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DVD details
Actor: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Marlon Brando, Robert DuvallDirector: Francis Ford Coppola
Brand: PACINO,AL
Writer: Mario Puzo
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 549 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-09-23
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration
DVD Review: Pros and Cons on the Extras
Summary: 2 Stars
Since I bought this boxed set primarily for the Supplements, I will focus on those featurettes to hopefully help others decide whether or not to buy this edition for themselves.
Firstly, there are two discs of Supplements. (The back of the slipcase's listing for the contents of Disc Four and Disc Five are reversed so that what is listed for Four is actually on Five and vice versa. Somebody screwed-up.)
The supplements are as follows, along with my comments.
1) Making of the Godfather (a.k.a. "Behind the Scenes"): This is a bit confusing as there is "The Making of the Godfather" listed on the slipcase, but on the Disc this section is entitled "Behind the Scenes" and includes some of the items I single out below to discuss. "A Look Inside" is the first and longest section and covers alot of ground. It is amazing to watch the screen tests of Al Pacino and, when the studio was still unsold on Pacino, we see James Caan being tested for the role of Michael! And DeNiro being screen tested for the part of Sonny! And Martin Sheen even is shown briefly reading for the part of Michael! This is wonderful stuff to see. Unfortunately, Brando's screen test is absent (it is minimally shown in a later extra, but I have seen much fuller footage of this historic screen-test elsewhere, and it SHOULD have been included in somewhere amongst these extras in a more extensive form. It also seems that with "Behind the Scenes", way too much effort is expended in trying to push and promote the dubiously meritorious third installment of the Corleone saga. We also learn practically nothing about Mario Puzo - where he came from and where he came up with his ideas and what research was involved. Did a horse-head type incident ever happen in reality? Was the Johnny Fontane character truly based on Frank Sinatra and his bid for "From Here to Eternity"? Things like that. There is also nothing of the Italian-American Civil Rights League's initial opposition to the production of the film. No discussion of the actual history of the Mafia is offered, even briefly. It would have been most interesting to say the least. And no mention is made of the great John Cazale's (Fredo)enormous contribution to Godfather parts I and II. On a scale of 1-10, this feature rates a 6, primarly because of the screen tests that are shown.
2) Additional scenes: I found these to be very interesting, some of course much more than others. But on the whole, these deleted scenes from the three films are quite illuminating. It is nice to know that Michael eventually avenges his Sicilian wife's death. It is great to see Tom Hagen's wife, too!
3) Filming Locations: Interesting, but way too short. The only location actually discussed is the use of a real street in the East Side of lower Manhattan. Mention is made of a contemporaneous film student documenting the making of Godfather II on this street - and some of that documentary is shown. It would have been nice to have seen the entire documentary, though. But, given the world-wide backdrop of the Corleone saga, one would think that this featurette would have been more encompassing.
4) The Corleone Family Tree: this is simply a graphic. Pure padding.
5) The Music of the Godfather: Simply a tape recording that Coppola made of Nino Rota playing various tracks on piano and a bit about Carmine Coppola that amounts to an exercise in nepotism. I still haven't learned what Carmine did to deserve sharing the Oscar with Nino Rota. This feature could and should have had so much more. Commentaries by other film composers would have been wonderful. This feature is short and lame.
6) The Godfather Historical Timeline, Filmaker Profiles, Photo Galleries and Storyboards: More padding. Mainly text and stills.
7) Coppola's Notebook: This is a sub-section of the "Making of.." While interesting to see how the director annotated the novel and broke it down into sections and kept all his notes in a big binder that - if it had been lost - was to be returned to Paramount for reward money...how much more interesting it would have been to learn more about Puzo's creation of the characters and the research involved.
On Disc 5, which is actually Disc 4, we find the following:
1) Godfather World: A quick overview of the cultural impact of the films. Mildly interesting - but it mainly focuses on spoofs, cartoons and "The Sopranos." The deeper, darker aspects of its impact are not explored. This is mainly fluff - whereas it could have been a truly heady discussion with alot of talking heads involved. I would loved to have heard what the actual crime family members made of the trilogy. Did John Gotti dig it? I would like to have heard from folks who hated the movies, also. The Godfather making its way into Homer Simpson's world is amusingly interesting, but there are deeper ways in which the films have impacted and even changed American and world culture. Few films have such an impact. In not analysing this impact on a more serious level, this featurette falters.
2) The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't: This details Coppola's studio struggles - which are most interesting - but, again, there is nothing about the initial Italian-American boycott of the making of the film. It was a stiff opposition and a tale that should have been told herein. Studio opposition to Brando is mentioned, and all of two seconds of Brando's impromptu screen test are shown - but this featurette (as well as "Behind the Scenes") really doesn't examine Brando's contribution in any profound detail. It would have been wonderful to see how his performance shaped the film and how the film resurrected him. Somewhere in these two discs of extras, more should have been said about Brando. Very little is.
3) When the Shooting Stopped: A brief look into some editing aspects. Interesting, but not what I thought the title implied, and that was a deeper look at immediate reactions and potential repurcussions to the crime families at the time.
4) Emulsion Recuse: Technical tour of the restorations. Interesting if you like tech-talk.
5) The Goddather on the Red Carpet: Total garbage! I thought this would have included coverage of the Oscar nights for all three installments of the Godfather saga, including the controvery surrounding Brando's win - and instead we get lame reactions about the impact the movie made on, of all people, the stars and makers of 'Cloverfield' while they stroll the red carpet. Total padding, total nonsense.
6) Four Short Films: These are nothing more than more pointless padding. One is a short discussion on the relative merits of GF I versus II; one is a stupid "riffing" on Godfather issues with two comedians that is mercifully short. Blink and you'll miss it. The last two deal with cannolis and Clemenza and are just as pointless.
On a whole, on the 1-10 scale, I would give the extras a 6. They were good - but could have been much, much better.
One last note on "Godfather III" which I had never seen until I bought this set: at about the point of the helicopter attack on the assembled mafiosos, I half-expected to see James Bond enter the picture! Also...some of the dialog in the film is hardly better than that in a soap opera - and some of it is unintentionally downright laughable. I also haven't seen such a dragged out ending (the opera house sequence) in years. And it is all so confusing, this installment, and the death of Michael's daughter is so utterly contrived that I couldn't believe this film had been made by the same man responsible for I and II. Anyway - I saw the boxed gift set in a store and, what can I say, it was an offer I couldn't refuse.
Description of The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration
THE GODFATHER: Popularly viewed as one of the best American films ever made, the multi-generational crime saga The Godfather (1972) is a touchstone of cinema: one of the most widely imitated, quoted, and lampooned movies of all time. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino star as Vito Corleone and his youngest son, Michael, respectively. It is the late 1940s in New York and Corleone is, in the parlance of organized crime, a "godfather" or "don," the head of a Mafia family. Michael, a free thinker who defied his father by enlisting in the Marines to fight in World War II, has returned a captain and a war hero. Having long ago rejected the family business, Michael shows up at the wedding of his sister, Connie (Talia Shire), with his non-Italian girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), who learns for the first time about the family "business." A few months later at Christmas time, the don barely survives being shot by gunmen in the employ of a drug-trafficking rival whose request for aid from the Corleones' political connections was rejected. After saving his father from a second assassination attempt, Michael persuades his hotheaded eldest brother, Sonny (James Caan), and family advisors Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) that he should be the one to exact revenge on the men responsible. After murdering a corrupt police captain and the drug trafficker, Michael hides out in Sicily while a gang war erupts at home. Falling in love with a local girl, Michael marries her, but she is later slain by Corleone enemies in an attempt on Michael's life. Sonny is also butchered, having been betrayed by Connie's husband. As Michael returns home and convinces Kay to marry him, his father recovers and makes peace with his rivals, realizing that another powerful don was pulling the strings behind the narcotics endeavor that began the gang warfare. Once Michael has been groomed as the new don, he leads the family to a new era of prosperity, then launches a campaign of murderous revenge against those who once tried to wipe out the Corleones, consolidating his family's power and completing his own moral downfall. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards and winning for Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay, The Godfather was followed by a pair of sequels.THE GODFATHER PART II: This brilliant companion piece to the original The Godfather continues the saga of two generations of successive power within the Corleone family. Coppola tells two stories in Part II: the roots and rise of a young Don Vito, played with uncanny ability by Robert De Niro, and the ascension of Michael (Al Pacino) as the new Don. Reassembling many of the talents who helped make The Godfather, Coppola has produced a movie of staggering magnitude and vision, and undeniably the best sequel ever made. Robert De Niro won an OscarŽ; the film received six Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1974.
THE GODFATHER PART III: One of the greatest sagas in movie history continues! In this third film in the epic Corleone trilogy, Al Pacino reprises the role of powerful family leader Michael Corleone. Now in his 60's, Michael is dominated by two passions: freeing his family from crime and finding a suitable successor. That successor could be fiery Vincent (Andy Garcia)... but he may also be the spark that turns Michael's hope of business legitimacy into an inferno of mob violence. Francis Ford Coppola directs Pacino, Garcia, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Eli Wallach, Sofia Coppola, Joe Montegna and others in this exciting, long-awaited film that masterfully explores the themes of power, tradition, revenge and love. Seven Academy AwardŽ nominations, including Best Picture.
Throughout his long, wandering, often distinguished career Francis Ford Coppola has made many films that are good and fine, many more that are flawed but undeniably interesting, and a handful of duds that are worth viewing if only because his personality is so flagrantly absent. Yet he is and always shall be known as the man who directed the Godfather films, a series that has dominated and defined their creator in a way perhaps no other director can understand. Coppola has never been able to leave them alone, whether returning after 15 years to make a trilogy of the diptych, or re-editing the first two films into chronological order for a separate video release as The Godfather Saga. The films are our very own Shakespearean cycle: they tell a tale of a vicious mobster and his extended personal and professional families (once the stuff of righteous moral comeuppance), and they dared to present themselves with an epic sweep and an unapologetically tragic tone. Murder, it turned out, was a serious business. The first film remains a towering achievement, brilliantly cast and conceived. The entry of Michael Corleone into the family business, the transition of power from his father, the ruthless dispatch of his enemies--all this is told with an assurance that is breathtaking to behold. And it turned out to be merely prologue; two years later The Godfather, Part II balanced Michael's ever-greater acquisition of power and influence during the fall of Cuba with the story of his father's own youthful rise from immigrant slums. The stakes were higher, the story's construction more elaborate, and the isolated despair at the end wholly earned. (Has there ever been a cinematic performance greater than Al Pacino's Michael, so smart and ambitious, marching through the years into what he knows is his own doom with eyes open and hungry?) The Godfather, Part III was mostly written off as an attempted cash-in, but it is a wholly worthy conclusion, less slow than autumnally patient and almost merciless in the way it brings Michael's past sins crashing down around him even as he tries to redeem himself. --Bruce Reid
On the DVD
People used to say this was Frank Sinatra's world, and the rest of us just lived in it. After watching the multiple special features in the box set The Godfather: Coppola Restoration, one might conclude it's actually time for a cultural and historical revision: This is the Corleone family's world. The rest of us better tread lightly. Actually, the point of the half-dozen or so features crammed onto a disc accompanying the beautifully restored The Godfather, The Godfather II and The Godfather III, is that The Godfather movies have penetrated popular culture in such a deep and meaningful way that they are second-nature to everything. David Chase, creator of and writer on The Sopranos, for example, describes in the featurette "Godfather World" that his hit HBO series was intended to be the story of the first generation of mobsters actually influenced by Francis Ford Coppola's hit trilogy. Joe Mantegna calls the three films "the Italian Star Wars." (Mantegna co-stars in The Godfather III.) Alec Baldwin says no matter what one is doing, one is compelled to stop and watch the films if they're on television. Richard Belzer calls the films "a religion."
And so on. A number of people similarly testify in "Godfather World" to the importance and ubiquitousness of The Godfather and its sequels in American life. There's no point in arguing, so its best to move on to the other featurettes, including "The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't," reviewing in detail much of what has been said about Paramount's mistreatment of Coppola, about casting fights (Steve McQueen as Michael?), about the studio's assumption they were getting a quick-and-dirty B-movie, and about producer Robert Evans' determination to keep his choice of director and unlikely actors under his wing. Fresh information within the special features, however, begins with "? When the Shooting Stopped," a fine study of post-production on The Godfather, with several surprising and fascinating facts. Among emerging details is an explanation of why Michael Corleone's scream toward the end of The Godfather III is silenced out. (Hint: it was meant to be the inverse of a sound effect in the first movie.) "Emulsional Rescue: Revealing The Godfather" talks about the painstaking work of restoring the first two films, beginning with a phone call from Coppola to Steven Spielberg (after the latter's DreamWorks studio became part of the Viacom family) asking if he'd request money from Paramount for restoration work. "The Godfather On the Red Carpet is a negligible series of fawning statements about the movie from hot young actors, while "Four Short Films" are brief and enjoyable takes on different aspects of The Godfather's impact on modern living. --Tom Keogh
Stills from The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration Giftset (Click for larger image)
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