The Godfather – The Coppola Restoration (Paramount/American Zoetrope Blu-ray + DVD-Video
Trilogy Sets)
Picture: B+/C+ Sound: B+/B- Extras: B- Films/Part:
I (1972) B
II (1974) B+
III (1990) C+
Though it
seems like The Godfather (1972) has always
been with us and always strongly popular, that is not necessarily the
case. As a classic, it has been
challenged by everything by its own sequel to Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) long before Hip Hop
discovered that film and Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas
(1990) made it look as tame at times as the original Gangster genre cycle that
ended with the end of Film Noir, yet it has remained popular and is gaining yet
another peak in popularity thanks to Hip Hop, The Sopranos and now, an extensive and much-needed restoration to
the first two films and clean up of the third.
The Godfather – The Coppola
Restoration is the resulting set in separate Blu-ray and DVD-Video format
versions.
So the
question is why does it all endure?
Besides a revival of the Gangster genre that (Hip Hop or not) happened
in 1990, Coppola has a new respect among a new generation of filmmakers who
actually care about quality and that extends to the truest of movie fans. Now that three generations of Coppolas have
been successful, people look back to these early films to see why. Now to look at each separate film:
One was a huge blockbuster hit
without having to be an action film or shallow, bloated, overpromoted,
overbudgeted piece of disposable would-be entertainment that sells toys and
tie-in merchandise. However, it did have
the greatest tie-in many serious films could hope for in the Mario Puzo book
that became a huge hit as this was being shot.
Though this is not discussed enough, one of the biggest reasons this was
a huge hit is because the book was so well written and the film did such an
amazing job of adapting it. Some parts
of the book are actually more graphic, but the fact that it was brought to life
with such authenticity, life and energy was a big shock, though the making of
the film was a nightmare for Coppola.
The cast
is one of the most chemistry-filled of the glory days of the 1970s and includes
the performance that puts the film over the top in Marlon Brando’s stunning
comeback performance as head Don Vito Corleone that was like no mob boss anyone
had ever portrayed before. Add the
classic cast of Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Sterling Hayden, Abe
Vigoda, John Marley, Talia Shire, John Cazale and Diane Keaton (for starters)
plus Coppola’s attention to detail and the result like all the great films from
Hollywood’s last golden age is a synergy that too many films today have
lost. Most are not even ambitious enough
to try.
As far as
the genre was concerned, the older stories of Jewish gangsters and ones with
1930s New York and/or immigrant accents was over and the idea of unknown
gangsters in groups wearing the same black suits and black hats was dead at the
box office, becoming a joke during the counterculture era (how could mere
gangsters compete with the horrors of Vietnam and presidential assassinations)
leading to more bombs. Even the Bond
films played this out The Man With The
Golden Gun (1974) in its most comic and poorest box office performers.
The film
functions as an Urban Western, as many have noted before, but it was also about
a new uprising of Italian actors on screen like Robert De Niro and directors
like Martin Scorsese. As popular as
these new Italians were, it was also old stereotypes sometimes being replaced
by new ones to some extent; something Saturday
Night Fever has been accused of.
Coppola understood this and when this became a record-breaking hit, he
gained the power to go beyond that and that is why the sequel outdoes the
original on several levels.
Two is sadly missing Brando, even
though a flashback was supposed to have him appear, but Coppola’s critique of
power in Capitalist U.S.A. is extended to a twisted Cain & Abel story as
Michael (Pacino) has gone from a soldier back from respectable service to his
father’s unexpected successor. While the
personal story plays on the ironic successes and failures of all generations,
there is a great subplot about Jewish and Italian mobsters in Cuba, not knowing
their fortunes hidden from the FBI (et al) will be lost to an unexpected Communist
Revolution, one Michael can see coming with suicide bombers.
Then
there is the great series of extended flashback narrative of young Vito (De
Niro) finding his way to the top of power and making the journey from Sicily to
Staten Island. Coppola with his original
script takes the opportunity to bare all about the immigrant experience along
with its hopes and dreams in epic proportion, which is why the sequel exceeds
the Gangster genre and proved the first film was not a fluke on Coppola’s part,
even though The Conversation (1974)
arrived the same year as Godfather II
and is brilliant in its own right.
That was
supposed to be it and should have been it, but a new regime at Paramount
decided to have a third film and though Coppola and Puzo wanted it to be simply
called The Death Of Michael Corleone,
the studio got their way and Three arrived
16 years after the initial films Coppola thought he would not be
revisiting. He expected it would be a
blockbuster and the studio put out the money for it, but it only did limited
business and the result is a mixed film Coppola tried to make work, but was
more compromised by the studio on than the original film. In debt from risks that did not work and
seeing a compromised opportunity to make this work, he did his best, but the
results were mixed.
A good
chunk of the Italian American audience did not want a story about a corrupt
Catholic Church, though that church has ironically had tons of problem since
this film first hit theaters, so that stigma on the film has subsided and
helped the film from aging. Andy Garcia
was being set up as the next big star actor with the appeal and talent, but
despite his best efforts, this did not work out like it could have. The last minutes casting of daughter Sofia
Coppola over Winona Rider before her shoplifting fiasco was the one for which
critics savaged the film and killed it at the box office, though Sofia has
become a formidable writer/director while Ryder is still trying to make some
kind of comeback, so some of the choices here worked out better than anyone
could have known at the time.
Michael
is legitimate and richer than ever, but older, less happy and having personal
issues over personal family decisions that are eating away at his soul. The famous line about being pulled back in
when he thought he was legit is the best line in the film, but that he is
delusional enough to think he ever left the life is the greatest irony of the
film and one even most critics missed in their zeal to destroy the director. Loyal fans of the time did see it on the big
screen and more liked it than you might think.
The problem is that too many years passed between sequels and some of
this comes across as unintentionally funny, while in all honesty, Pacino is
repeating some of his performance in Scarface
here.
Still,
though it misses the mark, it is ambitious and the film has its moments, but it
never seems as epic as the previous films.
It is often a personal film and that focus on the family becomes
detrimental to the narrative overall, where the previous films had greater
balance and more cinematic space that made the world in those films more
palpable. Of the 1990 releases, it is on
the minority of them (along with GoodFellas
and State Of Grace) to take place in
the present, yet the 1990 of Part III
has become a plush, surreal, sepia toned version of the real thing and in that
respect is a very unique film.
Misunderstood? No. Mature without selling out? Yes.
So how
are the upgrades of each film? Well, the
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image in all three cases are easily the
best the films have looked since their original theatrical 35mm releases. As for the anamorphically enhanced DVDs, they
are a tad better than their predecessors, but only marginally so, so those who
have the previous box set or other copies will want to go Blu or get the new
DVD set for the expanded extras. Coppola
was correct in one of the new supplements when he explained no format was
around that could really deliver the films on home video until now. The DVDs are good, but the Blu-rays are
really that much better; enough to sell machines.
Some
might assume that the third film would look the best of the three, but in all
honesty, what it might gain in some clarity and fidelity, it looses in black,
white, color range and thinness of the newer film stocks it was shot in. You can tell it is a newer production and
even with Director of Photography Gordon Willis, A.S.C., having shot all three
films, the third tries to go for a neo-sepia look in the mode of the first
two. It just cannot match its lushness
and memorability.
Willis had
already shown his masterful grasp of the scope frame with Alan J. Pakula’s Klute before taking on the first two
films, during which he delivered more stunning work on films like Up The Sandbox, The Parallax View, All The
President’s Men, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, Pennies
From Heaven and the underrated The
Devil’s Own. That has made him one
of the modern masters of cinematography and that includes several of the films
being processed in the great three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor format
including the first two Godfathers. I the case of Part II, it was the last dye-transfer film in the U.S. to be made
by the company (they were still doing some such prints overseas) until they
revived the printing process from 1997 to 2001.
Titles that received the treatment in that period included Apocalypse Now Redux.
To
explain the picture quality of the first two films, we need to go into some
background, but we should deal with Part
III first. The film was preserved
properly and did not need any restoration, with a 4K HD digital master being
made of the materials as backup and for these sets. Except for some grain I don’t remember from
the 35mm print, it looks pretty close to the release prints, though I never saw
a 70mm blow-up. This is the first time
Coppola’s director’s cut of the film can be brought to 35mm film or film of any
kind.
The
original two films had negatives that been used to make prints, one of the ultimate
no-nos in cinema and the abuse they received over the years is shocking. Besides using those negatives to make the
three-strip prints, the films were popular long after 1974 and prints were
occasionally made again ands again. This
did such damage that they were in danger of being lost. Enter fate as DreamWorks and Paramount
merged. Steven Spielberg was called by
best friend Coppola to get those films saved and the ball was quickly
rolling. That included hiring Robert A.
Harris, the leader of restoring classics including the 1954 A Star Is Born, Spartacus, My Fair Lady,
Lawrence Of Arabia and several
Alfred Hitchcock classics, including Rear
Window and Vertigo.
In the
May 2008 issue of American Cinematographer (Vol. 89, No. 5, with Iron Man on the cover) features a great
four page article (pp. 78 – 82) about how the films were a mess and Harris
could not go all-photochemical to save the film. Thus, like the recent Final Cut of Blade Runner (reviewed elsewhere on
this site) the films were recreated in 4K high definition digital video using
all the best materials they could find that had survived in the vaults, plus
Harris used his private connections with fans who own actual film libraries
plus key archives and secured a very accurate such print of the first (an
approach also used to save The Good, The
Bad & The Ugly successfully) and it was more of a problem on the sequel
for such a print, but the sequel was more complex and needed a more advanced
approach.
Though I
agree with a few fans who questioned some shots having color accuracy issues,
the fact is that the despite some grain and softness in the Blu-ray image for
the original films, the color and range the film’s are presented in far
outweigh any problems making them some of the best back catalog titles on the
market. The grain is hat you would
expect for film stocks of that time, with the grain structure immediately
reminding me of The French Connection
(1971, reviewed elsewhere on this site) only pointing to how faithful these
restorations are under the circumstances.
Now know
that in real three-strip dye-transfer prints, grain would be less, blacks would
be richer, red vivid and whites ivory, but these are close. Willis supervised and consulted on their
upgrades, even if he could not be there in person for the whole long,
painstaking process and noted that they are not totally there. However, most of the work is done and when
(soon I hope) Technicolor starts making such prints again, such prints can be
struck again. In the article, Harris
explains that the Kodak print stock is also solid, but not there for the best
non-dye transfer equivalent that can be hoped for. Even though it would never be as good as real
Technicolor, Kodak should immediately develop such a stock because the needs in
the restoration field alone are enormous.
With that
said, the impact of the films are highly improved after years of bad muddy
prints on VHS, Beta, LaserDisc, Selectavision CED and DVD discs. The film has been played to death on cable,
grossly over-licensed and need to be pulled back (like say, It’s A Wonderful Life) out of respect
for the films. I hope they do not intend
to put these new copies all over the place and even HD cable/satellite will not
be able to deliver the performance these Blu-rays do. The dark shots finally have the nuance they
should have, the use of color (outside of the sepia usage) on a much higher
level than fans of the films will expect and some shots and compositions so
outstanding, that you can see how it is Coppola’s work as compared to his
classics Apocalypse Now, The Conversation and the underrated One From The Heart.
This is
Harris’ first 4K digital realm preservation and his massive, groundbreaking
experience from saving all those previous classics played off in profound ways.
As for
the sound, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on all three films are based on upgrades made
several years ago by Walter Murch from their original sound stems. The first two films were optical monophonic
sound releases, but were mixes with silence used heavily. The third film was a Dolby 4.1 mag stereo
presentation in 70mm blow-up presentations and more advanced Dolby SR (Spectral
Recording) analog sound on the 35mm prints, so it sounds better by default, but
not by much. The original’s first
digital theatrical reissue was in DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 via Murch and like
his work on Coppola’s brilliant The
Conversation, has a very impressive upgrade on the older films.
Extras
are spilt into two DVDs on that set, with DVD 4 having the new extras and DVD 5
the previous extras, while the Blu-ray combines both on a final fourth disc. The new materials include a featurette about
saving the films called Emulsional Rescue
– Revealing The Godfather, plus Godfather
World, The Masterpiece That Almost
Wasn’t, …when the shooting stopped,
The Godfather on the Red Carpet, and Four Short Films on The Godfather. All are in HD
on the Blu-ray. The classic extras
(often made to promote the third film) include additional scenes, a making of
featurette in nine parts (Filming
Locations, On Location, Francis Coppola’s Notebook, The Music of The Godfather, Coppola & Puzo on Screenwriting, Gordon Willis on Cinematography,
storyboards for the two sequels separately and a 1971 behind the scenes vintage
featurette), The Godfather Historical
Timeline, Corleone Family Tree, Profiles on the Filmmakers and Galleries
including an acclaim & response section, final trailers for each of the
three films, stills of the Rogue’s Gallery and stills behind the scenes + promo
shots. Where are the trailers or
original poster art?
Despite
that gap, this is a great set loaded with great extras about the classics and
now you can watch them and see why they are classics beyond mere pop culture
references. The Godfather – The Coppola Restoration sets a new standard for how
to reissue classics on home video and the Blu-ray set is especially the way to
go.
For more
on Coppola’s films, try these links:
Apocalypse Now (1979)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4204/Apocalypse+Now+–+The+Complete
Making of
documentary Hearts Of Darkness + Rainmaker (1997)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6288/Hearts+Of+Darkness+–+A+Filmmaker
One From The Heart (1982)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2082/One+From+The+Heart
Rumble Fish (1983)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2839/Rumble+Fish+-+Special+Edition
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5975/Bram+Stoker’s+Dracula+–+Col
Youth Without Youth (2007)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6979/Youth+Without+Youth+(2007/Sony
- Nicholas Sheffo
