![]() The new ending, in which Michael is seated in that same chair in the sun, only now he doesn’t die, probably improves on the old one. It was staged as a direct homage to Vito Corleone’s death scene in “The Godfather,” and it wasn’t really necessary. The original film concluded with Michael, now an old man in Sicily, seated on his chair in the sun, then he slumps over and dies. The only other change comes at the very end. I’d never say that this is my favorite Eli Wallach performance (he lays on the cooing and grinning a bit thick), yet his invisible sinister aura helps to sync the movie’s tone to that of the previous “Godfather” films. (The original running time was 162 minutes it’s now 157 minutes.) The only ones I noticed were, frankly, moments I wish were still there: those involving the character of Don Altobello (Eli Wallach), the ancient Mafioso who’s the godfather of Connie Corleone (Talia Shire), a warm family connection that only masks his treachery. The godfather coda the death of michael corleone movie#Once that happens, the movie proceeds along in exactly the same way it did before, except that Coppola has made about five minutes’ worth of trims. Taking that scene, which previously came about half an hour in, and moving it to the front gives the film a kick-start, and it clarifies the underworld-meets-Catholic-Church corporate-business plot that didn’t actually need clarifying. The film now begins with the let’s-make-a-deal negotiation between Michael and Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly), the weasel who heads the Vatican Bank, in which Michael agrees to pay the Vatican $600 million in exchange for the right to become the controlling shareholder of Immobiliare, an international real-estate consortium. The one impactful change is the new opening scene. How is “Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone”? (God, I just love saying that title.) Here’s the news and the ever-so-slight scandal: It’s the same damn movie. What happened is that she showed up and gave a technically unpolished, emotionally alive performance, and for that crime she was bashed like a Kardashian on Twitter. It always struck me that what was being attacked, at the time, was the nepotism of the casting: the fact that Coppola was born to Hollywood royalty and had landed in this movie. The dangerous romantic spark between Mary and Andy Garcia’s hotheaded Vincent is one of the most potent things in the movie, and the flow of feeling between Sofia Coppola and Pacino felt deep and true. The movie was saying that this - a girl who was clearly a product of the media age - is what a mobster’s daughter might look like. It was obvious that she wasn’t a trained actress, yet her ripe sensuality and slightly dazed ordinary-girl inflections had a vividness that came across as authentic. One of the criticisms at the time I passionately disagreed with was the collective attack on Sofia Coppola’s performance. It’s a movie that can sweep you up if you let it. ![]() That said, “The Godfather Part III” gathers force as it goes along. Yet the fact that he walks around looking like the Godfather of Beverly Hills is a trivial but revealing indication that Coppola had misplaced his former mastery of detail. In “Godfather III,” we have to buy that Michael, in the years leading up to 1979, has undergone a change - that in his cold dark staring way he has softened and is looking for redemption. But Michael Corleone? At the age of 50, he would never have abandoned his old-school Italian coif, the hair oiled straight back (just like his father’s), which gave him the look of a mobster cobra. ![]() I can certainly imagine that Al Pacino, in the early ’90s, might have shown up on the red carpet sporting a thatchy salt-and-pepper bristle cut. ![]() I’m talking about Michael Corleone’s hair. And why would Michael, now bent on respectability, object to his son becoming an opera singer?) What’s more, there’s a detail in the movie that’s so wrong it jars me in almost every scene. (Joe Mantegna’s Joey Zasa first seems a minor-league mobster, then he’s a showboating celebrity kingpin. The storytelling, at times, is slipshod and arbitrary. Thirty years after its release, the flaws of “The Godfather Part III” are just as pronounced. I think that’s a tad overstated, but I stand by it. ![]()
1 Comment
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |