New Trailer: The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone
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The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Review: Copppla Delivers The Best Version of His Flawed Masterwork
Francis Ford Coppola reinvigorates the controversial Godfather 3 in his landmark franchise.
Flashforward 30 years and The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone aka The Godfather: Part III plays as something different. Through our 2020 lens we see how this film is about atonement as well as a shift in power. To briefly recap the first two films, The Godfather saw a reluctant Michael Corleone assume the family throne. His father had been attacked, Michael sought justice against the men responsible, and he was then pulled into a world he had spent his life trying to avoid. The Godfather: Part II sees Michael furthering his blood ties to the family in ways that one can never imagine. It all culminates in him killing his brother Fredo (the late and often great John Cazale). We end the film with Michael alone. He's in a dark room, a dark place, and though he's got people all over the place to do his bidding, no character in any cinematic universe is more lost.
RELATED:Coppola Is Done with The Godfather Franchise, Wants to Make a Movie About the Future
The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone picks up the pieces now. Michael is leading the charge to legitimize the family business. He wants to leave something of a better legacy by way of a large deal with the Vatican. Nothing for Michael Corleone comes easy as there are always people that pose a threat to his plans. Couple this with the fact that Corleone is much older now, in not the greatest health, and you have situation where a natural shift in power is going to occur. Michael is aided in many ways by his late brother Sonny's son, Vincent (Andy Garcia). Like his father, Vincent has a very quick temper and this doesn't always help Michael's business. Connie (Talia Shire) is also taking a more proactive role in family affairs which further complicates things. Michael also finds himself conflicted by his ex-wife Kay (Diane Keaton) who has remarried but they also share two kids together, Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio} and Mary (Sofia Coppola). Throw all the other Godfather business into the mix and you have a film that had to be slower paced. It had to tie up loose ends (as much one could expect), and it had to deal with many sins of Michael's past.
As a result, with the advantage of time, much about what didn't work for The Godfather: Part III works now. When Sofia Coppola was cast as Mary Corleone it was seen as a scandal. Many critics took Coppola to task for giving such an important role to his daughter. Coppola himself felt like she was doing him a favor. Winona Ryder, who had originally been slated to commandeer this role, fell ill and wasn't able to do it. Many saw Sofia Coppola's delivery is static, her inflection as "California Cool," so they wrote her off without really giving her performance a chance. Is it award winning? No. However, it's not in any way lacking. Also, it wasn't her first time in her father's movies as she'd also appeared in such films as The Outsiders and Rumble Fish among others. With the passage of time we get to see how people grow and change. Why wouldn't Mary be different than her parents? Why wouldn't she talk different? Dress different? ACT different? Time has been kind the role of Mary Corleone, and it's also shown us that Sofia is every bit the director her dad is and isn't.
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BY HUMANA
Initially, it's been written that Al Pacino had a problem with some of Michael Corleone's motivations. A big one being that he didn't see his character as regretting any of his previous actions. It is a testament to the acting work of Pacino that none of those feelings ever slip into a frame of this film. At all times, Michael seems committed and intent on changing the course that he, in large part, put his family on. The way Michael behaves in The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone really plays differently now. It makes sense that he would want to preserve his family's legacy. It's understandable that he would go up against just about everybody in his goal for some form of redemption. As we see, Michael Corleone can come close but the sins of the father are too great and he never quite gets there.
The Vatican subplot was originally deemed as being too confusing. It muddied the story being told. It isn't exactly clear what the terms of the Corleone/Vatican/International Immobiliari deal are. That facet of business, religious and mafia entanglement remains in The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. What also remains is that Michael is seeking to turn the image of his family business around. All of this starts with a $100 million dollar donation to the Catholic Church. This is supposed to grease the wheels of the Immobiliari business deal in which the Corleone family hopes to purchase a large position in. As confusing as all of this might be, Coppola seems to be putting a lens on the business aspect of religion. I think that in this film it's Catholicism only because that's the world that Coppola knows. It isn't as if this movie is some indictment of the Catholic Church. Coppola seems to be simply focusing on the idea of religious institutions, run by less than infallible human beings, might not always follow the good book in their decision making. He isn't calling out the Catholic religion specifically, and to that end the Vatican subplot in this new version plays better. Also, this isn't the only film to discuss such issues. In Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets there's a similar (though briefer) discussion of religious institutions. One character argues that "it's a business" while another states, to paraphrase, that the people running it shouldn't be doing it with that mentality.
Another layer that blankets The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is the shift of power. As has been mentioned, Michael is much older now. It is only going to be a matter of time before he moves to the background and other members of the Corleone family take over. Michael appears to be heading willingly into this. However, is he? Michael wants family business carried out a certain way. He even goes so far as to lash out at Connie and Vincent after they murder Joey Zasa (Joe Mantegna) behind his back. This shift in power actually mirrors what the United States is going through. We are seeing a sea-change at all levels of power. People want/wanted change from the current, outgoing administration. At the same time people see hope in President Elect Joe Biden, while many others see his upcoming tenure as politics as usual. Michael wants to cede his power to others in the family. At the same time he's not sure if it's going to be business as usual (which is something he initially never wanted a part of; as mentioned above), or if his family is indeed going to have a legacy that goes beyond its gangster constraints. Originally, what attracted Coppola to making The Godfather, and what got him hired, was his political take on the material. He saw the administration of Richard Nixon and felt that he could tap into that to tell the saga of this family. The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone takes that original impulse and finally ties it all together. Is it perfect? Maybe not. However, an imperfect Coppola film will always inspire more discussion than the paint by number products many of his working contemporaries have churned out.
Initially, people were scandalized by George Hamilton taking over the legal position that Robert Duvall played to perfection in the first Godfather movies. It seems that there were some money issues which is why Duvall eventually took a flyer on this production. I must admit that on my initial screening of this film back in the 1990s, I certainly found the version without Duvall Tom Hagen to be wanting. However, again, time has been very kind to this film and so has the editing process because George Hamilton actually does a lot of great, understated work here as B.J. Harrison. Is he better than Duvall as Hagen? That's not even really the point. They are different characters with the essential role of protecting the Corleone family's interests. In that regard, Hamilton certainly acquits himself well and the scrutiny his performance may have originally received appears unwarranted (at least by me).
Lastly, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone also features a bit of a different ending. In fact it actually recalls the ending of The Godfather: Part II. At the same time, and I know that this is a long shot, it also leaves open the possibility of there being a Godfather: Part 4.
Ultimately, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone plays quite well in todays 2020, fast-food content landscape. It is slower in pace, richer in story, and deeper in meaning than many of the films that are available to consumers. At the same time, we are in the middle of a Pandemic. We are also very nostalgic. Moviegoers don't just want to escape. They want to be taken someplace where things make a little more sense. Where their feelings and emotions are given validity. They want to know that their fears, while very real, aren't going to be forever. In revisiting this reinvigorated installment of the Corleone family, cinephiles and casual viewers alike will be allowed to reminisce, recount, and re-engage with all the wonder that cinema from a maestro named Francis Ford Coppola has to offer.
Mario Puzo's The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone arrives on Blu-ray and Digital December 8th and in select theaters December 4th.
Francis Ford Coppola reinvigorates the controversial Godfather 3 in his landmark franchise.
- EVAN JACOBS
- — December 7, 2020
- in MOVIE REVIEWS
- 225SHARES
Flashforward 30 years and The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone aka The Godfather: Part III plays as something different. Through our 2020 lens we see how this film is about atonement as well as a shift in power. To briefly recap the first two films, The Godfather saw a reluctant Michael Corleone assume the family throne. His father had been attacked, Michael sought justice against the men responsible, and he was then pulled into a world he had spent his life trying to avoid. The Godfather: Part II sees Michael furthering his blood ties to the family in ways that one can never imagine. It all culminates in him killing his brother Fredo (the late and often great John Cazale). We end the film with Michael alone. He's in a dark room, a dark place, and though he's got people all over the place to do his bidding, no character in any cinematic universe is more lost.
RELATED:Coppola Is Done with The Godfather Franchise, Wants to Make a Movie About the Future
The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone picks up the pieces now. Michael is leading the charge to legitimize the family business. He wants to leave something of a better legacy by way of a large deal with the Vatican. Nothing for Michael Corleone comes easy as there are always people that pose a threat to his plans. Couple this with the fact that Corleone is much older now, in not the greatest health, and you have situation where a natural shift in power is going to occur. Michael is aided in many ways by his late brother Sonny's son, Vincent (Andy Garcia). Like his father, Vincent has a very quick temper and this doesn't always help Michael's business. Connie (Talia Shire) is also taking a more proactive role in family affairs which further complicates things. Michael also finds himself conflicted by his ex-wife Kay (Diane Keaton) who has remarried but they also share two kids together, Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio} and Mary (Sofia Coppola). Throw all the other Godfather business into the mix and you have a film that had to be slower paced. It had to tie up loose ends (as much one could expect), and it had to deal with many sins of Michael's past.
As a result, with the advantage of time, much about what didn't work for The Godfather: Part III works now. When Sofia Coppola was cast as Mary Corleone it was seen as a scandal. Many critics took Coppola to task for giving such an important role to his daughter. Coppola himself felt like she was doing him a favor. Winona Ryder, who had originally been slated to commandeer this role, fell ill and wasn't able to do it. Many saw Sofia Coppola's delivery is static, her inflection as "California Cool," so they wrote her off without really giving her performance a chance. Is it award winning? No. However, it's not in any way lacking. Also, it wasn't her first time in her father's movies as she'd also appeared in such films as The Outsiders and Rumble Fish among others. With the passage of time we get to see how people grow and change. Why wouldn't Mary be different than her parents? Why wouldn't she talk different? Dress different? ACT different? Time has been kind the role of Mary Corleone, and it's also shown us that Sofia is every bit the director her dad is and isn't.
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BY HUMANA
Initially, it's been written that Al Pacino had a problem with some of Michael Corleone's motivations. A big one being that he didn't see his character as regretting any of his previous actions. It is a testament to the acting work of Pacino that none of those feelings ever slip into a frame of this film. At all times, Michael seems committed and intent on changing the course that he, in large part, put his family on. The way Michael behaves in The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone really plays differently now. It makes sense that he would want to preserve his family's legacy. It's understandable that he would go up against just about everybody in his goal for some form of redemption. As we see, Michael Corleone can come close but the sins of the father are too great and he never quite gets there.
The Vatican subplot was originally deemed as being too confusing. It muddied the story being told. It isn't exactly clear what the terms of the Corleone/Vatican/International Immobiliari deal are. That facet of business, religious and mafia entanglement remains in The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. What also remains is that Michael is seeking to turn the image of his family business around. All of this starts with a $100 million dollar donation to the Catholic Church. This is supposed to grease the wheels of the Immobiliari business deal in which the Corleone family hopes to purchase a large position in. As confusing as all of this might be, Coppola seems to be putting a lens on the business aspect of religion. I think that in this film it's Catholicism only because that's the world that Coppola knows. It isn't as if this movie is some indictment of the Catholic Church. Coppola seems to be simply focusing on the idea of religious institutions, run by less than infallible human beings, might not always follow the good book in their decision making. He isn't calling out the Catholic religion specifically, and to that end the Vatican subplot in this new version plays better. Also, this isn't the only film to discuss such issues. In Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets there's a similar (though briefer) discussion of religious institutions. One character argues that "it's a business" while another states, to paraphrase, that the people running it shouldn't be doing it with that mentality.
Another layer that blankets The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is the shift of power. As has been mentioned, Michael is much older now. It is only going to be a matter of time before he moves to the background and other members of the Corleone family take over. Michael appears to be heading willingly into this. However, is he? Michael wants family business carried out a certain way. He even goes so far as to lash out at Connie and Vincent after they murder Joey Zasa (Joe Mantegna) behind his back. This shift in power actually mirrors what the United States is going through. We are seeing a sea-change at all levels of power. People want/wanted change from the current, outgoing administration. At the same time people see hope in President Elect Joe Biden, while many others see his upcoming tenure as politics as usual. Michael wants to cede his power to others in the family. At the same time he's not sure if it's going to be business as usual (which is something he initially never wanted a part of; as mentioned above), or if his family is indeed going to have a legacy that goes beyond its gangster constraints. Originally, what attracted Coppola to making The Godfather, and what got him hired, was his political take on the material. He saw the administration of Richard Nixon and felt that he could tap into that to tell the saga of this family. The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone takes that original impulse and finally ties it all together. Is it perfect? Maybe not. However, an imperfect Coppola film will always inspire more discussion than the paint by number products many of his working contemporaries have churned out.
Initially, people were scandalized by George Hamilton taking over the legal position that Robert Duvall played to perfection in the first Godfather movies. It seems that there were some money issues which is why Duvall eventually took a flyer on this production. I must admit that on my initial screening of this film back in the 1990s, I certainly found the version without Duvall Tom Hagen to be wanting. However, again, time has been very kind to this film and so has the editing process because George Hamilton actually does a lot of great, understated work here as B.J. Harrison. Is he better than Duvall as Hagen? That's not even really the point. They are different characters with the essential role of protecting the Corleone family's interests. In that regard, Hamilton certainly acquits himself well and the scrutiny his performance may have originally received appears unwarranted (at least by me).
Lastly, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone also features a bit of a different ending. In fact it actually recalls the ending of The Godfather: Part II. At the same time, and I know that this is a long shot, it also leaves open the possibility of there being a Godfather: Part 4.
Ultimately, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone plays quite well in todays 2020, fast-food content landscape. It is slower in pace, richer in story, and deeper in meaning than many of the films that are available to consumers. At the same time, we are in the middle of a Pandemic. We are also very nostalgic. Moviegoers don't just want to escape. They want to be taken someplace where things make a little more sense. Where their feelings and emotions are given validity. They want to know that their fears, while very real, aren't going to be forever. In revisiting this reinvigorated installment of the Corleone family, cinephiles and casual viewers alike will be allowed to reminisce, recount, and re-engage with all the wonder that cinema from a maestro named Francis Ford Coppola has to offer.
Mario Puzo's The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone arrives on Blu-ray and Digital December 8th and in select theaters December 4th.
Yeah I got the trilogy couldn't even watch this trash after this first two.
‘Godfather Coda’ review: A famously disappointing sequel embraces the dying fall
It’s a little better now. In “The Godfather Part III,” recut and retitled “The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone,” flashes of greatness periodically illumi…
www.chicagotribune.com
Francis Ford Coppola Says ‘Godfather: Part III’ Recut Vindicates Film, Daughter Sofia
Francis Ford Coppola is finally at peace with 'Godfather: Part III.'
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Francis Ford Coppola Says 'Godfather: Part III' Recut Vindicates Film, Daughter Sofia
7:55 AM PST 12/3/2020 by Ryan Parker
"It was like pulling on the thread of a sweater that annoyed you, and you end up re-knitting the whole sweater," the writer-director says.
Francis Ford Coppola is finally at peace with Godfather: Part III. The Oscar-winning director recut the Paramount gangster film to become the picture he envisioned some 30 years ago.
In a Thursday interview with CBS This Morning, Coppola said he believes the new version of the film — with a different beginning and ending — vindicates the movie, which, while being nominated for a slew of Oscars, was savaged by critics and some fans.
"It was like pulling on the thread of a sweater that annoyed you, and you end up re-knitting the whole sweater," he says of the new cut, which has been retitled Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. "If an audience does not understand what is going on, it is very hard for them to be emotional about it."
The most upsetting aspect of the negative press that the film got was the harsh criticism of his then 19-year-old daughter, Sofia, who played Mary Corleone after Winona Ryder had to drop out shortly after production started, on doctor's orders due to exhaustion.
"When the film came out, the bullets that Sofia got were meant for me, just as in the story, ironically," Coppola said. "My wife was very upset."
The cast recently watched Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, including Sofia. "She didn't want to see it, but she felt the whole thing was better," Coppola said.
Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone will have a limited theatrical release beginning Friday and arrive on Blu-ray and digital Dec. 8.
I don't get why people blamed sofia coppola for being in the movie....her character didn't do much so I have no idea why people shit on her in the first place....GF3 had issues but she wasn't one of them IMO
The Immobiliare thing was convoluted
The Joey Zsa Zsa hit was overdone
It felt over long for the sake of being over long
Connie being this iron maiden type who is all about the crime business seems out of character for her
The Immobiliare thing was convoluted
The Joey Zsa Zsa hit was overdone
It felt over long for the sake of being over long
Connie being this iron maiden type who is all about the crime business seems out of character for her
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A Brief Appreciation of the Incest Gnocchi in The Godfather: Part III
Food is a serious component of the Corleone saga — which is what makes the sexification of these little pasta pillows all the more unexpected.
www.vulture.com
A Brief Appreciation of the Incest Gnocchi in The Godfather: Part III
By Roxana Hadadi
This was not a well-received film when it came out 30 years ago, but the passage of time and a recut by Francis Ford Coppola have allowed for a critical reassessment. So let’s talk about pasta. Photo: Paramount Pictures
Blame it on Andy Garcia’s smirk. Middle-school-aged me was minding my own business one Saturday afternoon, flipping through TV channels to distract myself from homework, when that man’s smile in The Godfather Part III made me reconsider my devotion to Leonardo DiCaprio and Rider Strong. They were boys! Andy Garcia was a man! That mischievous grin knew something, and I wanted to know it, too. There was knowledge hidden in his chest hair, contained only by an array of leather blazers. Costume designer Milena Canonero knew what she was doing, and may I extend my thanks to her yesterday, today, and always! How striking he looked, in both a red satin robe and a double-breasted wool suit.
The Godfather Part III was not a well-received film when it came out 30 years ago this month, but the passage of time and the recent release of a new Francis Ford Coppola cut in the form of The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone have allowed for a critical reassessment. Coppola’s conclusion to the saga of the Corleone crime family is driven by the same scheming, bloodshed, and complicated familial loyalty as the preceding classics, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. Its ideas about guilt, regret, and redemption are well-considered, and Al Pacino’s performance drives home the weight of all this death — so much of it ordered by him. Diane Keaton’s Kay adds the skepticism and self-awareness the narrative needs to puncture any Scarface-like sympathies toward Michael’s myriad crimes, and Talia Shire transforms herself into a believable Lady Macbeth. The stuff with the pope is a little outlandish, sure, but haven’t the past decades shown us the lengths to which the Catholic Church will go to protect its own?
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These are the reasonable observations one could make about The Godfather Part III and its saner moments. But there is one scene in this film that is so delightfully insane that it has captivated me ever since that Saturday afternoon viewing. One so melodramatic that it nearly derails Coppola’s otherwise-measured consideration of cause and effect, vengeance and revenge, and blood for blood. So scandalous that I really felt grown afterward; I did not tell my parents about the movie I wiled away my afternoon watching, despite both preceding Godfather movies being some of their favorites.
I am talking, of course, about the incest gnocchi.
Photo: Paramount Pictures
The Godfather films consistently honor food as an integral part of Italian and Italian American culture. Vito Corleone, played by Marlon Brando in The Godfather and Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II, runs an olive oil company as a front for the family’s other illegitimate dealings. In The Godfather, Clemenza teaches young Michael how to make pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes, sausage, and meatballs, with a little sugar as his secret ingredient. Cannoli are a training detail in The Godfather and a method of poison in The Godfather Part III. Oranges symbolize death, from the attempted assassination of Vito in The Godfather to his eventual death in the garden, and then again during the Atlantic City helicopter attack in The Godfather Part III. Bowls of spaghetti served by Carmela Corleone commemorate a new partnership in The Godfather Part II, while a birthday dinner for Vito at the end of the same film captures the deep fissures in the family decades later.
For the most part, how people find comfort and solace in food is treated thoughtfully by Coppola — which is what makes the sexification of these little pasta pillows all the more unexpected! The gnocchi incest scene comes about one hour into The Godfather Part III: Sofia Coppola’s Mary (indiscriminately aged — maybe a teenager, or maybe a 20-something?) is aware that her father Michael isn’t telling her the whole truth about his ailing health or the threats against the family, and puts on her best little skirt-suit and jaunty upturned-brim hat to visit her older cousin Vincent (Garcia). She’s already told her “cuz” that she’s had a crush on him for years, since she was 8 years old and he was 15 (“You haven’t kissed me ‘Hello’ yet. Relatives always kiss” is her flirtatious opening line when they meet again as adults), and there’s probably some unresolved daddy issues tied up in how drawn she feels to Vincent’s protection.
But Coppola — mercilessly maligned for her performance after stepping in for Winona Ryder (Entertainment Weekly published an entire piece about the backlash to her casting a month after the film’s release, featuring an interview with the actress and various gossipy complaints from cast and crew) — gives Mary a believable sense of innocence. Her line readings are wooden, but I’m willing to argue that tentativeness works for a character who has long been overprotected by her father, wrapped up in the safety that being his beloved only daughter provides. In the kitchen of Vincent’s club, though, Mary stops being his “little cousin” and asserts herself as the executor of her own desires. She is a young woman discovering her sexuality, and I’m sorry, who wouldn’t fall for a man who makes his own pasta?
As Washington Post staff writer Phyllis C. Richman wrote in a January 1991 column about the film, “Vinnie makes gnocchi like an angel, with that masterful flick of the thumb that turns mere dough into tiny curled shells.” Standing behind Mary, who admits that she doesn’t know how to cook, Vincent takes her right hand in his, lacing their fingers together. Coppola stays on their bond, maintaining his camera in an unmoving close-up as Vincent guides Mary’s slightly cupped hand forward, using her middle finger to grab each little square of dough and roll it into the pasta’s distinctive shape.
Photo: Paramount Pictures
They only last four gnocchis before Vincent splays their fingers out, rubs Mary’s hand, and transitions the vibe from hunger to thirst. They lean closer and closer together. A lean becomes a hug, and a hug becomes an embrace, and then a kiss on the neck becomes a kiss on the cheek, and then a couple of open-mouthed kisses become a full-on make-out session. Vincent’s “Let us cook” is fully forgotten once he carries Mary offscreen, and I am pretty sure what happens next would not pass any restaurant health codes.
Photo: Paramount Pictures
So many inane details of this scene don’t quite add up. How many people was Vincent intending to feed with this gnocchi? He says it’s “for the boys,” but there’s only one other guy in the club. There are three pots on the stove, but only one of them has tomato sauce bubbling away in it. One of the other pots is probably boiling water for the pasta, but what is going on in the third? It looks like Vincent is using a fairly typical all-purpose flour to coat his workspace, and it seems like the gnocchi are made with a standard potato dough, but what about semolina for dusting? Ricotta for the mixture? (Did you know that the Family Coppola has their own line of dried pasta and jarred pasta sauce? I digress.)
These are nitpicky points, that, after years of rewatches, still haven’t turned me off of what The Godfather Part III does accomplish: the table-setting of a doomed romance as problematic as it is affecting. On the one hand, Mary and Vincent’s relationships is wrong; the two of them are first cousins who acknowledge their familial relationship with cutesy nicknames (Vincent calls Mary “cugina” more than once). On the other hand, The Godfather Part III frames their pairing as one of misguided, but understandable, passion. As part of the Corleone cycle of violence, they are doomed to a tragic end, but whatever tied Mary and Vincent together comes from a real place. Consider the kitchen seduction: Mary comes to the club for reassurance, but Vincent is the one who asks Mary to “hold me,” his fragility standing in purposeful contrast to her assuredness.
The real-life details of the scene (that 18-year-old Sofia was embarrassed by script supervisor Wilma Garscadden-Gahret, whom she’d known since she was 12 years old, encouraging her to put “saliva under [the] left ear” of 30-something Garcia) certainly diminish the cinematic effect. But the Vincent and Mary romance, even for all its flaws, is the tenderest part of The Godfather Part III — almost as soft as a warm bowl of gnocchi.
Storm over Sofia Coppola
Storm over Sofia Coppola -- Her performance in ''The Godfather III'' is overshadowing the most eagerly awaited sequel in years
Storm over Sofia Coppola
Storm over Sofia Coppola -- Her performance in ''The Godfather III'' is overshadowing the most eagerly awaited sequel in years
By Melina Gerosa
Updated January 25, 1991 at 05:00 AM EST
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”I had connections.” That’s how Sofia Coppola openly and cheekily accounts for landing the pivotal role of Mary, daughter of Mafia Don Michael Corleone, in her father’s epic The Godfather Part III. But her connections came with strings attached — and those strings have yanked the 19-year-old fledgling actress into one of the nastiest Hollywood controversies in years.
When Francis Ford Coppola chose at the eleventh hour to replace an ailing Winona Ryder with his daughter, he may have seen the move as a director’s prerogative. But the debate over his choice of Sofia — who has a Valley Girl accent and virtually no acting experience — has grown to overwhelm the picture itself. The affair may have further damaged Coppola’s flagging career — Godfather III was to have been his big comeback — and doomed Sofia’s before it has even begun.
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For the Coppola family, the storm has not come as a complete surprise. ”Well-meaning people tell me I am permitting a form of child abuse,” Sofia’s mother, Eleanor, wrote in a diary she kept for Vogue during the filming., ”that she is not ready, not trained for what is being asked of her, and that in the end she will be fodder for critics’ bad reviews that could scar her for years. They also tell me that Francis can’t afford to take a chance that would weaken his work at this point in his career.” Her fears were harshly and promptly realized the moment Paramount finally screened Godfather III for the press on Dec. 12. Many members of the New York audience snickered at Sofia’s portrayal of the Don’s innocent daughter — and laughed out loud at her pivotal scene at the movie’s climax.
And that was only the beginning. Though many praised the film, reviewer after reviewer has singled out Sofia’s performance as a disaster. Not all critics joined in the Sofia bashing. The New Yorker‘s Pauline Kael praised her ”lovely and unusual presence,” and Entertainment Weekly‘s Owen Gleiberman wrote that she brought a ”ripe adolescent sexiness” to the film. But many others declared open season on the actress by ridiculing her diction and even belittling her looks. ”(Her) gosling gracelessness comes close to wrecking the movie, ” said Time magazine’s Richard Corliss.
The division and derision didn’t end with the reviews. Moviegoers have been as split as the critics, and the Sofia factor may have been contributed to the film’s box office performance, which has rapidly declined after a strong start. Moreover, both during production and since the movie’s Christmas Day release, the trade and popular press have been filled with stories describing Coppola’s attempts to minimize Sofia’s impact on his film. According to these reports, she was called back to do an extraordinary amount of dubbing, and Coppola spent the final days before the opening desperately shaving seconds from her scenes. The quality of her performance is of course debatable, but a close look at the facts shows that the stories of Coppola tinkering with the film are largely inaccurate.
When Mills College freshman Sofia Coppola flew to Rome in December 1989 to spend Christmas with her family, she had no idea she was approaching a major junction in her young life. Her father had been juggling Godfather III‘s Rome shooting schedule for weeks, waiting for Winona Ryder to finish her work on Mermaids and join the production. Coproducer Fred Ros recalls that Ryder finally showed up after Christmas, ill and exhausted. ”I get this call in the middle of the night and get a doctor for Winona,” he says. He and the doctor went to the hotel where Ryder was staying with her boyfriend, Johnny Depp; after examining her briefly, the doctor advised Roos to send her home.
”I called Francis right away and we reviewed the other choices, Annabella Sciorra and Laura San Giacomo,” says Roos. (First choice Julia Roberts had been committed to Flatliners, while Madonna, who screen-tested, had been deemed to old to play against love interest Andy Garcia.) ”And then Francis said, ‘I’m going to try Sofia.”’
His daughter was just hopping into the shower the next morning when an assistant director phoned Eleanor Coppola to say that Sofia had to leave immediately for costume fitting a the Cinecittà studio. Excited at first, Sofia grew anxious as she realized she would have to shoot her first scenes in just a few hours. Yet the notion of playing Mary Corleone was hardly alien.
”When my father was writing the script, he based a lot of the character on me,” says Sofia. ”I did even read-throughs of the script before they cast Winona Ryder. But when I got it, I was worried. Did I just get it because I’m his daughter?” She sought family counsel. ”I was upset, so I asked my Aunt Tally (Coppola’s sister, Talia Shire, who plays Michael Corleone’s sister), and she said, ‘He’s not going to put his movie and you in jeopardy, no one would do that to their kid.”’
”I reached out to my own child because she was the one Winona was like,” Francis Coppola would later explain on the Today show. But even Aunt Tally had misgivings. ”I said ‘Hey Francis, I’m not so sure. This is a big film, I’m real scared for her,”’ recalls Shire. ”When it was a fact, and he really wanted her, and she knew he wanted and needed her, I said, ‘You are going to be fine, don’t worry.”’
Roos was also concerned, ”This was a far bigger part that she had ever handled,” he says. In fact, Sofia had appeared only in cameos in a few of her father’s other films — beginning with the original Godfather, in which she played the baby boy christened a the film’s conclusion. ”I also knew that the press would jump on it, and that in itself is a lot of pressure for Sofia, for Francis, and for the movie,” Roos says. ”But once the decision was made, we all kind of jumped on and gave Sofia all the support we could.”
The role put visible strain on Sofia. Eleanor’s diary entry for January 10, 1990, reads in part ”Every moment Sofia isn’t on the stage she is at costume fittings or the hairdresser or with her diction teacher. Several times she has burst into tears.”
The criticism was also starting. ”She couldn’t pronounce the name Corleone,” says an extra who was there during the scene in which Mary presents the Catholic church with a $100 million check. ”Her father had to keep cutting and retaking the scene. She was in over her head.”
”I didn’t realize how much pressure I would be under — people want to see Francis’ daughter fall on her face,” Sofia told Entertainment Weekly shortly before Godfather III‘s release. ”My whole life I’ve had to prove myself harder. But any time you are under a lot of pressure, you do try harder. Catching up on years of acting training was the most difficult.” One special challenge was toning down the Val Gal accent. ”I had people telling me, like, ”Vincent has t on the end,’ and when you are doing the scene, you don’t think about things like that. I was trying to be as real as possible.
The movie’s steamy kitchen love scene, in which Vincent and Mary progress from making gnocchi to making whoopee, was especially tricky for the teen. ”I was pretty crazed that day when I had to kiss Andy at 7:00 in the morning, ” she says. ”I wasn’t feeling very romantic, and also the script supervisor, who I’ve known since I was twelve, was standing a foot away saying ‘Oka, saliva under his left ear, Sofia’ I mean, all this flirting and kissing I’m doing with Andy, I’m doing in front of my father, of all people!”
Although many of the movie’s other actors reportedly objected to Coppola’s decision to cast her, Sofia herself describes the cast as supportive. ”Al Pacino was so funny, he always kept me entertained. He told me, ‘Whenever you get the urge to act, lie down and wait for it to pass.’ That was the best advice I learned the whole time. And Andy taught me that the most important work for an actor is being off-camera for the other actor. And it’s true, when the camera was on me, he was always there helping me.”
Whatever the strengths or weakness of her performance, criticism of Sofia has begun to take on a life of its own, and the reports that she had to do an abnormal amount of dubbing are a good example. Even one of her defenders, New Yorker critic Kael, complained that ”her voice (or a dubber’s voice) lacks expressiveness.” Contrary to Kael’s conjecture, though, no other voice was substituted for Sofia’s. And dubbing dialogue eliminate background noise from busy scenes — called looping — is routine on most pictures. According to one of the movie’s ADR (automatic dialogue replacements) editors, Tom Bellfort, all the Godfather III actors had to loop many of their lines. ”To say Sofia was such a problem that she had to be looped is really blown out of proportion,” says Bellfort. ”What wound up on the soundtrack was about 70 percent of her original track.”
Another false report stalking Sofia is that her father, after the press screenings, edited the performance down and then wrote selected critics urging them to see the film again. The Hollywood Reporter stated that ”the version now in the theaters…includes noticeably less screen time for Coppola’s daughter…whose performance has been roundly criticized.” New York Post film critic Jami Bernard wrote that Coppola ”has snipped between two and four minutes in his epic, presumably to improve the flow and perhaps tangentially to allay the Sofia Problem,” and went on to say that ”Sofia seemed a tad less annoying” on the second viewing. ”It looks like Coppola has cut away from Sofia more quickly after her scenes.” Variety‘s Lawrence Cohn has said. ”She doesn’t curl her lip or sneer so much after her lines.”
”It’s a mass delusion,” insists Walter Murch, who along with other film editors, Barry Malkin and Lisa Fruchtman, vehemently denies there was any last-minute cutting at all. ”There were refinements for the soundtrack, but there are no missing minutes of the film. The negative was not cut after the critics saw it.” (Roos says one brief close-up of Pacino was added, but nothing was dropped.) Murch thinks the confusion is over edits made the week before the press screenings, after a sneak preview in Seattle to which critics were not invited, and says the changes, which are common after test screenings, were made solely to speed up and clarify the plot.
As for the letters Coppola supposedly sent inviting critics to see the movie again, a Coppola spokeswoman denies they exist, and a survey of leading critics failed to find a single recipient.
In the midst of all this controversy, there are some who feel Sofia’s presence was a blessing for Coppola. ”It was fortunate Francis didn’t have to close down the picture for two and a half weeks (to find a new Mary),” says Roos. ”It’s clearly not a performance of a smooth, vastly experienced actress — we all admit that — but I would like to thin her innocence and vulnerability make up for that and make it work.” Shire takes Sofia’s contribution a step farther. ”Sofia brought her extraordinary love for her father, but what she really brought was something no one will ever see in the movie,” she says. ”By having her there, Francis was able to structure some of his own anxieties, to explore things more deeply in the character of Michael, and therefore have a greater Al Pacino. It’s the things you don’t see that she brought.”
Coppola himself is plainly grateful to his daughter, and sorry about any pain she may have suffered. ”She is not an experienced actress, that is not her career goal,” he has said. But once press reports on the casting began to appear, ”I realized that my daughter had been singled out basically to get creamed. So I said, ‘Will it hurt your feelings if people didn’t think you did it as good as you could have? And she said, ‘No, if you think I did it good, then it wouldn’t hurt my feelings.’ So I am very proud of her. She did exactly what I wanted.”
The neophyte actress has other defenders. ”A lot of people used Sofia’s performance to bash Coppola because it made them feel like insiders,” says Entertainment Weekly critic Gleiberman. ”Among much of the press, there seemed to be more interest in what was going on offscreen than in whether the movie was actually any good.” And when emcee Rex Reed let fly a nasty crack about Sofia at a recent awards ceremony of the New York Film Critics Circle, his comment was greeted by hisses from the audience, including a very audible Madonna.
Has the Godfather III affair destroyed Sofia Coppola’s future as an actress? Scorching early notices have derailed many performers for years but not everyone is ready to write Sofia off. ”I’m sure if she wants a career in the acting business, she can have it,” says Army Archerd, columnist for Daily Variety. ”There are a lot better actresses than her who are working, and a lot worse. She’s just a kid.” Anyway, she may be more interested in working on the other side of the camera; her real love has never been acting but costume design. Three years ago she had her first try at the job in ”Life Without Zoe,” an episode of New York Stories she wrote with her father; the next month her designs will be on view in The Spirit of ’76, a film featuring her boyfriend, Redd Kross’ bassist Steve McDonald, and his brother and band member, Jeff.
Sofia is now living in Los Angeles, and she seems to be taking her 15 minutes of infamy in stride. ”I speak to Sofia every day, her best friend is our little boy’s nanny,” says Roos. ”She almost never talks about the movie. She talks about other things, like her boyfriend, and she just kind of gets on with her life.” Mills College expects her back this month to continue her studies in art history, and, according to Aunt Tally, she may to on to study costume and scenic design at Yale.
”Sofia has what I call ‘Coppola courage,”’ Shire says, ”and no one will ever know what that is unless you are in a family with our chromosomes, our karma, and our intensity.” Shire sees a parallel between the family crisis and the film. ”She was just so innocent in a ridiculous situation. It was very much what the character Mary was dealing with — the controversial father, Michael Corleone, and her desire to bring her innocence to help him forget his sins. But then, of course, the cost of that is herself.”
Enzo the baker – The Godfather: Anatomy of a Film
theseventies.berkeley.edu
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During an AMA on Instagram, 'The Godfather' director Francis Ford Coppola answered actress Diane Keaton's question of 'Why on Earth did you choose me' to play Kay?
ew.com
What Really Went On Behind The Scenes Of 'The Godfather'
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The Godfather: Why Michael Never Sought Revenge On His Wife's Killer
Why Michael didn't avenge Apollonia's murder.
screenrant.com
I watch Godfather 2 at least 3 times a year.
They have plenty technology to do a Godfather IV to cover the time until Michael's death.
They have plenty technology to do a Godfather IV to cover the time until Michael's death.
Is it necessary tho?
Michael did advantage apollonia's murder, for some reason it didn't make the cut. Fabrizio ended up getting killed outside of his pizza parlor in a deleted scene, I'm not sure if it was in godfather part 1 or godfather part 2The Godfather: Why Michael Never Sought Revenge On His Wife's Killer
Why Michael didn't avenge Apollonia's murder.
it was in the combined cut of 1 & 2 - The Godfather Saga
the one that they put all the scenes + deleted scenes into chronological order