#THE GODFATHER CODA MOVIE#
#THE GODFATHER CODA SERIES#

Michael’s uneasy reunion with his ex-wife (Diane Keaton, sad and strong) follows a touching and tragic arc all its own. In an age when movies seem to rush scenes along, reducing each one to a few expository lines before moving on, Coppola gives his characters plenty of room to breathe, with uncanny effect.

#THE GODFATHER CODA SERIES#

In fact, Godfather Coda is less a flowing narrative than a series of thematically linked scenes, most of which play as fully-realized individual mini-dramas. And the film’s most absolutely insane moment of mayhem, the wholesale slaughter of the Mob’s hierarchy in an Atlantic City ballroom, literally explodes from the screen - turn the volume up for this one. A climactic tragedy on the steps of an ancient opera house is staged with the bravura of a Puccini finale. A shootout on a crowded Little Italy street screams with claustrophobic panic. A tense but generally cordial encounter in Michael’s office between Michael’s nephew Vincent (Andy Garcia) and tough-talking mob boss wannabe Joey Zasa (Joe Mantegna) lurches into unexpected and nerve-jangling violence. Happily, Coppola has left intact the film’s soaring set pieces, which stand up to anything in the first two Godfather films.

#THE GODFATHER CODA MOVIE#

Everything in the movie flows from that encounter, most significantly the grotesque similarities between the criminal realm Michael longs to leave behind and the “legitimate” world of global power and finance he so desperately wants to be a part of. Most importantly, Coppola has streamlined the opening: The initial scene now, in which Michael presents his business plan to a crooked Archbishop (squinty-eyed Donal Donnelly) didn’t come until 40 minutes into the first version, way too late to draw us into what would become the film’s driving plot point.

But his touch in this case is especially deft, and virtually everything he’s chosen to do here does, indeed, improve upon the original. With his re-edits of Apocalypse Now and The Cotton Club, Coppola has made it clear he considers all his movies to be perpetual works in progress. Now Coppola presents a slightly shorter (by about 10 minutes), moderately re-structured, visually cleaned-up version of the film, affixing to it the title he and Godfather author Mario Puzo originally intended: The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. Still, snarky critics and film scholars sniffed with disapproval - a slight that apparently gnawed at director Francis Ford Coppola for nearly 30 years. Part III, which tells the story of now-aging mob boss Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) trying to find a twisted blend of legitimacy and redemption by going into business with the Catholic Church, was actually an international hit and nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. It was, in fact, a very good film that suffered only by comparison to the two that preceded it, films that merely happened to be among the most visionary and influential of the entire 20th century. Let’s get one thing straight: the original 1990 version of The Godfather Part III was by no means a bad film. Writers: Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola Stars: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Andy Garcia, Talia Shire, Eli Wallach

The godfather coda