Thirty years ago, this week on Christmas Day, Oscar winning director Francis Ford Coppola released the third and final chapter of the Corleone crime family saga 16 years after the second film titled "The Godfather Part III." Despite earning seven Oscar nominations in early 1991, the third installment lived up to the disappointments many critics and disenfranchised viewers had with several sequels of such beloved franchises past that include the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Rocky and countless others combined.
In short, "The Godfather Part III" joined that continuing growing list of sequels that proved there is no such thing as the perfect movie franchise, especially when the second installments turned out to be better than the first. "The Godfather Part II" (1974), "Dawn of the Dead" (1978), "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), "Superman II" (1980) and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) along with "Aliens" (1986), "Terminator II: Judgement Day" (1991) and "The Dark Knight" (2008) left viewers thirsting for more. All of them failed to deliver when the third installments came out leaving a bad taste in many fans and viewers’ mouths. Movie critics don't count. Their so-called commentaries, 99,999999 percent of those written today are press releases, don't control a film's box office success.
Looking back at "The Godfather Part III" on the eve of its thirtieth anniversary, here are five reasons why audiences thought the film sucked and five reasons why I say it didn’t.
1) Sofia Coppola: In my 2000 review of "The Godfather Part III" I referred to Sofia Coppola as the film’s “Jar Jar Binks.” Jar Jar Binks was the off-world alien character from "Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (1999) who was meant to provide the film’s humor but became more of an annoyance and embarrassment to the Star Wars movies than anything else. The character was so hated that creator Mike J. Nichols took matters in his hands and created an edited version of Episode I called Star Wars Episode I.I: The Phantom Edit in 2000. Nichols cut a majority of, if not, all of the Bink's character that in turn, not only shortened the film’s 133-minute running time but reportedly made the movie better.
To date I haven't wasted my time watching that version on YouTube. I had no issues with the Binks character when I first saw "The Phantom Menace" in 1999 and the character didn’t stop me from watching the first movie several times in theaters and on disc since. (I can just hear the imaginary gasps from those reading this blog as a result of my saying that). Nor did I have an issue with Sofia Coppola’s performance playing the daughter of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in Part III (I can now hear readers getting out barf bags as they are unable to finish reading this blog).
If Part III had been released this week, with the help of the Internet (the net was not around in 1990), Sofia Coppola would be the Donald Trump of film the way “fake” news has attacked the president the past four years. If Trump had found a cure for cancer, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Director Coppola cast his daughter, Sofia, then 19, in the role in Part III after actress Winona Ryder quit before production started citing exhaustion issues. At the time Sofia had zero acting experience making the attacks on her by the fake news media more justified in their biased minds.
"When the film came out, the bullets that Sofia got were meant for me, just as in the story, ironically," director Coppola told the Hollywood Reporter in a recent article. "My wife was very upset.”
“Because I didn't want to be an actress, it didn't traumatize me,” said Sofia in her response to the negative criticism in a quote on IMDB.com. “It hurt me to be attacked by the press...but the scars were not permanent. It was painful, but it wasn't devastating.”
And yet, Sofia said she still wanted the part.
“I was game. I was trying different things. It sounded better than college. I didn't really think about the public aspect of it. That took me by surprise. The whole reaction. People felt very attached to the Godfather films. I grew up with them being no big deal. I mean, I understand they're great films but... I dunno. I'm not surprised. It makes sense that people would have an opinion about it but I got a lot of attention I wasn't expecting. I was going to art school anyway so I was able to get back to what I was doing. It was before the Internet so magazines would come out but then the next month they were gone. There wasn't even as much paparazzi around then.”
Andy Garcia, who played Vincent Mancini, the illegitimate son of Sonny Corleone (James Caan) who died in the first movie, and whose character develops a love interest in Sofia’s Mary in Part III told The Hollywood Reporter he “thought a lot of things were unjust about (the film), especially how Sofia Coppola was treated.”
Chicago film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel also differed on Sofia Coppola’s performance when they reviewed the film in December 1990.
"There is no way to predict what kind of performance Francis Ford Coppola might have obtained from Winona Ryder, the experienced and talented young actress, who was originally set to play this role,” Ebert said. “But I think Sofia Coppola brings a quality of her own to Mary Corleone. A certain up-front vulnerability and simplicity that I think are appropriate and right for the role."
Siskel said the film’s problem was the casting of the director’s daughter.
“(Sofia Coppola) is out of her acting league here. She's supposed to be Andy Garcia's love interest but no sparks fly. He's more like her babysitter."
That’s where the movie critics and any naysayers against Part III were wrong. The Godfather films, while the women characters who played Michael’s love interests like Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) and Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli) and in the case of his daughter, Mary’s relationship with Vincent, in Part III, were a part of his life, the love stories were never the prime focus.
2) George Hamilton: If audiences and critics had such hatred for Sofia Coppola, what did they think about George Hamilton being cast in place of Robert Duvall? Duvall’s absence was the result of his asking for more money to reprise his role as the family lawyer since Pacino was offered twice as much.
I can understand Coppola’s decision to casting his daughter, but George Hamilton? At the time of the third Godfather’s release in 1990 could anyone remember what movie Hamilton starred in? "Love at First Bite" (1979)? The "George & Alana" show (1995-1996) with his ex-wife Alana Stewart?
3) Read the history books! "The Godfather Part III" begins in 1980 and ends assumably in ‘81 or ‘82 considering how old Michael is when he dies, years later. The problem was the subplot surrounding the deaths of Pope Paul VI (1897-1978) and Pope John Paul I (1912-1978) which did not happen in 1980. Both died in 1978 two months apart from each other. The subplot involving the death of John Paul I was intriguingly, if not cleverly told and his untimely death after being pope for just one month in 1978 has been the subject of conspiracy theories since (author David Yallop’s 2012 book, "In God’s Name" explores the subject). At least director Oliver Stone got the dates of the JFK assassination, and the Watergate burglary correct in "JFK" (1991) and "Nixon" (1995).
4) No Tom Hagen. There is no debating the absence of Robert Duvall’s Tom Hagen, the only other character to survive the previous two films hurt Part III, something director Coppola even admits in a quote from IMDB.com.
“I think the loss of Robert Duvall as a character made a difference,” director Coppola said. “As I look back on it, he was a very important part of that story. Clearly he was the most important character still living from the other movies. So I think ultimately losing the Hagen character was more than I was able to write my way out of so quickly. I could have done it had we not started shooting right away.”
Duvall tells the story differently as to why he didn’t appear in Part III, which in the end had to do with his asking price.
“I think everybody did it for money. I mean why wait 15 years to do a sequel or whatever you call the third one. They waited that long so obviously it must be for money because why wait that long? There’ve been a lot of stories. This is the way it happened. If they offered somebody five times what they offered me that’s totally unacceptable. If they offered them two to three times more which they didn’t that would be acceptable but not ideal. I would accept it. They didn’t do that. They offered five times and that’s unacceptable and that’s what happened. So it did boil down to economics."
"If they paid Pacino twice what they paid me, that's fine, but not three or four times, which is what they did. (Francis Ford Coppola) came to my farm, parked his car... went in the kitchen. (I) said: "I know you always wanted the crab cake recipe, let me cook it for you." Oh, he loves to eat, so I cooked the crab cake... and he wrote it down... and he forgot it, so he called twice. He was... more concerned that he forgot the crab cake recipe than would I be in Godfather III."
5) Audiences were not the only ones who loathed Part III: Director Coppola, Pacino, Keaton and despite his absence, Duvall had issues with the film. Pacino summarized the Part III's issue in a quote on IMDB.com.
“You know what the problem with that film (Part III) is? The real problem? Nobody wants to see Michael have retribution and feel guilty. That's not who he is. In the other scripts, in Michael's mind he is avenging his family and saving them. Michael never thinks of himself as a gangster - not as a child, not while he is one and not afterward. That is not the image he has of himself. He's not a part of the Goodfellas (1990) thing. Michael has this code; he lives by something that makes audiences respond. But once he goes away from that and starts crying over coffins, making confessions and feeling remorse, it isn't right. I applaud [Francis Ford Coppola] for trying to get to that, but Michael is so frozen in that image. There is in him a deep feeling of having betrayed his mother by killing his brother. That was a mistake. And we are ruled by these mistakes in life as time goes on. He was wrong. Like in Scarface (1983) when Tony kills Manny - that is wrong, and he pays for it. And in his way, Michael pays for it.”
Actress Keaton called the third film in a recent interview with Forbes a “failure beyond belief.”
“When the original The Godfather Part III came out…I remember seeing it and thinking, ‘What?’ I don’t know what to say. It was a disappointment, and that seemed to prevail,” Keaton said. “I only saw The Godfather Part III once, many years ago, and had no plans to watch it again."
Director Coppola said, "The Godfather Part III" “had a lot of good things about it.”
“It had good potential. I think it was made a little too rushed because it was made in one year and they wanted it out that Christmas. It was a big, complex, difficult story. I think if I had spent more time writing it I would have solved or defined some of the issues better, rather than doing it while we were shooting."
Duvall said in his 1991 interview that the third film was not as good as the first two.
“When I saw (The Godfather Part III) it was ok, but it wasn’t as good. The premise was very interesting. You know organized crime connected with the Vatican. It was a very complex and kind of a sophisticated premise to go from and it interested me to a point, but when I did see it I just felt that for whatever reasons I didn’t think it was good.”
1) Al Pacino: Clearly the veteran actor knew this would be the final time he’d be playing crime boss Michael Corleone, and he wanted to go out with a bang, perhaps literally, which he didn’t, exactly.
Pacino summarized the role and where Part III took the character in a recent interview with Deadline.
“The trajectory was always there, from that scene in The Godfather when Michael says, ‘It’s my family, Kay, it’s not me,’ and then this smart, college grad war hero gets caught up in the rush after his father was threatened, and he has to live with something he couldn’t find a way out of. In Godfather III, he’s a guy trying to keep everything going. He had a natural ability for business and manipulation and a Machiavellian gift that made him the boss of a crime family even though I never felt he was comfortable being a stereotypical gangster. Now came an opportunity for redemption from the church, as well as this new outlet for his skills that would give his family the respectability he wanted. And then he’s constantly thwarted, even in the confession he makes about killing his brother Fredo, to that priest who’s soon to become Pope. Soon, he suffers a diabetic attack brought on by the stress of having been screwed by the so-called Church in a massive betrayal of inordinate size. And then, to lose his daughter, which Francis smartly set at the opera? Godfather II had tragic undertones, but of all the ways to lose your daughter, to do it in the arena of assassinations that he was part of, then lose his daughter because of him…it’s operatic and he’s completely broken.”
2) “No one wants another Joe.”: The Corleone family dealt with a number of nemesis' throughout the three movies and a few of them, despite just one line of dialogue and an extremely limited amount of screen time, those villains still made a lasting impression from Danny Aiello’s cameo as Tony Rosato who garrots Corleone henchman, Frankie Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), in "The Godfather Part II" uttering just one line, “Michael Corleone says hello” to Moe Greene (Alex Rocco), the casino boss modeled after real life gangster, Bugsy Siegel, whose character just like Siegel, got a bullet in his eye in the first film.
In part III, Joe Montegna’s colorfully dressed mobster, Joey Zasa, is in only three scenes through the film’s first hour but he doesn’t waste a moment. When Zasa utters his contempt for the commission of mob bosses during a meeting in Atlantic City one could almost believe his threats.
“I say to all of you, I have been treated this day, with no respect. I've earned you all money. I've made you rich, and I asked for little. Good. You will not give, I'll take! As for Don, Corleone, well he makes it, very clear to me today, that he is my enemy. You must choose between us.”
3) If it ain’t broke don’t fix it: No Godfather film would be complete without the usual bursts of gun violence as the Corleone family metes out its own brand of poetic justice. Director Coppola and screenwriter Mario Puzo incorporated the same elements that made the first two so hauntingly memorable. Murders are planned out in a dimly lit hospital chapel in front of a large crucifix while gang leaders enact the sign of the cross the minute they step inside a church; as if the only other thing these murderers hold sacred besides honor and the family business is God and the Catholic faith. Hitmen are given a box of chocolates that hides a gun underneath the candies while conspirators dedicate their toasts to death. All this in between the family celebrations of a wedding, a baptism, a first communion, funerals and being honored by the Vatican throughout the course of three films.
4) Focus again on family: The Godfather films have always been about family relationships and loyalty. Something which hovers over greatly again in Part III despite this being about a criminal empire. I have often heard of people saying how they wished their families were as close as this Italian crime family was to each other. Perhaps when it comes to large families, the Corleone's are like the Kennedys. Their stories are a combination of both celebrations and tragedies.
5) The last 30 minutes are a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock: Just as I said in number 3 how no Godfather film would be complete when it comes to the sudden bursts of gun violence the same goes for how all three end where those acts of vengeance play out in a montage of death scenes. The last 30 minutes of Part III where such sequences of poetic justice are meted out happen during an opera as the Corleone family celebrates the debut of Michael’s son, Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio). Anyone who has seen Hitchcock’s "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956) will be familiar with what Coppola did here. By comparison, the montage of killings done in the Godfather trilogy is what director George Lucas used in "Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" (2005) where the Jedi Knights are wiped out on several planets when Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) gives his troops the order to “Execute Order 66.”
©12/23/20
In short, "The Godfather Part III" joined that continuing growing list of sequels that proved there is no such thing as the perfect movie franchise, especially when the second installments turned out to be better than the first. "The Godfather Part II" (1974), "Dawn of the Dead" (1978), "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), "Superman II" (1980) and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) along with "Aliens" (1986), "Terminator II: Judgement Day" (1991) and "The Dark Knight" (2008) left viewers thirsting for more. All of them failed to deliver when the third installments came out leaving a bad taste in many fans and viewers’ mouths. Movie critics don't count. Their so-called commentaries, 99,999999 percent of those written today are press releases, don't control a film's box office success.
Looking back at "The Godfather Part III" on the eve of its thirtieth anniversary, here are five reasons why audiences thought the film sucked and five reasons why I say it didn’t.
1) Sofia Coppola: In my 2000 review of "The Godfather Part III" I referred to Sofia Coppola as the film’s “Jar Jar Binks.” Jar Jar Binks was the off-world alien character from "Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (1999) who was meant to provide the film’s humor but became more of an annoyance and embarrassment to the Star Wars movies than anything else. The character was so hated that creator Mike J. Nichols took matters in his hands and created an edited version of Episode I called Star Wars Episode I.I: The Phantom Edit in 2000. Nichols cut a majority of, if not, all of the Bink's character that in turn, not only shortened the film’s 133-minute running time but reportedly made the movie better.
To date I haven't wasted my time watching that version on YouTube. I had no issues with the Binks character when I first saw "The Phantom Menace" in 1999 and the character didn’t stop me from watching the first movie several times in theaters and on disc since. (I can just hear the imaginary gasps from those reading this blog as a result of my saying that). Nor did I have an issue with Sofia Coppola’s performance playing the daughter of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in Part III (I can now hear readers getting out barf bags as they are unable to finish reading this blog).
If Part III had been released this week, with the help of the Internet (the net was not around in 1990), Sofia Coppola would be the Donald Trump of film the way “fake” news has attacked the president the past four years. If Trump had found a cure for cancer, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Director Coppola cast his daughter, Sofia, then 19, in the role in Part III after actress Winona Ryder quit before production started citing exhaustion issues. At the time Sofia had zero acting experience making the attacks on her by the fake news media more justified in their biased minds.
"When the film came out, the bullets that Sofia got were meant for me, just as in the story, ironically," director Coppola told the Hollywood Reporter in a recent article. "My wife was very upset.”
“Because I didn't want to be an actress, it didn't traumatize me,” said Sofia in her response to the negative criticism in a quote on IMDB.com. “It hurt me to be attacked by the press...but the scars were not permanent. It was painful, but it wasn't devastating.”
And yet, Sofia said she still wanted the part.
“I was game. I was trying different things. It sounded better than college. I didn't really think about the public aspect of it. That took me by surprise. The whole reaction. People felt very attached to the Godfather films. I grew up with them being no big deal. I mean, I understand they're great films but... I dunno. I'm not surprised. It makes sense that people would have an opinion about it but I got a lot of attention I wasn't expecting. I was going to art school anyway so I was able to get back to what I was doing. It was before the Internet so magazines would come out but then the next month they were gone. There wasn't even as much paparazzi around then.”
Andy Garcia, who played Vincent Mancini, the illegitimate son of Sonny Corleone (James Caan) who died in the first movie, and whose character develops a love interest in Sofia’s Mary in Part III told The Hollywood Reporter he “thought a lot of things were unjust about (the film), especially how Sofia Coppola was treated.”
Chicago film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel also differed on Sofia Coppola’s performance when they reviewed the film in December 1990.
"There is no way to predict what kind of performance Francis Ford Coppola might have obtained from Winona Ryder, the experienced and talented young actress, who was originally set to play this role,” Ebert said. “But I think Sofia Coppola brings a quality of her own to Mary Corleone. A certain up-front vulnerability and simplicity that I think are appropriate and right for the role."
Siskel said the film’s problem was the casting of the director’s daughter.
“(Sofia Coppola) is out of her acting league here. She's supposed to be Andy Garcia's love interest but no sparks fly. He's more like her babysitter."
That’s where the movie critics and any naysayers against Part III were wrong. The Godfather films, while the women characters who played Michael’s love interests like Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) and Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli) and in the case of his daughter, Mary’s relationship with Vincent, in Part III, were a part of his life, the love stories were never the prime focus.
I can understand Coppola’s decision to casting his daughter, but George Hamilton? At the time of the third Godfather’s release in 1990 could anyone remember what movie Hamilton starred in? "Love at First Bite" (1979)? The "George & Alana" show (1995-1996) with his ex-wife Alana Stewart?
3) Read the history books! "The Godfather Part III" begins in 1980 and ends assumably in ‘81 or ‘82 considering how old Michael is when he dies, years later. The problem was the subplot surrounding the deaths of Pope Paul VI (1897-1978) and Pope John Paul I (1912-1978) which did not happen in 1980. Both died in 1978 two months apart from each other. The subplot involving the death of John Paul I was intriguingly, if not cleverly told and his untimely death after being pope for just one month in 1978 has been the subject of conspiracy theories since (author David Yallop’s 2012 book, "In God’s Name" explores the subject). At least director Oliver Stone got the dates of the JFK assassination, and the Watergate burglary correct in "JFK" (1991) and "Nixon" (1995).
4) No Tom Hagen. There is no debating the absence of Robert Duvall’s Tom Hagen, the only other character to survive the previous two films hurt Part III, something director Coppola even admits in a quote from IMDB.com.
“I think the loss of Robert Duvall as a character made a difference,” director Coppola said. “As I look back on it, he was a very important part of that story. Clearly he was the most important character still living from the other movies. So I think ultimately losing the Hagen character was more than I was able to write my way out of so quickly. I could have done it had we not started shooting right away.”
Duvall tells the story differently as to why he didn’t appear in Part III, which in the end had to do with his asking price.
“I think everybody did it for money. I mean why wait 15 years to do a sequel or whatever you call the third one. They waited that long so obviously it must be for money because why wait that long? There’ve been a lot of stories. This is the way it happened. If they offered somebody five times what they offered me that’s totally unacceptable. If they offered them two to three times more which they didn’t that would be acceptable but not ideal. I would accept it. They didn’t do that. They offered five times and that’s unacceptable and that’s what happened. So it did boil down to economics."
"If they paid Pacino twice what they paid me, that's fine, but not three or four times, which is what they did. (Francis Ford Coppola) came to my farm, parked his car... went in the kitchen. (I) said: "I know you always wanted the crab cake recipe, let me cook it for you." Oh, he loves to eat, so I cooked the crab cake... and he wrote it down... and he forgot it, so he called twice. He was... more concerned that he forgot the crab cake recipe than would I be in Godfather III."
5) Audiences were not the only ones who loathed Part III: Director Coppola, Pacino, Keaton and despite his absence, Duvall had issues with the film. Pacino summarized the Part III's issue in a quote on IMDB.com.
“You know what the problem with that film (Part III) is? The real problem? Nobody wants to see Michael have retribution and feel guilty. That's not who he is. In the other scripts, in Michael's mind he is avenging his family and saving them. Michael never thinks of himself as a gangster - not as a child, not while he is one and not afterward. That is not the image he has of himself. He's not a part of the Goodfellas (1990) thing. Michael has this code; he lives by something that makes audiences respond. But once he goes away from that and starts crying over coffins, making confessions and feeling remorse, it isn't right. I applaud [Francis Ford Coppola] for trying to get to that, but Michael is so frozen in that image. There is in him a deep feeling of having betrayed his mother by killing his brother. That was a mistake. And we are ruled by these mistakes in life as time goes on. He was wrong. Like in Scarface (1983) when Tony kills Manny - that is wrong, and he pays for it. And in his way, Michael pays for it.”
Actress Keaton called the third film in a recent interview with Forbes a “failure beyond belief.”
“When the original The Godfather Part III came out…I remember seeing it and thinking, ‘What?’ I don’t know what to say. It was a disappointment, and that seemed to prevail,” Keaton said. “I only saw The Godfather Part III once, many years ago, and had no plans to watch it again."
Director Coppola said, "The Godfather Part III" “had a lot of good things about it.”
“It had good potential. I think it was made a little too rushed because it was made in one year and they wanted it out that Christmas. It was a big, complex, difficult story. I think if I had spent more time writing it I would have solved or defined some of the issues better, rather than doing it while we were shooting."
Duvall said in his 1991 interview that the third film was not as good as the first two.
“When I saw (The Godfather Part III) it was ok, but it wasn’t as good. The premise was very interesting. You know organized crime connected with the Vatican. It was a very complex and kind of a sophisticated premise to go from and it interested me to a point, but when I did see it I just felt that for whatever reasons I didn’t think it was good.”
Five reasons that made "The Godfather Part III" worth viewing
1) Al Pacino: Clearly the veteran actor knew this would be the final time he’d be playing crime boss Michael Corleone, and he wanted to go out with a bang, perhaps literally, which he didn’t, exactly.
Pacino summarized the role and where Part III took the character in a recent interview with Deadline.
“The trajectory was always there, from that scene in The Godfather when Michael says, ‘It’s my family, Kay, it’s not me,’ and then this smart, college grad war hero gets caught up in the rush after his father was threatened, and he has to live with something he couldn’t find a way out of. In Godfather III, he’s a guy trying to keep everything going. He had a natural ability for business and manipulation and a Machiavellian gift that made him the boss of a crime family even though I never felt he was comfortable being a stereotypical gangster. Now came an opportunity for redemption from the church, as well as this new outlet for his skills that would give his family the respectability he wanted. And then he’s constantly thwarted, even in the confession he makes about killing his brother Fredo, to that priest who’s soon to become Pope. Soon, he suffers a diabetic attack brought on by the stress of having been screwed by the so-called Church in a massive betrayal of inordinate size. And then, to lose his daughter, which Francis smartly set at the opera? Godfather II had tragic undertones, but of all the ways to lose your daughter, to do it in the arena of assassinations that he was part of, then lose his daughter because of him…it’s operatic and he’s completely broken.”
2) “No one wants another Joe.”: The Corleone family dealt with a number of nemesis' throughout the three movies and a few of them, despite just one line of dialogue and an extremely limited amount of screen time, those villains still made a lasting impression from Danny Aiello’s cameo as Tony Rosato who garrots Corleone henchman, Frankie Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), in "The Godfather Part II" uttering just one line, “Michael Corleone says hello” to Moe Greene (Alex Rocco), the casino boss modeled after real life gangster, Bugsy Siegel, whose character just like Siegel, got a bullet in his eye in the first film.
In part III, Joe Montegna’s colorfully dressed mobster, Joey Zasa, is in only three scenes through the film’s first hour but he doesn’t waste a moment. When Zasa utters his contempt for the commission of mob bosses during a meeting in Atlantic City one could almost believe his threats.
“I say to all of you, I have been treated this day, with no respect. I've earned you all money. I've made you rich, and I asked for little. Good. You will not give, I'll take! As for Don, Corleone, well he makes it, very clear to me today, that he is my enemy. You must choose between us.”
3) If it ain’t broke don’t fix it: No Godfather film would be complete without the usual bursts of gun violence as the Corleone family metes out its own brand of poetic justice. Director Coppola and screenwriter Mario Puzo incorporated the same elements that made the first two so hauntingly memorable. Murders are planned out in a dimly lit hospital chapel in front of a large crucifix while gang leaders enact the sign of the cross the minute they step inside a church; as if the only other thing these murderers hold sacred besides honor and the family business is God and the Catholic faith. Hitmen are given a box of chocolates that hides a gun underneath the candies while conspirators dedicate their toasts to death. All this in between the family celebrations of a wedding, a baptism, a first communion, funerals and being honored by the Vatican throughout the course of three films.
4) Focus again on family: The Godfather films have always been about family relationships and loyalty. Something which hovers over greatly again in Part III despite this being about a criminal empire. I have often heard of people saying how they wished their families were as close as this Italian crime family was to each other. Perhaps when it comes to large families, the Corleone's are like the Kennedys. Their stories are a combination of both celebrations and tragedies.
5) The last 30 minutes are a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock: Just as I said in number 3 how no Godfather film would be complete when it comes to the sudden bursts of gun violence the same goes for how all three end where those acts of vengeance play out in a montage of death scenes. The last 30 minutes of Part III where such sequences of poetic justice are meted out happen during an opera as the Corleone family celebrates the debut of Michael’s son, Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio). Anyone who has seen Hitchcock’s "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956) will be familiar with what Coppola did here. By comparison, the montage of killings done in the Godfather trilogy is what director George Lucas used in "Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" (2005) where the Jedi Knights are wiped out on several planets when Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) gives his troops the order to “Execute Order 66.”
©12/23/20
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