The Coppola Restoration of The Godfather Collection on Blu-ray is an offer that's hard to refuse.
The viewer will see a number of similarities in "Part III" and "Part I," which I'm sure Coppola meant intentionally. They both open with big family celebrations; they both use New York and Sicilian locations; they both combine Mob business with corporate business; and they both end in operatic climaxes. Oh, and again watch for the cannoli.
Michael is maneuvering to take over a worldwide corporation that the Vatican controls, and basically he attempts to bribe the Church to do it. He donates $100,000,000 to a humanitarian program, for which the Church outwardly honors him and secretly agrees to go along with his plans to take over the reins of the company they own. But the old Mafia families want in on the deal with him. I've watched this film maybe a half a dozen times now, and, frankly, I still don't understand all the internal machinations that go on.
"The higher I go," says Michael, "the crookeder it becomes."
The Academy nominated "The Godfather, Part III" for seven Academy Awards, but it won none. The nominations were for Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Andy Garcia), Cinematography (Gordon Willis), Song (Carmine Coppola, music, and John Bettis, lyrics), Art Direction, and Film Editing.
Film value: 8/10
Video:
As I said earlier, I found the picture quality of the older transfers a bit soft, faded, and noisy, especially in the first two movies. Now, we have all-new 1.85:1-ratio transfers, with "The Godfather Parts I and II" fully restored and "Part III" getting a remaster. The results are all quite good, but what you have to realize is that the first movie in particular didn't look all that great to begin with. Even in a movie theater on day one, the print I remember, with its burnished golden-browns and deep, deep blacks, looked intentionally dark. That is the way it continues to look in this new incarnation (all three movies come on BD50s, with 1080p, MPEG-4/AVC reproduction), with cinematographer Gordon Willis's dusky tones ever present.
Compared to the old transfers, these new BD ones all shine with greater color depth, deeper hues, cleaner screens, and, of course, far greater definition. However, remember, the pictures were also rather soft in their original prints and somewhat grainy, so don't expect the crystal clarity of a "Speed Racer." Most of the softness and much of the grain remain in these new BD50 Blu-ray transfers, with "Parts I and II" having the most robust hues, a result of the color correction and restoration process, and "Part III," with its slightly more subdued characteristics, looking to these eyes marginally the more realistic. The location shooting in Sicily stands out in the first two films, while the perfectly natural tones of "Part III" give much pleasure.
After seeing the night-and-day difference between the Blu-ray video and the old standard-def video, I compared a few selected scenes in BD to Paramount's new SD editions, also newly restored and remastered. Here, the differences were not quite so apparent on first glance because the newly restored color palette is quite vivid in both formats. But comparing freeze frames next to one another, it's quite easy to see the greater definition in the Blu-rays, with facial features, signs, numbers, and inner detailing all standing out more sharply than on the SDs (or as sharply as the original prints allow, given that they were not all that sharp to start with).
Oh, and the "ghost" image still appears on Michael's shoulder in the cemetery scene. It only lasts for a few frames, and I never noticed it until a student pointed it out to me years ago.
Audio:
All three films offer English soundtracks in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, with "Parts I and II" offering Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural as well. Like the older DD 5.1 mixes, the three films provide a varied batch of audio qualities. The remixes in "Parts I and II" can sound smooth and reassuring on the one hand and harsh, raspy, nasal, and hollow on the other, depending on the scene. The dynamic range is fine, although most of the sound in all three films is fairly low in volume, mainly dialogue. Still, when we hear gunshots or see explosions, they have the proper authority behind them. As one might expect, there is more surround activity in the third film than in the first two, where the various rear and side effects tend to seem a bit forced. Musical ambiance reinforcement in the first two films, for instance, can be a bit overwhelming at times. However, Nino Rota's musical score opens up even wider and becomes more dynamic and more ambient by "Part III."
Extras:
You want extras. The folks at Paramount give you extras. With more extras piled on the extras. Here's how it stacks up: Disc one, two and three of this four-disc Blu-ray set contain the feature films and audio commentaries by Francis Ford Coppola. These are same commentaries the director recorded for the 2001 DVD set, so if you've already heard them, they're repeats. Nonetheless, they are among the best such commentaries I've heard. I liked the fact that Coppola notices mistakes in the filming and isn't shy or embarrassed about pointing them out to the viewer, like, for example, the actors who were out of place in certain shots. But as Coppola says, if audiences didn't notice or didn't care, neither did he. He provides a wealth of such details, even remarking on his battle with Paramount over the inclusion of Nino Rota's famous music. Seems Paramount didn't like it, and Coppola did. The director threatened the risk of being fired if he didn't get his way. He got his way.
The only other things you will find on the first three these discs are twenty-three, thirty, and twenty-five scene selections respectively; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; English captions for the hearing impaired; bookmarks; and a guide to elapsed time.
Disc four, a BD25, contains the rest of the extras. Things begin with a series of newly made items, most of them in high definition. The first is "The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't," about thirty minutes with comments on the movie from lot of major filmmakers. Next up is "Godfather World," eleven minutes on the film's influence on modern culture. Then, there's "Emulsional Rescue Revealing The Godfather," nineteen minutes on Willis's dark cinematography. Following that is "…when the Shooting Stopped," fourteen minutes on the film's editing. Next, there is "The Godfather on the Red Carpet," four minutes of interviews with celebrities at the restoration première. Moving on, we get four short films on "The Godfather": "The Godfather vs. The Godfather, Part II," "Cannoli," "Riffing on the Riffing," and "Clemenza," the four totaling about seven minutes. I enjoyed the trivia here, like why and how did Clemenza dies. After that we get two organizational charts, "The Corleone Family Tree" and "The Crime Organization Chart," where you can click on characters and get further information about them. Finally, there's "Connie and Carlo's Wedding Album," a gallery of stills.
The final section of extras, "2001 DVD Archive," derives from the earlier set of DVDs. Here, you'll find "The Godfather: A Look Inside," "On Location," "Francis Coppola's Notebook," "The Music of The Godfather," "Coppola and Puzo on Screenwriting," "Gordon Willis on Cinematography," Storyboards from "The Godfather, Part II," Storyboards from "The Godfather, Part III," "The Godfather Behind the Scenes 1971," and "The Filmmakers: Francis Ford Coppola, Mario Puzo, Gordon Willis, Dean Tavoularis, Nino Rota, Carmine Coppola." Things conclude with a whole slew of additional scenes, arranged chronologically; "Acclaim and Response," trailers for all three films, a photo gallery, and a rogue's gallery of villains.
The four Blu-ray discs come housed in a special four-disc keep case, further enclosed in an attractively embossed slipcover. Unfortunately, neither the case nor the slipcover lists any of the disc details. Also, I had a devil of time trying to pry the discs out of the case. Just one of those things.
Parting Thoughts:
Celluloid outlaws and hoodlums have been with us since the earliest days of Edwin S. Porter and D.W. Griffith, but, ironically, it would be the U.S. Government that indirectly encouraged Hollywood's major excursions into the world of gangsters. As a consequence of lawmakers' ill-conceived legislation leading to Prohibition in the Twenties, Americans consumed more alcohol per capita than at any time before or since. Concurrently, to quench the country's thirst for illicit booze, there was an attendant rise in organized crime that would go largely unchecked for the next fifty years. Is it any wonder that Hollywood would document this phenomenon in movies of the thirties and make stars of such actors as Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Paul Muni, Humphrey Bogart, George Raft, and others?
I'm sure no one is proud of the dark side of America's past or present, nor have most serious filmmakers attempted to glorify or glamorize the subject matter. But that hasn't stopped the public from being fascinated by gangsterism all the same. Coppola followed a time-honored Hollywood tradition in making his Corleone family trilogy, adding a depth of character, background, and narration that no one had so successfully achieved in gangster films before, a depth that only a few filmmakers like Martin Scorsese produced in a few movies like the hard-edged "Mean Streets," "Goodfellas," and "Casino" in the years that followed. "The Godfather" movies represent filmmaking at its best--from their superb characterizations and acting to their innovative direction and striking camera work. Paramount's Blu-ray presentations of the films are probably the best we could hope for, and they do justice to these important motion pictures.
And let's not forget that Coppola not only gave us three fine films, two of them among the best ever made, but he afforded audiences his unique views on popular song, opera, food, and family that are as positive and uplifting as anything in the history of cinema.
The Coppola Restoration of "The Godfather Collection" on Blu-ray is an offer that's hard to refuse.
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