The third act of Francis Ford Coppola’s career could have gone any number of ways, but it’s still surprising that it’s turned into an extended rumination on the power of film editing. Though he hasn’t directed a new theatrical picture since 2011’s “Twixt” – the final film in a trilogy of independent productions – he has spent the past few years reworking earlier works, with mostly successful results. His 2019 “Apocalypse Now: Final Cut” was his second recut of his 1979 masterpiece, something of a happy medium between the commercially-minded original cut and his expansive 2001 “Redux” version; that same year, he released “The Cotton Club Encore,” a top-down reimagining of his critically drubbed and financially disastrous 1984 gangster musical that suddenly made that disappointment look like a lost classic.
Everybody wins in these equations; Coppola gets another crack at films he’s dissatisfied with, and the studios and distributors get to squeeze a bit more money out of them. So it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s revisited his most lucrative I.P. to craft a 30th-anniversary reimagining of “The Godfather Part III,” now released under Coppola’s preferred, original title, “The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.” In a new intro, Coppola explains, “In musical terms, a coda is sort of like an epilogue, a summing up, and that is what we intended the movie to be.” Unfortunately, audiences were looking for a full-throttle sequel to the greatest one-two punch of the 1970s (both of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, a still-unmatched feat), and anything less than a masterpiece felt like a letdown.
In its new form, “The Godfather Coda” is still not a masterpiece. But it’s a fine film and worthy conclusion, and its alterations – the repositioning of several scenes, the cutting of others, and a new opening closing –genuinely improve the final product.
The most radical, and most effective, of the changes comes right at the beginning, as Coppola now opens the picture with a scene that previously appeared about a half-hour in to “Godfather III,” in which Michael (Al Pacino) is asked for significant financial assistance from Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly), the head of the Vatican Bank. Michael has a suggestion: the Corleone family will make a large donation, in exchange for the Vatican’s controlling interest in a valuable international conglomerate, Immobiliare. “We’ve sold the casinos,” Michael assures the Archbishop. “All businesses having to do with gambling. We have no interests or investment in anything illegitimate.” The deal is made.
It’s a simple change – merely shifting the placement of one key scene – but a brilliant one. Aside from connecting the third film more directly to the structure of its predecessors (both films, but “The Godfather” especially, begin with someone asking the Godfather for a favor), opening with this scene centers and clarifies the business and financial dealings within the story, as well as the gravity of the Vatican deal. The earlier cut, on the other hand, clumps all of the business machinations and negotiations together in a series of scenes that amount to a data dump, overwhelming the viewer with information and intricacies; the plot gets more than a little convoluted, so this early clarity is helpful. But it also sets the table thematically; this is a deal that could redefine Michael’s legacy, that could make the Corleone family truly legitimate at long last, his stated goal from the beginning of the first film. And that knowledge underlines everything that follows.
The remaining changes are comparatively minor, mostly involving trimming or cutting secondary scenes, bringing “Coda” in at a running time of 157 minutes (“Godfather Part III” runs 162). Coppola takes out a short scene of Vincent (Andy Garcia), Al Neri (Richard Bright), and Connie Corleone (Talia Shire) discussing, and Connie authorizing, the public killing of Joe Zaza (Joe Mantegna) –an ultimately unnecessary bit of business, since they reveal their actions to Michael in dialogue shortly thereafter. Removing that scene makes the Zaza hit (and Vincent’s disguised appearance in it) more of a surprise, and saves the image of the steely, Lady Macbeth-like Connie for later, so it works. Coppola also cuts Michael’s talk with Don Altobello (Eli Wallach) before departing for Sicily, another scene that’s not particularly necessary or missed; likewise the slight trims in the talk between Don Altobello and hired killer Mosca (Mario Donatone). The only change that doesn’t really work is the ending, in which (spoiler) Coppola fades a few moments earlier, making the “Death of Michael Corleone” subtitle more necessary than you might think.
The changes for “Coda” ultimately accomplish one key feat: they allow us to look at “Godfather III” with clearer eyes, removed from the hype of that original release (which was, it’s strange to remember, only 14 years after “Part II”; more than twice that much time has passed since “Part III” hit theaters). On this rewatch, for example, I was newly struck by how beautifully Coppola and co-writer Mario Puzo have dramatized the push-pull of respectability vs. brute strength – an internal conflict for Michael in the first two films, this time externalized in the conflicting ideologies of Michael and Vincent. “All my life I wanted out,” Michael explains. “I wanted the family out.”
“Well, I don’t want out,” replies Vincent. “I am your son. Command me in all things.” And as his own son, whom he pushed to practice law, has abandoned even that respectable version of Michael’s business, the elder Corleone realizes he needs this kind of son. And, ultimately, whether he’ll admit it or not, this is the kind of son he wants. He bestows the family name on him, then and there.
It’s one of many powerful moments in the film for Pacino, whose performance here is, and remains, staggeringly good. He both physicalizes and internalizes the advancing age of the character; there’s a rasp in his voice, a stoop in his walk, a sense in his line readings of a quiet surrender to inevitability and fate (listen to how he groans “Oh Jesus” after Vincent bites Joe Zaza’s ear). Michael has mellowed with age – but the fury remains right under the surface, easily accessible, as does the pain. He’s haunted by the ghost of his brother Fredo, and the guilt over ordering his death; for all the evil inherent in the character, it’s hard not to hurt for Michael when he calls out for Fredo, in agony, during his diabetic stroke.
All of that is a warm-up for the intensity of the work Pacino is doing in his scene of confession with Cardinal Lamberto (Raf Vallone) – the physical anguish of his illness, and the psychological breakdown of the confession itself, is overwhelming. “I ordered the death of my brother,” he sobs. “I killed my mother’s son. I killed my father’s son.” It’s some of the finest acting of his career – and quite unlike any he did, or has done, before or since. Coppola and Puzo’s dialogue matches his high bar – discussing the virtues of confession (“I hear you are a practical man, what have you got to lose?), the writers end up grappling with Catholicism in the most direct manner of the trilogy, and thus of their careers.
Pacino also thrives in his scenes with Diane Keaton, which capitalize on their history – as characters, as actors, and as off-screen lovers – to give extra texture to their interactions. You see her steeliness with him, and understand it, as well as how she can soften a bit when reminded of the warmth he’s capable of. And even this far out, it’s hard to overstate the impact of Andy Garcia’s performance, of its live-wire electricity, which is indeed reminiscent of not only James Caan’s work as Sonny (his illegitimate father) but of Pacino’s starkest moments in the first film. And Joe Mantegna, as his nemesis and counterpoint, does something particularly tricky: he conveys both danger and power, and anxiety over the tenuousness of those qualities. Coppola gets one of his best ideas early on: he puts these two in a room with Pacino, and then watches the sparks.
Many of the problems of “The Godfather Part III” are not fixed by this new cut, nor could they be. There’s a formality, a stiffness to the dialogue of these early scenes, which make it seem a touch dry and old-fashioned (especially compared to the other, faster-paced gangster movies of that fall of 1990). Even slightly tightened, the opera climax doesn’t quite work – he can’t decide if he’s paying homage to Hitchcock (namely, the “Man Who Knew Too Much” remake) or himself, in echoing the incongruent intercutting of beauty and violence at the climax of the original.
And, of course, recutting can’t fix miscasting. The filmmakers (and studio) deemed Robert Duvall’s asking price too high, so he’s absent from the third installment, and missed; his de facto replacement, George Hamilton, is just fine, but he’s no Duvall. And Winona Ryder, who was to play Michael’s daughter Mary, dropped out at the eleventh hour, causing Coppola to cast daughter Sofia in the role. And sorry, there’s no revisionist history-ing around it – this remains a bad performance, stiff and awkward and amateurish, full of flat, vacant line readings. While “Coda” trims out a couple of her more unfortunate moments, it can’t get around the fundamental problem of her performance: Michael’s love for, and dedication to, his daughter is the crux of the movie, so if you don’t buy that relationship, the entire movie is hobbled.
But it’s not ruined, then or now. Viewers have complicated relationships with this film, to put it mildly, and those who intensely dislike “The Godfather Part III,” who find it an unwatchable mess or a betrayal of the originals, will likely not have their minds changed by “The Godfather Coda.” But those who recognized both the flaws and virtues of that film, who saw it as a messy, ambitious, but ultimately affecting attempt to expand on the themes and ideas of those earlier masterpieces, will find even more to admire in this reimagined work. [A-]
“The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone” is in select theaters on December 4 and on DVD and Blu-ray on December 8.
