Amazon Prime: The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone
Harry Mount
One of the many sadnesses of the death of the fine comic actor John Sessions in November, aged 67, is the loss of his Al Pacino impression.
He was particularly good at the Pacino trick of SUDDENLY RAISING YOUR VOICE and putting the emphasis ON the wrong WORDS.
And one of the many welcome surprises in Francis Ford Coppola’s new, renamed version of The Godfather Part III is how understated Al Pacino is.
There’s none of the Sessions shouting or wrong emphasis. Instead, Pacino’s Michael Corleone is a broken, desperate, diabetic figure, with a greying, en brosse haircut, longing to go legitimate but – as he says, in his most famous scene – ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.’
Coppola always wanted to call the closing chapter of his trilogy The Death of Michael Corleone. Now, on the 30th anniversary of the film’s release, he’s been given his way by Paramount. He’s also reordered the story, changed the music, edited the shot choices and cut the film by three minutes.
Not only has he made the film better; so too has the passage of time. When it came out, Godfather III seemed an aeon away from I (1972) and II (1974). All three films now gel together much better as a series.
You notice the similarities between them more than the differences: the familiar font of the titles; the marvellous Nino Rota theme tune, as well as the familiar faces – Diane Keaton and Talia Shire, as well as Pacino.
George Hamilton is a subtle
Quiet goes the Don: an understated Al Pacino in The Godfather, Coda consigliere in the absence of Robert Duvall. But the standout casting disaster of the original film remains bad. In an outrageous piece of nepotism, Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter, then 18, plays Michael Corleone’s daughter – in a charmless, bland way.
Andy Garcia is in a different league as Vincent Corleone, Sonny Corleone’s illegitimate son – half quiet and calm, half a menacing hothead like his father.
Garcia is there to provide the violent scenes that, as in Godfather I and II, are – thrillingly, I’m afraid – inserted between the family-business scenes in dark, wood-panelled interiors and the weddings with the uplifting, Italian dumta-dumta-dumta-dum music by Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford’s father.
The screenplay, by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, author of the original Godfather book, centres on a Vatican scandal inspired by the 1982 death of Robert Calvi, ‘God’s banker’, caught up in shady financial dealings.
The death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, after only 33 days in office, is added to the cocktail of high finance and politics interspersed with those ruthless killings.
The plot matters less than its setting. All the greatest hits of the first two films are here - Little Italy murders, elaborate pasta-making scenes, tough guys eating salsiccia and cannoli, and sun-drenched palazzi back in the old country.
That deliciously nasty, magic formula was invented in The Godfather. And I could watch it for ever.