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| Al Pacino looks vacantly at us from this dark, sparse poster for Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III |
Don Michael Corleone is attempting to legitimize the family mafia business and ready his successor, but as he gets near to his exit point, his past tracks him down, and soon death trickles forth everywhere around him, while a multi-million dollar deal with the Vatican crumbles.
The Godfather Part III is written by Mario Puzo (Superman (1978)) and co-writer/producer/director, master Michigander filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (Rumble Fish (1983)). It is the finishing chapter in the Godfather trilogy and the first of them not directly adapting Puzo's original 1969 novel.
More accurately than a 'chapter' The Godfather Part III should be termed an opus, because it is an opera-like tragedy, and the film is about as grand and lavish and as they come.
The story of Part III is fundamentally different from the first two and more resembles a fascinating story of an emperor than 'reality.' This necessarily has changed Al Pacino's (Jack and Jill (2011)) Michael character dramatically. SPOILER Coppola executes his operatic finale in Palermo, Sicily with his daughter Sofia Coppola (Anna (1987)) as Mary Corleone, whose death comes as a majestic Flood, as the sins of the father seemingly demand this awful sacrifice.
Andy Garcia (Ballers (2016, TV-series)), Talia Shire (The Deported (2009)), Pacino SPOILER and not least Eli Wallach (Christopher Columbus (1985, miniseries)) as the film's traitor all give outstanding performances in The Godfather Part III, which, despite perhaps being the slightest film in the trilogy, still is a film of extraordinary class.
Related posts:
Francis Ford Coppola: Twixt (2011) - Coppola's dreamlike Gothic is a late-night gem
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) - Coppola goes for the jugular with unsubtle, overlong adaptation
Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date
Apocalypse Now (1979) redux version - The horror of war
The Godfather Part II (1974) - The great, icy monolith
The Godfather (1972) - Coppola and Co.'s epic cinema magic
Dementia 13/The Haunted and the Hunted (1963) - Coppola's gothic AIP castle horror
Watch a masterful scene from the film here with Pacino and Diane Keaton
Cost: 54 mil. $
Box office: 136.7 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.53 times its cost)
[The Godfather Part III premiered 12 December (Los Angeles) and runs 162 minutes. Coppola only agreed to make the film to help himself out of the financial slump he had put himself in with his enormous flop One from the Heart (1982). He envisioned Part III as an epilogue to the first two films, and he and Puzo proposed the title The Death of Michael Corleone, which Paramount refused. Julia Roberts and then Winona Ryder were cast as Mary but dropped out, and the role eventually went to Sofia Coppola, which the director was since heavily criticized for as her performance was lambasted and decried as an instance of nepotism. Shooting took place in Italy, including Rome, New York and New Jersey from November 1989 - May 1990. It opened #3, behind holdover hit Home Alone and fellow new release Kindergarten Cop, to a 6.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for another 2 weeks (#2-#3) and grossed 66.6 mil. $ (48.7 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 7 Oscars, winning none. Those were Best Picture, lost to Dances with Wolves, Supporting Actor (Garcia), lost to Joe Pesci for Goodfellas, Director, lost to Kevin Costner for Dances with Wolves, Cinematography (Gordon Willis), lost to Dean Semler for Dances with Wolves, Art-Set Decoration, lost to Dick Tracy, Editing, lost to Dances with Wolves, and Original Song (Carmine Coppola and John Bettis' Promise Me You'll Remember), lost to Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man) by Stephen Sondheim from Dick Tracy. It was also nominated for 7 Golden Globes and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. A 4th Godfather film was discussed, and Coppola and Puzo had worked on a screenplay, when Puzo died in 1999. Coppola returned with Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Pacino returned in Frankie and Johnny (1991). The Godfather Part III is fresh at 68 % with a 6.42/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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