The Godfather Part III (1990) - Coppola's operatic gangster opus finale

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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.]

What do you think of The Godfather Part III?

Apocalypse Now (1979, redux version) - Coppola's dizzying whirlpool epic of the horror of war

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An all-time great in poster art; this evocative, dark work full of depth and atmosphere by Bob Peak and Tom Jung for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now

Vietnam War-traumatized US Captain Willard receives a new mission: Sail up a Vietnamese river into Cambodia during the flaming grandeur of the Vietnam War and terminate an insane, rogue US colonel by the name of Kurtz. With "extreme prejudice."

An adaptation of Joseph Conrad's (Victory (1915)) classic masterpiece novella, Heart of Darkness (1899) written by John Millius (Red Dawn (1984)), Michael Herr (Full Metal Jacket (1987)) writing narration and Michigander master filmmaker and in this case co-writer/producer/director/co-composer Francis Ford Coppola (Tonight for Sure (1962)) changed a lot of Conrad's dark story to fit it into their current Vietnam perspective, (it originally takes place on a river in the Congo.) This is a review of the 2001-released 49-minute extended Redux-version of Apocalypse Now.
From being a story more exclusively about the darkness in the human soul, it grows in their hands into a horrifying Vietnam-tale, and a forecast of the apocalypse of the entire American system, its way of thought, or of the war effort in Vietnam at the very least, depending on the interpreter. A moral and human apocalypse of endless proportions.
Most of all, though, it still concerns itself with the savage, the uncontrollable, and the evil; the indefinable and incurable darkness in man.
Right from the first shot of helicopters rising in a cloud of napalm to the doomed sounds of The Doors' The End, the movie spellbinds its viewer in visual and sheer scope-of-production awe, fascination, and transformative despair.
Martin Sheen (The 3 Wise Men (2003, voice)) and Marlon Brando (The Formula (1980)) are majestic, and we have the sense all through the film that we so deserve this apocalypse that we are witnessing the journey towards.
The incredible near 300 day-shooting of the film in the civil war-plagued Philippines at the time with Sheen suffering a heart attack, choppers loaned directly from war there, Brando's troubling obesity, mumbling and refusal to prepare, tropical, disastrous storms, deaths, near-insanity and everything in between are portrayed by Coppola's wife Eleanor Coppola (Paris Can Wait (2016)), in her Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991), a great and very recommendable documentary on extreme filmmaking.
Apocalypse Now may be the best war movie ever made, and it is arguably one of the greatest 10 or 20 films of all time. An incredible achievement and experience that is never forgotten.

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

Dementia 13/The Haunted and the Hunted (1963) - Coppola's gothic AIP castle horror 
 

Watch a teaser for the film here

Budget: 31.5 mil. $
Box office: 150 mil. $ + 12.5 mil. $ (Redux)
= Big hit (returned 5.15 times the cost)
[Apocalypse Now premiered 19 May (Cannes Film Festival, France, in competition) and runs 153 minutes/202 minutes (Redux version). Coppola paid Milius 15k $ to write the screenplay, which he finished a first draft for in '69. He eventually reportedly wrote10 drafts, more than 1,000 pages. George Lucas was engaged to direct for a period, and had in mind a low-budget approach, but was overtaken by work on Star Wars. Instead Coppola himself took the helm with a budget of 12-14 mil. $. He personally dined with the dictator of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos to arrange the use of his country's military in the long Philippine shoot. Several stars turned down offers to play Willard due to the long jungle shoot. Brando was contracted for 1 months shooting for outrageous 3.5 mil. $. Harvey Keitel started out playing Willard, but Coppola was unhappy with him and replaced him with Sheen. Shooting took place in the Philippines and in California from March 1976 - May 1977. The budget ballooned during the enormously long production, which suffered countless problems. Editing took 2 years. The film won the Palm d'Or in Cannes together with Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum. It was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning for Best Cinematogrpahy (Vittorio Storaro (Caravaggio (2007, TV movie))) and Best Sound, losing Best Supporting Actor (Duvall) to Melvyn Douglas in Being There, Art/Set Decoration to All That Jazz, Director to Robert Benton for Kramer vs. Kramer, Editing to All That Jazz, Picture and Adapted Screenplay to Kramer vs. Kramer. It won 3/4 Golden Globe nominations, 2/9 BAFTA noms, a César award nomination, won a David di Donatello award, a Grammy nomination, a National Board of Review award and other honors. It grossed 78 mil. $ domestically (52 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert has called it the finest war film ever made and given it a 4/4 star review, equal to its rating here. It was nominated for  The 2001 Redux release added 12.5 mil. $ to the total gross. It currently sits at #49 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, between The Prestige (2006) and Memento (2000). Coppola returned with One from the Heart (1981). Sheen returned in Blind Ambition (1979, miniseries) and theatrically in Eagle's Wing (1979), Duvall in The Great Santini (1979), and Brando in The Formula (1980). Apocalypse Now is certified fresh at 93 % with a 7.8/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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