If I live to see the DVD debut of the Star Wars Trilogy, I will most likely spin it, be impressed by the sound, giggle at Chewbacca, write the reviews, and never think about it again, except in the context of relief: no further "when's it gonna come out?" reader e-mails. The Godfather DVD Collection is, as far as I'm concerned, a holy object. For the record, the package is a black, leathery box containing cardboard-and-plastic slipcases that are decorated with the appropriate dons. Like The Godfather Part III, it's at once classy and cheap. Nevertheless, I actually remarked to a fellow movie site's Webmaster, "I'm so excited about owning it I'm having trouble watching it." But watch it I did, and will again and again, until the films hit the next superior home video format.

Okay, maybe not The Godfather Part III. But I digress...

"I believe in America."
To say that Mario Puzo's The Godfather glamorizes organized crime is to dismiss the trilogy's corpse tally. If The Godfather, in particular, is guilty of glamorizing something, it's the modern felony of family unity--and food that's high in cholesterol.

In The Godfather, the old-world values of mafia don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) decide him against entering his patriarchy into the drug trade, raising the ire of the syndicate. An attempt on Vito's life spurs the most levelheaded of his sons, Navy Cross recipient Michael (Al Pacino), to action, and every tangential outcome is pure movie magic. A horse's decapitation (one of the few developments that does not stand up to intellectual scrutiny--also one of the most visceral). (It's a real head.) Mercurial Sonny's (James Caan) street side trouncing of his sister's lousy husband. "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." Dark eyes in antiquey rooms. Cinematic history.

I've hammered this particular nail over and over again: most sequels invalidate their predecessors. I think of Aliens, during which we successfully appealed to the screen for Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and Bishop to survive. All four of them die in Alien³, Newt and Hicks before the opening credits have finished! Mario Puzo's The Godfather Part II expands and comments on and completes The Godfather; it's an organic continuation, and even has aspects of a prequel.

"My offer is this: nothing."
If The Godfather charted the decline of the Corleones, the Homeric The Godfather Part II explores both the ultimate rise and fall of their organization in parallel storylines. We track Vito (Robert De Niro) from his parents' slaughter in Sicily to the formation of Genco, his NYC-based olive oil company, which serves as a front for shady dealings. Meanwhile, we see Michael dismantle everything his father built, ironically in the act of defending and protecting the family name.

This dual-structure is echoed in the approach to scenes specific, such as Jewish boss Hyman Roth's (acting teacher extraordinaire Lee Strasberg) birthday party: Roth allocates his assets to would-be inheritors while cake is cut and served, the surface telling you what's happening underneath--helpful in a film as intricately plotted as The Godfather Part II. Writers Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola incorporate many benchmarks of fifties politics, including McCarthy's witch hunts, and there's an execution that echoes Jack Ruby's takedown of Lee Harvey Oswald, as if the American Dream that ended with Kennedy's assassination in 1963 is predicted in the Corleones' undoing.

The Godfather Part II is one of my very favourite pictures, but its effectiveness is not isolated: Fredo's (John Cazale) fate is deepened by his confinement to the sidelines in The Godfather; Hyman Roth's Moe Green anecdote adds a tragic quality to Alex Rocco's vein-popping Bugsy Siegel caricature we didn't think much of in the preceding film; etc. Yet although The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are co-dependent, that doesn't stop me from preferring the latter. Nor do Part II's skimpy climax and its obvious use of Mama Corleone (Morgana King). These are things that only really occurred to me on this, my fifth viewing of The Godfather Part II--it's truly spellbinding enough, especially performance-wise (Cazale is guaranteed to break your heart), to blind the critical eye.

"Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in."
The Godfather Part III fails for several reasons, not the least of which is the double-black eye to casting: Paramount's refusal to pay Robert Duvall's salary (Corleone consigliere Tom Hagen was reconfigured as the unfortunately-named "B.J.," a non-descript lawyer played by George Hamilton) and Coppola's decision to replace Winona Ryder with his own daughter, Sofia. Though she brings naturalism to the role of Mary Corleone, Michael's lovestruck teenaged offspring, there's always been a layer of classic artifice to the acting in the Godfathers that is a large part of the films' appeal.

The Godfather Part III isn't ghastly, and we must acknowledge that Part II is a tough act to follow, but Michael's redemption arc, compounded by the onset of diabetes, is light drama at best. The bravura finale is pretty standard (how many more times are we going to see opera alternated with bloodshed?), while the culminating use of "Cavalleria Rusticana," whose overture Martin Scorsese employed indelibly in Raging Bull, only emphasizes that Scorsese, not Coppola, is the more vital Italian-American filmmaker post-Godfather II. If any one character gets a previously-eluded resolution of poignancy, thereby justifying the existence of The Godfather Part III, it's Kay (Diane Keaton), Michael's careworn wife. In The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, she stood still as Michael shut the door on her face; in The Godfather Part III, she walks away with dignity before he can.

On DVD, the 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of The Godfather is a far better thing than what was re-released to moviehouses in the spring of 1997: a restoration doesn't exist outside the digital realm, you see, and so crystal clear remastered sound accompanied prints that appeared scratched-up beyond repair. If you never saw the subsequent THX-approved LaserDisc or VHS versions, the DVD's going to knock your socks off. Otherwise, you'll be expecting the clear, creamy image, which claims minor wear-and-tear as its detriment. The Dolby Digital 5.1 remix is powerful and age-defying (a car bomb rivals any modern rendering of an explosion), if limited in its dimensionality. Coppola has recorded incredibly listenable longform commentaries for all three Godfather DVDs (that's ten hours of talking!) that double-dip into the supplemental disc's anecdotes with admirable infrequency. The first film's track focuses on his near-firing and, of course, the disputes he had with notorious producer Robert Evans.

Presented at 1.85:1 and enhanced for 16x9 displays, The Godfather Part II sparkles less often on DVD than The Godfather does. Blacks aren't quite as deep and velvety, and those sequences cast in a yesteryear glow (the yellow-hued 'Vito' lighting scheme somewhat resembles that of 'Cuba') can get dingy in the darker areas of the image. Again, owners of the pre-THX'd VHS and LaserDisc releases will be the most impressed. The slightly hollow 5.1 Dolby Digital remix is substantially active when there's a party going on or if it's thundering. Coppola contributes a semi-analytical yakker, often discussing The Godfather Part II in terms of literary tradition. The film has been spread out over two discs to maintain a decent bitrate. Given that the 'side break' occurs at an intended point of intermission, it's a legitimate disruption of the movie's flow.

Heavy grain in the 1.85:1 anamorphic DVD transfer makes 1990's The Godfather Part III look older than its vintage, and the 5.1 Dolby Digital audio is relatively sedate. The LFE channel digs deep after Michael has a panic attack, but when, for instance, a key moment from Part II is recycled, it lacks the oomph it has on Part II's DVD. Nevertheless, The Godfather Part III sports the primo commentary of the lot: along with redefining the film as not a second sequel but an epilogue, Coppola manages to talk us into being more accepting of Sofia's performance. I should note that each of these DVDs dives straight into the respective Godfather upon start-up--no copyright logos, not even menus, just the MPAA's "R" warning and then the movie proper. Not to worry, these discs do have main menus--a different one the first three times you return to them, as a matter of fact, which is a nice touch. (Caution: Part II's third main menu--on both platters--is a big spoiler.)

A fifth disc devoted to bonus features leaves no stone unturned. Paramount has finally realized the DVD potential of one of their franchises, not to mention allowed the studio's reputation to be dragged through the mud by various participants in the box set without censor. The fullest section here is Behind the Scenes, two pages of subtitled extras that lead to:

"A Look Inside"
I'd seen this 73-minute retrospective, framed by a story meeting in which Coppola is brainstorming a teary monologue for Michael in The Godfather Part III, twice already on cable, but it's such a captivating mix of candid talking heads and archival footage (De Niro's screen test for Sonny is like a sneak preview of his turn in Mean Streets) that a taste of it to reacquaint myself left me powerless to hit the stop button. (Just when I thought I was out, indeed.) Chapter-encoded.

"On Location"
Production designer Dean Tavoularis gives us a tour of the trilogy's NYC locations. Black-and-white documentary excerpts accompany his explanation of how Manhattan's Lower East Side was transformed into period Little Italy.

"Francis Coppola's Notebook"
Coppola sits on a couch and pores over his phonebook-thick production binder for our benefit. Budding auteurs, keep your eyes and ears peeled for tips and tricks, particularly on the art of adapting a novel.

"Music of The Godfather"
An audio-only meeting with composer Nino Rota (a spinning cassette deck is the attendant visual), plus a Carmine Coppola interview (narrated by son Francis) conducted on the day of a scoring session for The Godfather Part III. (Carmine Coppola, incidentally, died of a stroke induced by the good news that his love theme for Part III, "Promise Me You'll Remember," was nominated for a Best Song Academy Award.)

"Coppola & Puzo on Screenwriting"
Coppola and the late Puzo separately illuminate their process of collaboration. The piece ends with Puzo divulging his ideas for The Godfather Part IV, a prequel that would depict the childhood years of Sonny, Michael, et al.

"Gordon Willis on Cinematography"
Director of photography Gordon "The Prince of Darkness" Willis concedes, "I may have gone too far a couple of times--Rembrandt went too far a couple of times." Willis' instructional recollections are intercut with awestruck tributes from esteemed peers Michael Chapman, Conrad Hall, and William A. Fraker.

"Storyboards-Part II"
A masterpiece in the planning stages. Step from one thumbnail to the next.

"Storyboards-Part III"
Sequential storyboard drawings edited in time to voices reading the screenplay aloud. Three passages: Vincent's dispatch of Grace's captors; a shadowy meeting; and Michael's Vatican ordainment.

"The Godfather Behind the Scenes 1971"
A 9-minute making-of shot and assembled in the manner of a nature special.

Another loaded section is Additional Scenes, 34 (!) texturing deleted odds-and-ends sorted chronologically along the Corleone timeline. (Thus, De Niro's trims come before any of Pacino's.) Where and how these segments fit in is elaborated by 34 separate text introductions. Because The Godfather Part III was restored by nine minutes for home video, it has the fewest number of omissions--one, to be exact, an alternate opening that started the film off with business rather than pleasure.

Galleries offers trailers for The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and The Godfather Part III, a panoply of tacky Academy Awards ceremony clips (not, alas, Sacheem Littlefeather's rejection of the Best Actor Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando) as well as listings of accolades filed under "Acclaim and Response", and Francis Ford Coppola's personal introduction to the 1974 network-TV airing of The Godfather, which is eerily reminiscent of the SCTV skits in which Coppola is portrayed by Rick Moranis as an oxymoronically humble megalomaniac. Assorted stills and villainous headshots can be found in the "Photo" and "Rogue's" galleries, respectively. (Or did I accidentally leave the 1966 Batman in the machine?) Last but not least, read your DVD credits and you might get a dessert courtesy of "The Sopranos".

Rounding out the last disc, besides lengthy filmographies, is an innovative Corleone Family Tree. Clicking on Fredo takes you to his biography (complete with birth and death dates) and links you to a page of same for his wife Deanna. Everything spiders out from Vito, who occupies the centre square, so to speak. For the Godfather newbie, this could prove an addictive interaction.-Bill Chambers

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