The Band-Aid: The Godfather Part Three
by Fat Man After Dark | Tue, 06/08/2010 - 15:18
As the dog days of summer are upon us, we here at the Fat Man After Dark Institute are looking for new ways to entertain ourselves and you, the four loyal people who come to this website regularly that aren't spammers from a former Soviet republic. After a night of drinking Everclear and Oreo Cakesters, we came up with The Band-Aid.
The concept is simple: we take a disappointing movie and figure out five things that could have been done to improve upon it. They may not make the movie great, or even good, but they will create something of a healing process, like an adhesive bandage, hence The Band-Aid. When Johnson & Johnson sends up a cease and desist letter, I guess we will change it to The Adhesive Bandage.
First up, The Godfather Part Three. For a movie that the major players didn't want to do, most of them got together 20 years after the first two films in the series to put a stain on the franchise. What could have been done to make it better? TO THE FMAD-CAVE!
Don't Cast Sofia Coppola
This is the most infamous problem with the movie. Winona Ryder was cast in the important role of Michael Corleone's daughter Mary but she withdrew due to exhaustion from making a bunch of shitty and forgettable movies like Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael and Mermaids. So instead of finding ANY trained actress IN THE WORLD, Francis Ford Coppola's ego decided to cast his own daughter Sofia. She has gone on to redeem herself, kind of, as a screenwriter and director but her performance here left a lot to be decide and caused an enormous gaping hole in the film. We agree with the Washington Post's Hal Hinson who described her acting as "hopelessly amateurish."
FMAD suggests: Bring in any of several hundreds of actresses who could have played the role. Adjust your filming schedule and rewrite scenes if need be. Just a few potential names off the top of my head to consider for the part include Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Angelica Huston, or Madonna.
Pay Robert Duvall His Money
The biggest name not to return to the third movie is Robert Duvall as the Irish adopted son of Vito Corleone, consigliere Tom Hagen. Everyone agrees that this was because of movie troubles but different players agree on the specifics. The bottom line was that we were reduced to a pitiful replacement in George Hamilton's character whose name is so inconsequential that it escapes me even though I have the interweb at my fingertips. Tom Hagen was a major player in The Godfather series and for him to have died off-camera leaves us limp.
FMAD suggests: Pay that man his money. Give the Oscar-winning Duvall what he asks for and bring Tom Hagen to our screens.
Focus, Daniel-san. Focus.
The plot is all over the place and doesn't narrow in on what is important. In the original movie, everything related to the Corleone Family's war against other New York families and its impact on the characters. In Part Two everything was related to Michael's dealings with Hyman Roth that took us from Lake Tahoe to New York to Cuba but it was all focused on that. Part Three is all over the place with subplots that just don't matter. There's the romance between Mary Corleone and her cousin Vincent, the heir apparent. We have Michael's son Anthony pursuing a music career, Michael and his ex-wife Kay trying to reconcile, even an irrelevant glorified cameo by Bridget Fonda as a journalist.
FMAD suggests: Trim the fat off the plot and let's concentrate on what's at the heart of the story: Michael taking on corrupt Vatican officials and their mobster allies in a battle for money and power.
Tone Down The Drama
Francis Ford Coppola was looking to make a Shakespearean tragedy (cf. King Lear) of operatic proportions and that's exactly what we get. But that doesn't mean it was good. The first two movies had a realism to them even while they were fantastical. Godfather III holds that one note of over-the-top drama throughout. The acting and direction play into that drama as everyone seems to be eating their Wheaties and chewing up each scene like it's a high school production of Fiddler On The Roof.
FMAD suggests: Take it down a notch. Michael Corleone is going to be a tragic figure even without all the pomp and nonsense that takes away from the story and turns some of the better actors of their generation into hacks.
Create A More Stand-Alone Movie
The film would be better if it wasn't obsessed with its own history and having moments referred to in nerdom as "fanwanky". Did we really need to have Andy Garcia's character be Sonny Corleone's illegitimate son from his trysts with the girl he nailed during the wedding in Part One? He could have been Sonny's legitimate son and we wouldn't need to deal with rehashing a minor detail of the original movie. Michael didn't have to reconnect with his former protector Don Tommassino in Sicily nor did we need any of the moments that limited the enjoyment of the movie to certain people without allowing everyone to partake.
FMAD suggests: Keep it simple, stupid. Obviously there will be ties to the previous two films but you don't have to beat the snot out of us with references and connections.
So that's all I got for this one. Remember it's not personal; it's only business. Next up: Caddyshack II. Yeah I don't where to start with that one either.
Comments
Yep, you nailed it. Francis
Yep, you nailed it. Francis and his pretentious, overwrought, blowhard ideas ruined what could have been and should have been beautiful. JAMF.
I think Tom Hagen's absence helps Michael as a character
I agree with the fact that Tom Hagen was a huge character, he was integral to the Corleone family, he was part of it, he is, for all intensive purposes, another Corleone kid.
It is sad that his death was placed in between the two films. At it is sad that his main function within the Corleone crime family was filled with George Hamilton in a rather thankless role.
However, Tom's absence helps establish the character Michael is in this movie. Michael has a big change between Part II and Part III, and that is that he now feels alone and regrets it, cuase its his fault. By killing Fredo, and destroying his relationship with Kay. He has been left alone, only with the bitter Connie, who is no companion at all for him.
Michael's loneliness is a key factor, and had Tom Hagen been around, he would not feel that, he would still be that dark Michael from Part II. Tom was like a brother to Michael, even more so than Fredo was. With the loss of Tom, Michael lost everyone. So, I would have had Hagen to be abscent from Part III as well.
However, his death should have been handled with more respect. It is bearly mentioned. I remember I had a teacher of literature and drama that hated Part III, I told him to give it a second chance, and he did. After he saw it, he told me that he liked it a whole lot more, and besides the Sofia Coppola complaint, he had doubts about Hagen's fate. He asked me "is that even explained in the movie?" I told him about the fact that the young priest played by the not so young John Savage was Hagen's son, and that Michael mentions Tom died during the party while he recommends him to the Archbishop. He vaguely remembered. Tom's passing should have been handled as a key, dramaric, turning point of the Corleone family, the fact that it wasn't is what irks me about Part III, that and Sofia of course.
Sofia is a great writer/director, at least I think so. But she is no actress, and Mary Corleone was a huge role, it is the great role Winona Ryder never played, she would have been perfect.
Sofia Coppola still hasn't
Sofia Coppola still hasn't redeemed herself. Lost in Translation is the modern day example of The Emperor's New Clothes. It's a boring pretentious piece of crap that a bunch of people jumped on the badwagon and called "high art."
That said, The Godfather III wasn't bad. Just bad compared to the first two. Also, the opera sequence at the end was freakin' awesome.
Who Should Have Played "Mary"
What a lot of people don't know is that before Winona Ryder, the actress they wanted for Mary was a then relative unknown. She was unavailable due to a prior commitment so the producers moved on, enter Ryder. The commitment was Steel Magnolias, the actress: Julia Roberts. She was 22 years old, and with dyed black hair, she could have been quite believable as the daughter of Pacino and Diane Keaton, and would almost definitely had sexual chemistry with Andy Garcia.
As a connoisseur of the GF series ...
I liked that line from The Sopranos, where the rap mogul who was shaking down Hesh for past record royalties said "Godfather III was, well, misunderstood."
I agree with most all your points, but would have preferred at least an actor of metro ethnic heritage to play Mary. Mary Elizabeth Mastroantonio or Laura San Giacomo would have been my picks (never Julia Roberts, of whom I've never been a fan. Anjelica Huston would have been too old). George Hamilton for the Hagen-like majordomo was a joke. As for the King Lear arc, it's important to note that while writing III with Puzo, Coppola was still dealing with the pain over his son Giancarlo's death a few years earlier. That's why he had to sacrifice Mary at the end as a means to punish Michael. You know, Coppola had every reason to bear a major Catholic guilt trip after his own pecadillos. I don't know if you read "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls," but the account of Coppola in the late 70s painted him as a serial infidel during and after the production of Apocalypse Now, reaching a point where his family nearly broke up. As important as Coppola regarded his traditional Italian American family, I'll venture to guess he must have been very disappointed in himself afterwards. I wonder if he ever thought that the sins of his past eventually caught up with him, like Michael's? Very telling was that little scene when Michael is suffering a diabetic attack and what name is he shouting? Fredo! Of all the things Michael did in all three films, killing his brother was clearly the worst and therefore, most damaging to his soul. All the millions he was giving the Vatican couldn't begin to cover the cost of his penance.
All in all, I'll still watch III if it comes on, if only to see the always brilliant Joe Mantegna in action. Too bad he's not on screen that much.
Remove the Incest!!
The part that always bothered me the most was the incest between the first cousins. If you take away the grossness it makes sense. Mary is attracted to power because of her father, someone in an indirect line wants to take over the family business since Michael doesn't want to.
I think if they made it Tom's son who wanted to take over the business it would have worked great. You would have still had someone who grew up "in the family" and has the drive and brains to actually do it. Remember Tom was the advisor for a really long time which also shows that although not literally blood, he is family. Then Mary could be attracted to the new don without getting all incest-y and gross. Then I'd actually watch that movie more than twice.
It's a shame that there are
It's a shame that there are undoubtedly a lot of readers will overlook a lot of very good points just because of their reaction to your proposals for who could have played Mary. Anjelica Huston and Mary-Elizabeth Mastrantonio are both very good actresses, and...oh, crap, I can't do it. Sorry, man. Madonna? Even if she was a good actress - and most of her performances have been awful - there's no way the audience could have looked past the fact that she was Madonna for a second. And she would have been in her 30s, making her too old for the part. Which means that it's a total mystery why anyone would seriously propose Huston, who could only have been Keaton's daughter if Keaton gave birth at the age of five. Hell, even though Huston was quite sexy back in the day (and is probably still damned good in bed, come to think of it), she's always looked older than Keaton. That audience would have burst out laughing every time they were expected to believe that Andy Garcia was five years older than her.
I agree with those who say that Sofia Coppola wasn't nearly as godawful as she was made out to be, and it's true that she looked the part, and seemed like an everyday teenager. But in light of the styles used by all of the other actors in the Godfather films, especially Pacino, she stood out like a sore thumb. She wasn't comparable on the awful-meter to, say, Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls, but she wasn't at all the right choice for the part, either.
The point the writer was
The point the writer was trying to make by including Madonna in that list was that they could have gotten Anyone who was in front of a camera before and she would have done a better job than Sofia Coppola. And, I found the inclusion of Madonna to be quite humorous. Plus, yes, Sofia Coppola is as bad as she is made out to be. All of her scenes literally make me cringe and squirm a bit. They are uncomfortably and distractingly bad.
Lara San Giacomma (sp?)
I heard that this litle hottie was up for the role of Mary. She could make sparks with Selleck in "Quigley..", imagine what she could do with a real actor like Andy Garcia. I agree totally with the article. It's failure rests on Coppala's beard.
Godfather III
FMAD,
There is only one way to fix Godfather III: burn the negative and all existing prints, videos and discs.
Everything
This is exactly what I thought. The cars werent even epic, it was unbelieveable that a guy (sonny) could go on a horse and kill someone in broad daylight...we had DNA testing...even if it was still growing. Michael Coreleone wasn't as fearful as he was in the first two installments. He slowly loses he power and thios is evident in the way Connie talks to him. In Godfather 2 she would of got shot for even looking at him the wrong way
I didnt like the relationship between Sofia and Sonny, it took away from the plot and only served to make the movie a romantic cliche.
Lastly the fact that Anthony didn't follow in his fathers footsteps will always be a wonder to me.
wait...what?!
i agree sofia coppola isn't nearly as bad as everyone says she is. your actress suggestions as replacements is misguided, abissmal, and completely ludicrous. annjelica houston is just as old as pacino and older than diane keaton. mastriantonio dependably overacts in everything she's in. and madonna? have you seen her act? moving on...
yes, the film needed better focus and robert duvall, good points. but how about the ridiculous helicopter assassination? things like that and the costume/set design, etc. tried to be too much of-its-time rather than the timeless like the previous entries. sure, they're period pieces, but they look as if they could've been made any time, where as G3 screams "this was made in the early 90s"
instead of crafting a seamless final entry, coppola succomed to the trends in style, over-the-top "action", bloated drama, and the notion that "every character needs their own story" rather than all playing a part in the over-arching story as you mentioned.
Three
As a lover of the "holy trilogy", I have to say I didn't have nearly as many problems with Three as eveyrone else did. I will go against the grain and say that I actually somewhat enjoyed Sofia Coppola in the role.
She looks like Mary should look. She behaves like Mary should behave. She's about as Italian looking as you can get and i though she held her own against some powerhouses of cinema.
Madonna? Winona Ryder? Seriously? Either of those two would have stuck out like such a sore thumb. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio? You can't play Gina Montana and then play Mary Corleone it just doesn't work at all. Anjelica Huston? That has to have been a joke. She's older than Talia Shire, how the hell would she play Michael Corleone's DAUGHTER?
Sofia might not have been the best actress in the universe, but for me, she fit somehow.
George Hamilton? For me that was my biggest disappointment. Some super-tanned mook feebly attempting to fill the shoes of a much superior actor. Don't even get me started on Bridget Fonda. That was a colossal waste of time and celluloid. Completely pointless.
But I liked the operatic feel. The opera climax was fantastic for me. The final scene was a little over the top, but honestly, how else could you have ended it? Michael had to die alone and miserable and feeble. He lost everything he had and he died on those steps right along with Mary. The final scene was nothing more than the vessel running out of gas.
Is Three as good as the first two? Not even close. But for me it does tie up a magnificent story and I thought it was a satisfying conclusion to the saga. Flawed, yes. But a fitting end.
View my selection of Godfather stuff here:
http://www.dlmentertainment.com/shopcart/search.asp?searchtext=godfather...
Cheers,
Derek M
DLM Entertainment
Anjelica Huston as Al pacino
Anjelica Huston as Al pacino and Diane Keaton's daughter!!!!!
Plenty of other young actresses who could have pulled off Mary Coreleone 20 years ago
Molly Ringwald anyone?
Madonna?!
I know she was the mother of our Lord, but that was 2000 years ago and we don't know if she had any acting experience, so - wait, you mean the singer?! She might be a less likely choice! And if that was a joke, be careful - that can be hard to pick up on the printed page without some clues.
Can we let fo of Sofia now?
Part 3 of The Godfather is my favourite movie of the trilogy, and I like it precisely for the reasons it is disliked. I like it because it is sprawling, messy and human. I like it because it has an operatic grandeur. I like it because it concentrates on human emotions rather than internecine warfare. I like it because it is Shakespearean and it reaches beyond its grasp.
The Sofia Copppola bashing is exactly that; a fashion that was started years ago and everyone is grimly hanging onto. What are you afraid of, being the first kid to disagree with the peer group? The casting of Sofia was a brave idea that paid off; she comes across as a normal kid in extraordinary circumstances. She's gauche and awkward, like a real kid. She does not offer up the polished pain of a Dakota Fanning, or the shiny all-American Disneyesque 'beauty' of a Miley Cyrus.
You could be forgiven for thinking she was the lead in the movie the amount of vituperation that is landed on her perfomance. She is barely in it, and is a fairly incidental character. Let it go.
There is a school of fanboy 'hate' that this piece very much belongs to: make sure you get in 'Sofia ruined the movie' and then criticise the film for all the ways it's different from the other two films. Different is good. Try watching it without the expectancy that it should be Godfather 1 or 2 a new way. It might surprise you.
instead of Sofia
I agree another actress should have been used, but not the the three you mentioned. Madonna is a great talent but can not translate it into acting. The other two were just too old to be five years younger than Andy Darcia.
Otherwise FFC should have had you around during the script writing process
Madonna?
Madonna?
Winona
Winona Ryder would have been a huge improvement, even though her exhaustion cleared up in time to make "Edward Scissorhands" instead.
Well said.
Well said.
a great movie
What's wrong with the Godfather part III as it is? Yes, the performance of Sofia Copolla is not great but that's the only flaw. In my opinion part III is also a masterpiece just as the 2 other chapters.