The Godfather The Coppola Restoration
October 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

It is difficult to imagine a world without The Godfather, yet the original movie was nearly scuttled in Paramount’s negotiations and sold. Francis Ford Coppola was not the first director offered the project, and once he did accept it there were battles with producers and studio heads to keep it as Coppola envisioned it. Yet survive it did, to win Academy Awards and recently be named by the American Film Institute as the second-greatest American film ever made, losing out only to Citizen Kane. The Godfather Part II won its share of awards, including being the only sequel to ever win an Academy Award. The conclusion of the story, The Godfather Part III, seemed disappointing at the time of its release, but seen as the last part of a continuing saga, it is quite good. The format here dictates that I give an overall set rating, but were I to rate film the films separately, this is what the list would be: The Godfather, *****; The Godfather Part II, ****1/2; The Godfather Part III, ****.

The Godfather movies tell the story of a family that happens to be involved in crime and illegal dealings. We’re never shown how those transactions affect the average citizen; we’re only shown how the Corleone family grows and how it interacts with other Mafia dynasties. Some see the trilogy as an allegory of the rise of capitalism to the beginning of the corporate power that has culminated in what some see as the corporate welfare state of today. The Godfather is open to interpretation on some levels, but it remains for all an epic portrayal of family. It has become part of our culture in an even bigger way than Dirty Harry or Jaws or a film also reviewed this month, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. All of these, topped by The Godfather, are films that everyone knows about, even if they haven’t seen them and have fathered images, phrasing, and concepts that have literally become part of our society.

I saw each movie on its first theatrical release, and each looked simply wonderful. They were, especially the first one, dark for a large portion of the running time, yet the darkness was used to make a statement. The outdoor scenes were the opposite -- extremely bright, with blown-out whites and an overall golden glow. We find out from one of the supplements in this Blu-ray set that the yellow effect was done in making prints and not on the original negatives, so what we have seen from home-video formats thus far has been true to the negative but not accurate to the original theatrical releases. The Blu-ray releases mirror the latter and look gorgeous. You will still see an occasional pinhole or slight defect, but overall this is a glorious restoration.

The sound for the first two movies was mono and that has been re-mixed into 5.1 that only makes use of the surrounds during crowd scenes (including shootouts) and thunderstorms, but the overall sound has much greater dynamic range and clarity than anything heard in previous editions. The all-important Nino Rota music that set a somewhat European tone is magnificent here.

The set is loaded with extras. There’s the complete set from the 2001 DVD edition, which contains Coppola commentaries for each movie. These are informative and at times surprisingly humble. In addition there are making-of featurettes; a Corleone family tree, where you can click on each family member’s name to find out more about him or her; a historical timeline; and copious still-frame galleries. New to Blu-ray, and all in HD, are an excellent documentary on how the first film was made, and how it almost failed to be made, and several other neat featurettes on various aspects of the filmmaking process. There are enough supplements that, omitting the commentaries, which are found on the first three discs with each respective film, they take a whole separate fourth disc.

The Godfather movies are an iconic part of our American fabric. They deserve to be preserved, revered, and presented with the utmost care. That is exactly what Paramount has done to create a release that is a must for any Blu-ray Disc collection.

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