The Godfather Trilogy (50th Anniversary)

S P O I L E R__A L E R T! ! ! This is crammed with spoilers. You can’t discuss the theme of a movie or book without them.This discussion of the theme is based on the recent director’s cut of the third movie: “Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone”, along with the original versions of the first two movies. I believe posterity will judge ‘coda’ the real third movie, the one that does full justice to the first two.The Godfather trilogy is a Greek tragedy, on an epic scale made possible by a total runtime of 9 hours, the length of four or five typical movies.In the process of joining the family business and murdering his father’s intended assassins, and later becoming godfather, Michael had several goals:1. Everything for his family.2. He wanted to be a not-a-gangster gangster, to take the family business legitimate and bequeath it to his family.3. By implication, he wanted to maintain some level of integrity. This was made fully apparent by his later guilt in ‘coda’.In pursuit of mafia business, all of this was shattered.1. Far from maintaining some integrity, Michael orchestrated multiple murders at the end of the first two movies – including his brother Fredo and his sister’s husband Carlo -- and sanctioned another wave at the end of ‘coda’ by making Vincent godfather. In between, he had an innocent prostitute murdered in a scheme to blackmail Senator Geary.In the end, he was racked with guilt over the things he had done.2. His family was lost to him.-- First his Sicilian wife Apollonia was killed in an attempted assassination of Michael, brought on by his mafia activity.-- Then his second wife Kate left him, repelled by his crimes.-- Then, because of Michael's murder of Fredo, his son Tony wouldn’t join the family business even if it became legitimate.-- The final agonizing blow was the death of his daughter Mary in another assassination attempt.3. The legitimate world he was trying to join turned out to be no better than the world he was trying to leave.The movie’s portrayal of the Vatican is over the top, but I would maintain that the violence of Michael’s intended legitimate world was more than just a fictional device of the movie. The “legitimate” corporate world is as murderous as the Mafia – not rife with assassinations, but just as violent on a mass scale: deaths due to unsafe working conditions (in numbers rarely publicized), unsafe products (nicotine, oxycontin, …), poisoning of the environment, and wars rooted in the pursuit of profits. The corruption of the Vatican is a reflection of the world they're embedded in.Not-a-gangster gangsters are a mirage. In 'coda', the “death" of Michael Corleone turned out to be the collapse of his dreams, leaving him an empty shell – the fruit of his early fateful decision to join the family business.(I especially enjoyed how the mass uprising of the Cuban revolution demonstrated the real way to end Mafia violence, rendering them instantly powerless, their grand schemes in pieces and fleeing in fear. It provides a nice counterpoint to Michael's hopeless change-from-within approach.)After I knew how things turned out and thought about the theme, I re-watched all of it. I recommend it.In particular I recommend the recently issued version of “The Godfather Trilogy”, available from Amazon, the one with a red and gold cover. It has ‘coda’ and the original version of the first two movies. It features much improved colors and consequent improved visual detail, a labor of love by the restorers. There is also a generous bonus disk that sheds light on the theme, especially Extras > behind the scenes > a look inside.

Very good

Great sound and picture. So glad I found these classics.

Excelente BlueRay, óptimos extras!

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