The Godfather: Bonus features disc (2008) [The Coppola restoration]

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writers: Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Marlon Brando

The supplemental disc include a host of new features mixed in with older ones that were previously created for the 2001 release. As if the restored films alone would be reason enough to own this set, the extra features are plentiful and mostly informative.

Extras:
- Godfather World HD
- The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't HD
- When the Shooting Stopped HD
- Emulsional Rescue: Revealing The Godfather HD
- The Godfather on the Red Carpet HD
- Behind the Scenes
- Profiles on the Filmmakers
- Additional Scenes
- The Corleone Family Tree
- Galleries

It's nice to see that all of the new extras have been produced in HD.

Among the new offerings, "Godfather World" features critics, authors, filmmakers and other celebrities talking about how they've been influenced by the films. Among those interviewed are Alec Baldwin, Richard Belzer, David Chase, William Friedkin, Trey Parker, Guillermo del Toro, Joe Mantegna (fun fact: he's voiced Fat Tony on The Simpsons for 17 years!), Sarah Vowell and Steven Spielberg. The featurette also covers the influence on pop culture as a whole, from The Sopranos to The Simpsons.

"The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't" is the story of how the corporate masters at Paramount (then owned by Gulf & Western) tried their best to screw up The Godfather at every turn (they didn't want it filmed in New York; they didn't want it to be a period piece; they balked at the casting of DeNiro, Brando and Pacino; and generally disapproved of Coppola's entire vision). Through interviews with Coppola and his contemporaries such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, as well as Hollywood legend Robert Evans, the old story of the making of The Godfather is rehashed once again. It's old territory, sure, but it's still interesting to hear the story from those involved. It highlights the clash between art and commerce and ends up being as much critique of American capitalism as the film itself.

More disagreements emerge in "When the Shooting Stopped," which focuses on the fights over the editing process, the length of the film, the music and the pace of the story. It's also one of the few new segments which discusses The Godfather III in detail, as the editor discusses the creation of the sequence in which Michael laments the death of his daughter.

The most pointless inclusion here is "Godfather on the Red Carpet," which seems to have been filmed at the premiere of the Paramount film Cloverfield. In this piece of gratuitous studio promotion, various stars from that film and other Paramount releases talk extemporaneously about their opinions and recollections of the Godfather trilogy. The actors appear to have been taken surprise by the question and sometimes seem a little out of their depth. The "Godfather World" featurette accomplishes the same thing, only better and with celebrities who actually have some authority on the subject.

"Four Short Films on The Godfather" is a bit of a misleading title, as the segments aren't really short films, but interview pieces. "GF vs. GF Part II" features film critics and other celebrities debating the merits of the two films and their opinions on which is better. "Riffing on the Riffing" has Richard Belzer testing the knowledge of the star of a one-man stage version of The Godfather with random quotes. "Cannoli" explains the significance of the famous Italian dessert as it relates to the films and reveals that the famous "leave the gun, take the canolli" line was not originally in the script, but improvised by actor Richie Castellano as Clemenza. And speaking of "Clemenza," the final segment here has Coppola answering the lingering question of the character's fate, something which has puzzled fans to this day. Apparently, the director refused to comply with Castellano's request that his girlfriend write his dialogue and chose to write him out of the sequel. In Coppola's mind, he merely died of natural causes.

As for the original scenes, 34 in all, they are enough to keep even a casual fan of the trilogy engaged for hours, so be sure to set aside some time to pour through them. They've all been released before on various sets through the years, but have never been collected in one place like this before. They are organized in a timeline by dates, but the dates of the scenes are different. So in the section marked 1892 - 1930, you're really getting 1901 - 1927. It's a big confusing. And because the sequel essentially bookends the first, the chronology doesn't follow the films. A date and scene description precedes each clip





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