The Godfather Part III (1990) is the third and final film in the
Godfather trilogy written by Mario Puzo and
Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Coppola. It completes the story of
Michael Corleone, a Mafia godfather who tries to
legitimize his criminal empire. The movie also weaves into its plot a fictionalized account of real-life events — the mysterious
1978 death of Pope John Paul I and the Papal banking scandal of 1981-1982 — and
links them with each other and with the affairs of Michael Corleone. The film stars Al Pacino,
Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Andy Garcia, Eli Wallach, Joe
Mantegna, George Hamilton, Bridget
Fonda, and Sofia Coppola.
Plot summary
The movie begins in 1979, with a brief flashback establishing the long and tragic history of
criminal activity within, and by, the Corleone family. Much has changed. Michael
Corleone is now a defeated, depressed old man who feels tremendous guilt for indulging in his ruthless ambition many years
ago. The thoughts of his children, and their future and happiness, is all he has to show for his ruthless ambition of his early
years. His adopted brother Tom Hagen is now dead. The Corleone compound at Lake Tahoe is
abandoned. His wife Kay has divorced him. And beset by his own depression and guilt, he had relinquished control of his children
back to his rebellious wife, who spurned him long ago. Michael has returned to New York
City, where he is self-consciously using his enormous wealth and power to restore his dignity and reputation in the eyes
of the public. The violent criminal element of the Corleone family has been largely abandoned, ostracized by Michael himself as
well as the hardened public, which no longer romanticizes the gangster lifestyle. In fact, Michael has embraced corporate
America, which is now more tolerant of Michael's nihilism, where he is able to rebuild the Corleone family as a legitimate
enterprise using the blood money from his free-wheeling gangster years. The aging thugs and sociopathic soldiers from Michael's
past have either gone into the underground, or have been relegated to the background of Michael's life, serving as bodyguards for
him and his family. Because his psyche and family remain largely damaged by his violent methods, Michael now struggles between
repairing his fragile relationships while trying to contain the violent sociopaths that still fester in the shadows and ruins of
his decaying criminal empire. In an attempt to seize upon the changing times, Michael creates a charity, the Vito Corleone Foundation, in memory of his father, and at a ceremony in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, he is presided over by Archbishop Gilday, where Michael is awarded the Order of St. Sebastian. Kay, who has remarried, sits with Michael's children, Anthony Corleone and Mary Corleone.
At the lavish party following the ceremony, Anthony tells his father that he is going his own way, dropping out of law school
to pursue a career as an opera singer. Kay supports his choice, but Michael argues in private about Anthony’s future, wishing
that his son would join the business or do something respectful, like being a lawyer. Suddenly, Vincent Mancini, Sonny Corleone’s illegitimate son,
shows up at the party. He is embroiled in a feud with Joey Zasa, the Corleone family's mafioso
muscle. What remains of the old Corleone criminal empire is now under Zasa's stewardship. However, the old Corleone neighborhood
in New York is in ruins, and has become lawless. In a room away from the party, Vincent and Zasa tell Michael about their feud.
The discussion grows violent, with Vincent accusing Zasa of being an out-of-control monster who mocks Michael behind his back.
Michael makes it clear that he is not "a gangster" and that whatever bad blood exists between Vincent and Joey Zasa is none of
his business, and must be settled between only them. So he asks the two men to make peace with one another. Feigning peace with
Zasa, Vincent bites off part of Zasa’s ear after Zasa whispers "bastardo" in Vincent's ear. Zasa is escorted out and Michael
scolds Vincent for his violent ways. But impressed by Vincent's passionate loyalty to protect him, Michael agrees to take his
hot-headed nephew under his wing. The party concludes with a family picture where Michael asks Vincent to join the rest of the
family.
That night, two men break into Vincent’s home, after Vincent has spent the night with an attractive journalist played by
Bridget Fonda. Vincent kills one, frightening the other into revealing Zasa as the man who
sent them. The scene closes with Vincent shooting the second man.
Later, in an attempt to garner tremendous respectability and wealth for the Corleone Family through legitimate enterprise,
Michael seeks to buy the Vatican's shares in Immobiliare, an international
real estate holding company, of which 25% is controlled by the Vatican. He negotiates the transfer of $600,000,000 to the
Vatican Bank with Archbishop Gilday, who has
plunged the Holy See into tremendous debt through his poor management and corrupt dealings as its president. While in
Vatican City, however, Michael learns that several influential parties oppose the deal for
many reasons, not the least of which is the extensive criminal history that has tarnished the Corleone name. Because of this and
the failing health of the 81-year-old Pope, ratification of the deal would be far more complicated than he had anticipated.
Don Altobello, an elderly New York mafioso, tells Michael that his old New York
partners want in on the Immobiliare deal. A meeting is arranged in Atlantic
City, and Michael appeases most of the mafiosi with generous payoffs from their casino days. Zasa gets nothing. Furious,
he declares that Michael is his enemy, and tells everyone in the room they must choose between him and Michael. Zasa storms out
of the meeting. Don Altobello, the perpetual negotiator, runs after him to try and talk to him about this irrational move.
Minutes later, a helicopter hovers outside the conference room and sprays a barrage of bullets through the ceiling windows.
Almost everyone present is killed, but Michael, Vincent (acting as a human shield for his uncle), and Michael's bodyguard,
Al Neri, all manage to escape. Back at his apartment in New York, as Michael considers how to
respond to this hit, he suffers a diabetic stroke, and is hospitalized.
Though they are cousins, Vincent and Mary begin a romantic relationship. Unbeknownst to Michael, Vincent, with the urging of
his aunt Connie, plots revenge against Joey Zasa. During a street fair similar to that seen in The Godfather Part II during which Don Fanucci is killed by Vito Corleone, Vincent and his
accomplices kill Zasa's bodyguards, and Vincent shortly murders Zasa himself. Michael, still hospitalized, berates Vincent when
he finds out, but Vincent insists that he got the go-ahead from Al Neri, who in turn insists that he got the go-ahead from
Connie, who has become deeply involved in family affairs. Michael insists that Vincent end his relationship with Mary because
Vincent’s involvement in the family puts Mary's life in jeopardy. Vincent agrees.
Michael Corleone (Pacino) and his nephew Vincent (Garcia).
While in Sicily, Michael tells Vincent to speak with Don Altobello and, in order to see where the old man’s loyalties lie, to
intimate to him his intentions of leaving the Corleone family, under the pretense that his affair with Mary is still in full
swing, and that his loyalty to Michael has been supplanted by his desire to continue the relationship. Altobello supports the
idea of Vincent switching his allegiance, and introduces him to Licio Lucchesi, the man behind the plot to prevent Michael’s
acquisition of Immobiliare.
Michael visits Cardinal Lamberto, a well-intentioned and pious priest, to speak about the Immobiliare deal. Lamberto convinces
Michael to make his first confession in thirty years; among other sins, Michael confesses to ordering the killing of his brother
Fredo. It is an extremely emotional moment for Michael, and it troubles him deeply. Touring Sicily with Kay, who has arrived for
Anthony’s operatic debut, Michael also asks for her forgiveness. As both admit that they still love each other, Michael receives
word that Don Tommasino, his Sicilian friend and constant ally of the Corleone Family, has been killed, signaling that a new
round of violence is about to begin. Cardinal Lamberto is elected
Pope John Paul I, which means that the Immobiliare deal will likely be ratified, due to
his intention to "clean up" the dealings of the Vatican. The new Pope's intentions come as a death knell to the plot against the
ratification of the Immobiliare deal, prompting frantic attempts by the plotters to cover their own tracks.
Vincent tells Michael what he has learned from Altobello: Lucchesi is behind the plot against the Immobiliare deal, and an
assassin (Mosca da Montelepre), the same who killed Tommasino, has been hired by Altobello to kill Michael. Vincent wants to
strike back, but Michael cautions him, saying that if he goes ahead with such a plan, there’ll be no going back. Vincent insists
on revenge, and Michael relents. He makes Vincent head of the Corleone family, the new Godfather. In exchange for the promotion,
Vincent agrees to put an end to his relationship with Mary once and for all.
The family travels to Palermo to see Anthony perform the male lead of Cavalleria Rusticana at the renowned opera house
Teatro Massimo. Vincent’s plans for revenge go into effect. Interspersed with scenes from
Anthony’s performance are the brutal murders of Lucchesi, Altobello, Gilday, and their associates, who have already poisoned the
new Pope. This scene also mirrors that at the end of The Godfather, where Michael had
orchestrated the deaths of the heads of the other crime families during the baptism of his godson.
The assassin hired by Don Altobello to kill Michael descends upon the opera house during Anthony's performance, killing two of
Vincent’s men in his attempt at murdering Michael, but the opera ends before he has the chance to do so. The assassin retreats to
the opera house facade’s staircase, and tries to shoot Michael there.
Mary is confronting her father about the forced breakup with Vincent, when two shots ring out. The first hits Michael in the
shoulder. While reeling from the impact, the second hits Mary in the chest, and she dies calling out to her father a single
questioning word: "Dad?" Vincent then kills the assassin with a single shot. Cradling Mary's lifeless body in his arms, Michael
screams with primal pain and rage. The first two screams are rendered silently with only background music; the third shout is
heard by the audience. As they grieve, Connie, Kay and Vincent look upon Michael's distraught reaction momentarily shocked out of
their own grief, almost in surprise, presumably only now realizing how truly dear his family were to him.
The scene dissolves to a short montage of Michael's memories, the first being a dance with Mary, the second being a dance with
his first wife, Apollonia, and the last being a dance with Kay. The film ends in an unmentioned year with an aged and broken
Michael, seated in the front yard of his Sicilian villa. He slowly puts on a pair of sunglasses,
slumps out of his chair, collapses to the ground, and dies, totally alone. A small dog sniffs around his body and the screen
fades out.
Themes
As with all the Godfather films, Part III deals extensively with family. Salvation also plays an important role,
as Michael's attempts to redeem the family business involve the Corleones with the Vatican. In
confession, Michael reveals that he had ordered his brother Fredo's murder (in the previous
film), and states that this is one sin that is too heinous to be forgiven. The cardinal replies that "it is just that you should
suffer" for this sin, but there is an implied misunderstanding; Michael interprets the cardinal's comment as confirmation that
God will not forgive him for Fredo's murder, but the cardinal may be referring to the Catholic belief that one must ask for
forgiveness in order to receive it (and must promise not to repeat the sin), something Michael as a "Don" is unable to do.
However, several scenes later, after the death of Don Tommasino, Michael relents "You were so loved, Don Tommasino. Why was I
so feared, and you so loved? What was it? I was no less honorable. I wanted to do good." Then, as Michael cries, "What betrayed
me? My mind? My heart? Why do I condemn myself so?" Then, in prayer, "I swear, on the lives of my children: Give me a chance to
redeem myself, and I will sin, no more." This scene directly sets up the ending of the film as Michael finally receives his
chance at redemption, and as he swore on the lives of his children, he dies alone, an old man, redeemed only after paying the
ultimate price for his sins: the death of his daughter and a lifetime of agony.
Casting and the script
According to an article in Premiere magazine, Coppola and Puzo requested six months to complete a first draft of the script
with a release date of Easter 1991. Paramount agreed to give them six weeks for the script and lacking a holiday movie a release
date of Christmas Day 1990.
Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, and Talia Shire reprised their roles from the first two movies. According to Coppola's audio
commentary on the film in The Godfather DVD Collection, Robert Duvall refused to
take part unless he was paid a salary comparable to Al Pacino. On an episode of Inside the Actor's Studio, he commented he understood Pacino was the star but the
difference between their salaries was so great it was insulting. When Duvall dropped out, Coppola rewrote his screenplay to
portray the Hagen character as having died before the story begins. Coppola created the character "B.J. Harrison", played by
George Hamilton, to replace the Hagen character in the story. The director
further states that, to him, the movie feels incomplete "without [Robert] Duvall's participation." According to Coppola, had
Duvall agreed to take part in the film, the Hagen character would have been heavily involved in running the Corleone
charities.
Coppola felt that the first two films had told the complete Corleone saga. It was only his perilous financial status, after
the failure of a big-budget movie, that compelled him to take up Paramount's
long-standing offer to make a third installment.
He further comments that before he was brought on board, Paramount had already had a script prepared (in fact,
Dean Riesner had written a first draft screenplay for the film in late 1979), centering on
the Vincent character, with a plot revolving around the "new kind of wiseguy" (in Coppola's words) of the '70s and '80s, and
involving the lesser known drug cartels.
Coppola says that he felt The Godfather saga was essentially Michael's story, one about how "a good man becomes
evil," as the writer/director puts it on the same commentary track referenced above. Coppola says
he felt that Michael had not really "paid for his sins" committed in the second film, and wanted this final chapter to
demonstrate that. In keeping with this theme, Coppola completely re-wrote the script; he also wanted to title the movie, "The
Death of Michael Corleone," but Paramount balked.
Julia Roberts was originally cast as "Mary Corleone", but dropped out due to scheduling
conflicts. Madonna wanted to play the role, but Coppola later felt she was just
too old for the part. Sofia Coppola, the director's daughter, was given the role of
Michael Corleone's daughter when Winona Ryder dropped out of the film at the last minute
(supposedly due to illness). Her much-criticized performance resulted in her father being accused of nepotism, a charge Coppola bitterly refutes in the commentary track, asserting, in his opinion, that critics,
"beginning with an article in Vanity Fair," were "using [my] daughter to
attack me," something he finds ironic in light of the film's denouement when the Mary character pays the ultimate price for her
father's sins. However, the accusations of nepotism may be construed as having traction when one considers that Talia Shire is
Francis Ford Coppola's sister. In addition, several other actors related to Francis Ford Coppola have had their careers
propelled, including Nicholas Cage, Jason
Schwartzman, Roman Coppola and Robert
Carmine.
As an infant, Sofia Coppola had played Michael Corleone's infant nephew in The
Godfather, during the climactic baptism/murder montage at the end of that film. (Sofia Coppola also appeared in
The Godfather, Part II, as a small immigrant child in the scene where the
9-year-old Vito Corleone arrives by steamer at Ellis Island.) The character of Michael's sister Connie is played by Francis Coppola's sister, Talia Shire. Other Coppola relatives with cameos in the
film included his mother, father (who wrote and conducted much of the music in the film), uncle and granddaughter, Gia. Michele
Russo, who plays the son of the assassin "Mosca," is also a distant Coppola relative, from the same town as Francis Coppola's
great-grandmother. In addition, Coppola cast Catherine Scorsese, mother of
Martin Scorsese, for a bit part.
Reception
Despite receiving generally positive reviews (the movie holds a 76% "fresh" rating on Rotten
Tomatoes), the film is quite widely considered to be the weakest of the three Godfather films. Common criticisms
include Sofia Coppola's acting, the plot being too outlandish and convoluted, as well as the storyline being too based on
continuity, rather than just a "stand alone" story. In his review for the film, Roger Ebert
stated that it's "not even possible to understand this film without knowing the first two." However, Ebert did give The
Godfather: Part III a very positive review. Giving the film three and a half stars, which is a higher rating than what he
gave The Godfather: Part II (three stars). Not only did he praise the film, he also defended the casting of Sofia Coppola,
who he felt wasn’t miscast. Stating that “there is no way to predict what kind of performance he (Francis Ford Coppola) might
have obtained from Winona Ryder, the experienced and talented young actress, who was
originally set to play this role. But I think Sofia Coppola brings a quality of her own to Mary Corleone. A certain up-front
vulnerability and simplicity that I think are appropriate and right for the role.” Ebert's colleague, Gene Siskel, gave the film four stars and placed it on his list of the 10 best films of 1990.
Leonard Maltin gave the film three stars and stated that it was “masterfully told,” but
he did refer to the casting of Sofia Coppola as an “almost-fatal flaw.”
Awards
The Godfather Part III was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Andy Garcia), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best
Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Song (for Carmine Coppola and
John Bettis for "Promise Me You'll Remember") and Best Picture. Sofia Coppola won a Golden Raspberry for worst supporting actress. It is the only movie in the series not to
win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Historical background
-
Parts of the film are very loosely based on real historical events concerning the ending of the Papacy of Paul VI, and the very short Papacy of John
Paul I in 1978, and the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in 1982. Like the character Cardinal Lamberto, who becomes John Paul I, the
historical John Paul I, Albino Luciani, reigned for only a very short time before being
found dead in his bed with a just-completed report about the Jesuit order nearby.
Journalist David Yallop argues that Luciani was planning a reform of Vatican finances
and that he died by poisoning; these claims are reflected in the film. Yallop also names as a suspect Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was the head of the Vatican bank, like the character Archbishop Gilday in the film.
However, while Marcinkus was noted for his muscular physique and Chicago
origins, Gilday is a mild Irishman.
The character of Frederick Keinszig, the Swiss banker who is murdered and left hanging under a bridge, mirrors the fate (and
physical appearance) of Roberto Calvi, the Italian head of the Banco Ambrosiano who was
found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 (it was unclear until very recently whether it was a case of suicide or, as the
Italian idiom has it, "being suicided." Courts in Italy have recently ruled the latter). The character of Licio Lucchesi, who
moves between the church, organized crime and Italian politics, recalls Licio Gelli, head of
the Propaganda Due Masonic lodge. The character of Joey Zasa bears many similarities to
the flashy John Gotti.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the movie, The Godfather Part III
(soundtrack), received a Golden Globe nomination for best score. Also, the
film's love theme "Promise Me You'll
Remember", sung by Harry Connick, Jr., received an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for best song.
Bibliography
- Rupert Cornwell, God's Banker: The Life and Death of Roberto Calvi, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1984.
- David Yallop, In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, Corgi, 1987
- Director's Commentary track on The Godfather Part III DVD by Francis Ford Coppola; included in the The Godfather
DVD Collection
External links
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