The Big Picture
While many television movies are inspired by famous films, it has become an increasingly popular trend to take previously existing films and convert them to the television format. Most recently, Baz Luhrmann announced that he would be recutting his 2008 historical epic Australia into the limited television series Faraway Downs, and IFC also revealed that the biopic BlackBerry will air as a three-part limited series on the AMC Network. While changing the format of a film may help it reach a broader audience (who may have a shorter attention span), sometimes the change of medium doesn’t really help. A film is shot to adhere to a specific narrative structure, and changing it into an episodic series of events may run counterintuitive to the original intentions. There’s no better evidence of the difference between the two mediums than The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II. While Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster classics are often held up as some of the greatest films ever made, an attempt to combine them into a limited even television series was considerably less impactful.
‘The Godfather Legacy’ Changed the Structure of Francis Ford Coppola’s Story
Released on NBC in 1977, The Godfather Legacy was an edited version of both The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II into four individual episodes. Although the series had to cut some of the more graphic violence and sexual content in order to fit within the confines of network television, it did include a few key deleted scenes that had been left out of the theatrical cut. Although network executives were obviously excited about any new project related to The Godfather, Coppola was not personally involved in the reediting process. Coppola was busy trying to raise funds to complete his work on his 1979 Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now, and left the editing to his editor Barry Malkin. Unfortunately, Coppola had added a unique perspective to The Godfather franchise that was completely lost when it was transitioned to television.
One of the reasons that The Godfather film series is so unique is their untraditional framing of events. Based on how the story is introduced at the beginning of the film, it seems like Vito Coreleone (Marlon Brando) will be the main character. However, Vito is soon incapacitated and relegated to a supporting role for the rest of the film; the baton passes to his son Michael (Al Pacino) to take up the mantle of the Corleone family. Although Michael has long since resisted his father’s corrupting influence, he essentially becomes the man he has feared by the end of the film. The Godfather: Part II is both a sequel and prequel to the first installment in the series, ensuring that both Michael and Vito can remain at the center of the story. In addition to showing the further events in Michael’s life as the Corleone family faces public resistance, The Godfather: Part II shows how Vito moved to the United States from Sicily. Ironically, Vito starts off as a young, naive young man like Michael.
The brilliance of The Godfather is showing how sons are destined to become their fathers; Michael is forced to follow within the footsteps of a man who terrifies everyone. Unfortunately, this was lost when the two films were turned into a narrative series. The juxtaposition of Michael and Vito isn’t as evident when it’s just a sequential series of events. The scenes with a young Robert De Niro as Vito were less impactful, as the viewer did not yet understand the man he would ultimately become. De Niro’s performance had worked initially because it seemed inconceivable that this promising young man could turn into a complete monster over the course of his lifetime.
‘The Godfather Legacy’ Restored Deleted Scenes
While seeing the deleted scenes was definitely fun for The Godfather fans, the sequences that Coppola had removed from the original cut were taken out for a reason. While they may have been interesting when viewed on their own, inserting them back into the narrative led to major tonal and pacing issues. One of the key sequences removed from the original cut was a scene of Michael returning from Sicily after killing Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) and Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) at the restaurant in the Bronx. In the original film, Michael’s return is first witnessed by his love interest, Kay Adams (Diane Keaton). The scene works because Michael’s return is seen through Kay’s eyes. She sees what a different man he has become, as he has now lived another life in Sicily with a different wife. This context is lost when Michael is seen returning to America on his own first.
The extended cut also includes more moments with other supporting characters, including Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), Sonny (the late great James Caan), Peter Clemenza (Richard S. Castellano), and Connie Corleone (Talia Shire). While it’s interesting to see what some of these characters were doing in between major plot points, it strays the film’s attention away from Michael and Vito. The Godfather is a story of fathers and sons, not an epic like Game of Thrones. Additionally, a few more action sequences that feature the conflicts between the Five Families feel forced, as the film had already done enough to create tension.
The flaws within The Godfather Legacy were clearer when the series was re-released in 1992 to include footage of The Godfather: Part III. The Godfather: Part III only further strays the attention of the series as it moves forward with a strange storyline involving Michael searching for redemption. This was a flaw during The Godfather: Part III’s initial release, and it’s even more baffling to see Michael try to “save his soul” directly after witnessing all the crimes that he committed in the first two films. The dramatic shift in the series timeline is also quite incongruous, as it’s weird to see Pacino age over a decade in between episodes. While the inclusion of extra footage is interesting, The Godfather doesn’t really work as a chronological progression of events. The dual structure of The Godfather: Part II is lost, and the connection between Vito and Michael becomes strained as a result of the changes in editing. Although it may serve as an interesting way to witness the events from a different point-of-view, recutting a film into a series simply isn’t a good format. If it failed The Godfather, then it can fail anything.
The Godfather is available to stream on Pluto TV in the U.S.
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