Francis Ford Coppola is no stranger to recutting the films of his heyday, often by inserting deleted scenes he believed should have never hit the cutting room floor. In the case of Apocalypse Now Redux, it led to the bloating of a film that shouldn’t have been touched in its theatrical cut form. So it is curious that The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (previously titled The Godfather Part III) comes in at a shorter run time than the original, with Coppola taking to the reel with a pair of scissors, hacking out all the scenes he deemed unnecessary, and rearranging those that remained.
There is no amount of editing that could turn The Godfather Part III into a masterpiece on the level of its predecessors, but the most striking change in this recut is its much leaner, more character-centric plot. The opening papal ceremony is gone, as are the flashbacks to the previous films, and instead we immediately move right into Michael’s meeting with Archbishop Gilday, the head of the Vatican bank. The result is hugely effective. This meeting is the key to Michael’s journey in the film, revealing his new disposition, his motive, and most importantly, the inciting incident of the film. This recut plot is simply more economical, and no longer leaves its audience hanging to figure out who this new Michael is. It is clear from the start – he is a man looking to buy his way out of sin, trying to befriend the Catholic church yet still lacking reverence for it.
The other major change to the film is ending. Rather than seeing Michael falling out his chair, dropping an orange, and dying, we instead witness him put on his shades as a sad, old man, while the film fades to a quote from Part II.
“When a Sicilian wishes you ‘Cent’anni’, it means ‘for long life’… and a Sicilian never forgets.”
I am in two minds here over which ending is preferable. The symbol of the orange is a common thread through the Godfather series, foreshadowing danger or death whenever it appears. The orange remains a sinister omen in this last instalment, but as Michael is revealed to be diabetic it also cruelly becomes a life-saving food for him, demonstrated in one scene where he drinks its juice to keep his sugar levels up. He quite literally can’t separate himself from that which represents his own downfall – both the oranges and the mafia life. Using the symbol as a bookend to the series tied up this device in satisfying, poetic manner.
This orange isn’t so integral to the ending that the coda crumbles apart without it though. Francis Ford Coppola has made the decision to eliminate Michael’s death from the film entirely – ironic given the new title The Death of Michael Corleone. The moment Michael’s soul is destroyed is not in this final scene, however, but rather immediately before when his daughter, Mary, is shot to death by a stray bullet intended for him. His life of sin has led to this crushing loss, and not even his penance could pay for it all. Any faults in Sofia Coppola’s acting here are soon forgotten thanks to Al Pacino, who silently screams in utter despair.
The subsequent flashforward to an elderly Michael seems to brush away everything that happened in his life between these two points in time, as if nothing in the remaining years has ever mattered. In this recut version, he isn’t granted the sweet relief of death. As the final quote elucidates, Michael is granted “a long life” to face all of his sins and grieve all of his losses.
By cutting a few unnecessary scenes and one significant moment from The Godfather Part III, Francis Ford Coppola has drastically improved the film as both a viewing experience and as a closing statement on the trilogy. The Death of Michael Corleone is not a perfect fitting end to its progenitors, as it still retains some of the flaws of the original. But with this recut Coppola is finally getting his original wish to recognise the film’s standing in the series as an optional coda, not a necessary sequel.
