Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 102: Fri Apr 12

The Godfather Trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola)
The Godfather
(1972);  The Godfather Part II (1974) & The Godfather Part III (1990)
Prince Charles Cinema, 9pm

Chicago Reader review of The Godfather:
The ultimate family film. Francis Ford Coppola gives full due to the themes of clannish insularity that made Mario Puzo's novel a best seller, though his heart seems to be with Al Pacino's lonely, willful isolation. This 1972 feature is sharp, entertaining, and convincing—discursive, but with a sense of structure and control that Coppola hasn't achieved since.
Dave Kehr
Here is the trailer.

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Chicago Reader review of The Godfather Part II:
Three hours and 20 minutes of Al Pacino suffering openly, Robert Duvall suffering silently, Diane Keaton suffering noisily, and (every so often) Robert De Niro suffering good-naturedly is almost too much, but Francis Ford Coppola pulls it off in grand style. This 1974 sequel never bores, though Gordon Willis's lights-in-your-face cinematography (with its heavy overhead lighting and all those browns and yellows) gets to you after a while, and Coppola's preoccupation with religious ritual almost spoils some quietly effective scenes.
Dan Druker
Here is the trailer

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Chicago Reader review of The Godfather Part III: Francis Ford Coppola's tragic and worthy (if uneven) conclusion to his Godfather trilogy (1990), which he wrote in collaboration with Mario Puzo, represents a certain moral improvement over its predecessors by refusing to celebrate and condemn violence and duplicity in the same breath, or at least to the same degree. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino at his best) seeks absolution for his past sins, and although a cardinal grants it at one point (in a powerful confession scene), the film itself refuses to. While some of the allegorical implications persist (crime equals capitalism, Mafia equals family, both equal America), the decline of America in a world market where both European money and the Vatican are made to seem as corrupt as the Corleones leads to an overall change of focus. The episodic construction yields a strong first and third act and a sagging middle, and one regrets the absence of Robert Duvall, whose character provided a crucial link between crime and business in the first two parts.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here is the trailer.

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