best sequel ever

I’m not sure exactly how I ended up with Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II [1974] in my dvd player, probably when the “Coppola Restoration” discs were released last September, I placed it on my Netflix queue and here it was. This digital restoration is eye-popping in its clarity, the areas of the image in shadow have come to life once more, and the full palate of Gordon Willis’ extraordinary cinematography and Technicolor’s three-strip dye transfer processing is truly mind-blowing.

As for the unavoidable comparisons with The Godfather [1972], Part II only exists and makes sense in relation to the first film, but evaluated side by side is clearly the greater achievement. Film scholar David Bordwell perhaps explained it best in 1979 when he wrote, “we might consider The Godfather as a classical narrative film and The Godfather Part II as more of an art film.” The first couple of times the narrative moves back and forth between Vito Corleone’s life as a young immigrant and his son Michael’s rise to power half a century later, titles orient us to the time and place, but soon the slow dissolves separating these stories connected by the first film make sense and feel right. Vito’s story was adapted from Mario Puzo’s novel by Coppola and the novelist, while Coppola wrote the 1950s story arc, before Apocalypse Now [1979] robbed him of the ability to tell a coherent story.

The performances in Part II are as awesome and sobering as the images and story, and the film’s elements come together in an epilogue as devastating as any ever filmed. The third film, released in 1990, was understandably irresistable to make, but we should do ourselves the favor of pretending it doesn’t exist except as an unrelated, better-than-average mob flick. However, to think that between the first and second Godfather films, Coppola made The Conversation [1974] with Gene Hackman, well it just doesn’t hardly matter what he made before or since. Where’s my Netflix queue?