The Lives of Francis Ford Coppola
New York magazine|December 21, 2020-January 3, 2021
The director on recutting The Godfather Part III and an epic, chaotic career—which he’s not done with just yet.
By Bilge Ebiri
The Lives of Francis Ford Coppola

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA is trolling me about our resemblance. “This guy looks like I did 30 years ago,” he says when my bearded face appears for the first of our Zoom calls. Coppola, 81, might be grayer now, and he hasn’t technically made a new film in nearly a decade, but that hasn’t stopped him from releasing a steady stream of material. This month comes one of the most extensive recuts of all: a new edition of 1990’s The Godfather Part III, now called Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. It’s shorter, leaner, and certainly clearer, with a new ending that, ironically, lets Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone live. Recently, Coppola discussed the power of editing, his family, and the many dramatic arcs of his career.

Let’s talk about … well, I still can’t help but call it Godfather Part III. What prompted you to go back to it?

A third Godfather was not something I had thought necessary. But I had a very happy collaboration with Mario Puzo [the author of the book The Godfather and a co-screenwriter of the films]. He was like an uncle figure to me. He came up with that idea that we should call the film The Death of Michael Corleone and that it should be a coda or an epilogue. When I suggested that to Paramount, they said, “No, it has to be called The Godfather Part III.” And I realized that was also probably because that meant there could be a four, and a five, and … But I didn’t have the clout that I had had years earlier, when Godfather was such a success.

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