Godfather Part II, The: The Coppola Restoration (Blu-ray) (1974)

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General		Extras
Category	Mob	Audio Commentary
Rating
Year Of Production	1974
Running Time	202:06
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Francis Ford Coppola
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Al Pacino Robert Duvall Diane Keaton Robert De Niro Talia Shire John Cazale Lee Strasberg
Case	?
RPI	Box	Music	Nino Rota Carmine Coppola

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Few would argue that The Godfather Part II is the greatest movie sequel ever made. Indeed, many would argue that it is even superior to its predecessor. An outstanding box office success, Part II was also lavished with 11 Oscar nominations, and won six, including Best Director for Francis Ford Coppola. It also became the first sequel to win Best Picture. Parts I and II have both been restored, and now the entire Godfather Trilogy is making its high definition debut as a box-set.

    In 1971 Francis Ford Coppola's film, The Godfather, became the highest-grossing film to date, and also brought him an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay with author Mario Puzo, and a Best Director nomination. The film also received an Oscar for Best Picture. In 1974, The Godfather, Part II was released and was also an outstanding critical and commercial success. Apart from the afore mentioned 11 Oscar nominations, with wins for Best Director and Best Picture, Part II also remains popular, and is ranked in the Top 5 films by the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB).

    With parallel storylines, The Godfather Part II is both a sequel and a prequel. In Part II Coppola and co-writer Mario Puzo have broadened scope of the original story, yet it still remains character focused and highly intimate. In Part II, Coppola tells the parallel stories of the two Corleone Godfathers starting out. The focus is on Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), the son and successor to mob giant Don Vito. Michael is presented as more of a ruthless businessman than a traditional mobster like his father. We see Michael expanding his business nationally and internationally, while struggling to keep tight control of it. It's the late 1950s, and the Corleone family has relocated to Las Vegas as they own legitimate casinos there. Looking to expand into Havana, Michael meets with Jewish mobster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), who in turn deals with a corrupt Cuban government.

    Coppola intercuts this storyline with Vito's early life in a small rural town of Corleone, Sicily. Young Vito flees to New York City after his family is murdered by a cruel local gangster. An adult Vito (Robert De Niro) starts a family and finds work in a small gang with local friends, but he is smart and ambitious. He quickly moves from poverty to power in Little Italy in the 1910s and 1920s. Now we can see the similarities and the differences in the two approaches to power: Vito's power grows as he helps people and grants favors which expand his influence in his neighbourhood, meanwhile, a callous and secretive Michael rules a growing criminal empire with fear and a heavy hand.

    Pacino again provides a wonderfully restrained performance as the Godfather, Michael Corleone. In a non-English speaking role, De Niro won an Oscar in the Supporting Actor category, and in doing so became the first (and perhaps only) actor to win an Oscar for playing the same character (Marlon Brando previously won an Oscar for playing Don Vito in Part I). De Niro's excellent co-stars, Lee Strasberg and Michael V. Gazzo were also nominated for Supporting Actor Oscars. Of note, many actors from the original film reprise their roles in Part II, such as Talia Shire, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, Alex Rocco, and Robert Duvall. Also look out for a cameo by Coppola's friend Roger Corman as a Senator at the Senate hearings.

    As with Part I, Part II also features great production and design work, including the beautiful cinematography by Gordon Willis, the detailed and 'lived-in' period design by Art Director Angelo Graham, the realistic costume design by Theadora Van Runkle, and again the beautifully haunting score by Nino Rota.

Video

    The first two Godfather films have been restored under Coppola and Willis' supervision. The restoration was carried out by famed film historian,  Robert A. Harris of the Film Preserve, using 4K (4000 pixel-per-inch scanning technology) at Motion Picture Imaging - the Warner Brothers digital facility. Harris gained fame in the film and DVD community by restoring the classic films Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), Spartacus (1960), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and My Fair Lady (1964).

    As I wrote in the review of Part I, having just watched and reviewed the Blu-rays of the Lowry-restored Dr. No (1962) and Live and Let Die (1973) , my expectations might have been a little too high, for I was horribly disappointed with the high definition transfer of the restored Godfather films.

    The Godfather Part II has been mastered in 1920 x 1080p, using AVC MPEG-4 compression. The High Definition transfer is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1, in a native 16x9 frame.

    Both Parts I and II appear much brighter with this restoration, and this is particularly noticeable with the almost 'over-exposed' look of the outdoor scenes. But fortunately, the mood evoked by the shadowy indoor scenes and the at times, sepia-tinted cinematography by "Prince of Darkness" Gordon Willis, remain unaffected. There are no problems with the transfer in regards to MPEG or film-to-video artefacts. The vast majority of film artefacts are tiny and not distracting, but their existence is surprising considering the time and cost of the restoration.

    16 sets of subtitles are provided, but note both Parts I and II have lengthy scenes of dialogue in Italian, with no English subtitles.

    This is a BD-50 (50 GB Blu-ray disc), with the feature divided into 30 chapters.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    I found the audio on Parts I and II also disappointing. The feature for all three films is presented with English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround audio (48kHz/24-bit) with the option of French or German dubs presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps). There is also an English Audio Commentary by Coppola presented in English Dolby 2.0 (192 kbps).

    Dolby TrueHD Lossless audio is capable of carrying up to eight discrete audio channels, at a sample depth and rate of 24-bit/96 kHz. The maximum bitrate that can be encoded is 18 Mbps. That noted, the format seems largely wasted here as the audio for Parts I and II still sound fairly mono, flat, and tinny. The audio has a similar sounding fidelity as a DVD and the surround channels are barely used.

    As with Part I, an annoying aspect of the audio is the variable volume. Often I struggled to hear what was being said and I was forever increasing or decreasing the volume, as at other times the looped dialogue was booming. The use of looped dialogue is frequent and obvious, but it is noticeably better than Part I. There is extensive use of ADR and the audio sync remains problematic, but is also improved from Part I.

    The original orchestral musical score was provided by Italian composer, Nino Rota, and his memorable and haunting Italian melodies suit the films perfectly. Addition music is provided by Carmine Coppola. Some astute listeners claim that in Part II the end credit theme music is missing the final chord from the original film, this would be located immediately before the restoration credit music begins.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The Box Set comes with a bonus disc packed with genuine extras. The extras are comprised of those ported from the 2001 DVD release (presented in standard definition), and a collection of new extras as well (presented in high definition).

Menu

    As with other BDs, a floating menu is available.

Audio Commentary

    Coppola provides a screen-specific commentary for each of the three films, which collectively adds up to over eight hours! I found all of them interesting, and he shares many memories and anecdotes, along with trivia and detailed information about the actors, locations, and film production. I was pleased that he's fairly opinionated (with a well-considered opinion gained from intellect, education, and experience) and seems to share his views freely, which makes listening to these commentaries all the more interesting. These commentaries are the only extra included on each feature disc, as all the other extras are all found on the Bonus Disc.

Bonus Disc: The Godfather Supplements

The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't (29:46)

    Featuring interviews and plenty of archive footage, this fascinating featurette looks at how Hollywood and the film industry changed dramatically at the end of the 1960s, and how facing an industry that was "collapsing", a group of young film students sought to revive it with their own vision, inspired by the films from the past.

Godfather World (11:19)

    Comprised of interviews and clips from television shows such as The Sopranos, The Simpsons, South Park, and The Family Guy, this is a fun featurette looking at the incredible influence these films have had on popular culture.

Emulsional Rescue: Revealing 'The Godfather' (19:05)

    A short but detailed featurette looking at the original work of Prince of Darkness, cinematographer Gordon Willis, and how the films have degraded over time. This featurette covers how the restoration of Parts I and II came about, with Steven Spielberg's help, and the long road to the finished version with the wonder of technology and serious computing power.

When the Shooting Stopped (14:18)

    Focusing on the post-production work carried out, here we see how Coppola struggled to realise his lengthy artistic vision on the big-screen, with Paramount insisting on a much shorter cut of the film.

'The Godfather' on the Red Carpet (4:03)

    A strange addition, this is a collection of short interview snippets recorded at the red carpet premiere for the film Cloverfield.

Four Short Films on 'The Godfather' (7:20)

    These are not short films but a collection of interviews discussing various aspects of the films.

• GF vs. GF II
• Riffing on the Riffing
• Cannoli
• Clemenza

The Family Tree and Crime Organization Chart

    A diagrammatic presentation of both the Corleone Family tree and a FBI-style Crime Organisation Chart. Viewers can also drill down using their remotes for more information, such as character bios.

Connie and Carlo's Wedding Album

    A collection of photographic stills from the opening wedding scene of Part I.

2001 DVD Archive

    An extensive collection of extras ported from the previous DVD release:

• Galleries: A large collection of stills and text-based information, video footage, as well as trailers for all three films.
• Behind the Scenes: A collection of detailed featurettes looking at various aspects of production, ranging from locations, the script adaptation, the music, and cinematography. This collection includes the 73 minute, 1990 featurette, The Godfather Family: A Look Inside.
• Filmmakers: Text-based information about Coppola, Puzo, Willis, Rota, Dean Tavoularis, and Carmine Coppola.
• Additional Scenes/Godfather Chronology: The Godfather Chronology provides a brief history of the plot in point form, while the Additional Scenes contain a collection of alternate and deleted scenes from all three films, grouped in the story's chronological order.

    In terms of content, the Blu-ray discs released in the USA and here seem to be much the same, with only minor differences such as subtitles.

    The Godfather Part II is a unquestionably a great film. As with Part I, although the high definition transfer is disappointing, due to the poor source material, these Blu-rays are now the best way to enjoy these films. Indeed, as Robert A. Harris observed in a recent interview regarding the Trilogy Box Set: "hopefully this will be one of those films that will spur people to buy Blu-Ray players".

The video quality is hampered by the dated and damaged, (albeit restored), source material.

The audio quality is also limited by the age, condition, and monaural source.

The extras are genuine and enjoyable.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall