The godfather III

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Movie
German title The godfather III
Original title The Godfather Part III
Country of production United States
original language English , Italian , Latin , Sicilian , German
Publishing year 1990
length approx. 163 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Francis Ford Coppola
script Mario Puzo ,
Francis Ford Coppola
production Francis Ford Coppola
music Carmine Coppola
camera Gordon Willis
cut Lisa Fruchtman ,
Barry Malkin ,
Walter Murch
occupation
chronology

←  Predecessor
The Godfather - Part II

The Godfather III from 1990 is the third and final part of Francis Ford Coppola's film trilogy about the story of the "Godfather" Michael Corleone and his family. As in the second part, a screenplay by the author Mario Puzo based on his novel was filmed .

action

1979: Michael Corleone , the "godfather", and his family moved back to New York. The mansion on Lake Tahoe , Nevada, is empty and derelict. His position vis-à-vis the other Mafia families is consolidated. However, the Don is working hard on his exit from organized crime. He has already largely legalized his family's business and is even awarded the Order of St. Sebastian by the Vatican. This is awarded to him in a ceremony in St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York. Through his daughter Mary he set up a foundation to help poor Sicilians; Michael wants the Corleones to be a respected upper class family. Things are going better in private too. Especially after Michael reluctantly allowed his son Anthony to become an opera singer instead of a lawyer, he and his ex-wife Kay get closer again.

However, his nephew Vincent, an illegitimate son of his brother Santino, causes trouble. He doesn't want to bow to the mafia clan to which Michael has left the Corleones' old sphere of influence in New York, knowing that the gangsters no longer have any respect for the godfather. Instead of reconciling himself, Vincent even bites his competitor Joey Zasa in the ear during the brotherly kiss ordered by Michael, after he had previously insulted him as a "bastard". Michael recognizes the impetuous character of his big brother in Vincent and takes him under his wing to avoid further trouble with the other clans and to introduce his nephew to the family business.

Shortly thereafter, the corrupt Archbishop Gilday made a tempting offer to the Corleones: When the Vatican Bank got into trouble, he offered Michael to buy a huge amount from a large stock corporation , the "Immobiliare", to turn it into a huge American-European conglomerate close. This is to cover up the illegal business of the Vatican Bank, whose balance sheet fraud threatens to be exposed if a lot of money does not flow quickly. With this business, Michael wants to finally free his family from his illegal business activities. However, the difficulties are greater than expected: The bosses of the other families, or the committee , especially Don Altobello, on the one hand are reluctant to see the Corleones' exit and on the other hand would like to be involved in the new deal with the church. B. about money laundering .

The process already agreed with the head of the Vatican Bank is also stalling. With the help of the church's 25% stake in Immobiliare, Corleone's concern can be enforced against other shareholders, but the necessary approval from Pope Paul VI. can no longer be overtaken because he suddenly becomes seriously ill and is dying. Michael suspects that they are cheating on him and wanting his money, but not his partnership. However, he does not yet see who is behind the intrigue.

Despite these difficulties, Corleone is pushing his exit from the Mafia. At a meeting in Atlantic City , he generously pays out the bosses of the other families, but denies them access to his deal with the Vatican Bank and announces his exit from organized crime. The bosses can be appeased by the millions that Michael pays them. Only Joey Zasa goes largely empty-handed and leaves the room furious. Immediately afterwards, the meeting ends with a massacre that has been prepared well in advance, in which most of the bosses are killed. Vincent can save his uncle from the congregation unharmed.

When Michael realizes that his alleged fatherly friend, Don Altobello, was behind Zasa and the murder, he is angry and goes into diabetic shock . While he is in the hospital, Joey Zasa is shot dead by Vincent on the street. Michael Corleone is not enthusiastic about this arbitrariness, which was supported by his sister Connie, and again demands obedience from both of them. After the arrival of the Corleone family in Sicily , Michael sends Vincent to Don Altobello, apparently offering himself to him as a defector. In truth, however, he is trying to expose him. Through Vincent's information, Corleone must recognize that there are high-level connections that are unfavorable to him. All those involved in the Immobiliare business are members of a secret lodge that dominates Italy and is directed by Don Licio Lucchesi. This is also behind Altobello. His goal is to take possession of the Corleones and wipe out the family.

Since Corleone has already received considerable sums of money from the Vatican Bank, the latter is trying to put pressure on in another way in order to finish the deal. Through the mediation of his old friend Don Tommasino, he meets with Cardinal Lamberto, who is considered an honest man. Impressed by the conversation, Corleone spontaneously confesses his thirty years of accumulated sins. Among other things, he confesses to have ordered the murder of his brother Fredo, whose death he had presented to his sister Connie as an accident. Corleone has no idea that the Cardinal then shortly after the death of the old to the new Pope John Paul I is selected. As a person of integrity, Lamberto tries to clean up the Vatican. This makes the lodge members nervous. The new Pope is therefore poisoned, but he has previously approved the Immobiliare transaction in the interests of the Corleones.

Michael Corleone himself is now also to be murdered. A Sicilian killer is set on him. Michael no longer feels up to the demands of the coming argument and hands over the management of the family to his nephew Vincent, who thus becomes the new Don. Vincent wants to remain criminally active in this area so that the family's old turf in New York, which has been orphaned after the murder of Zasa, does not fall to other gangs. Michael agrees. However, he makes it a condition that Vincent must end the secret relationship with Michael's daughter Mary, Vincent's cousin, because he wants to protect her. Vincent agrees.

Despite being guarded, the Sicilian hit man manages to break into the Palermo Opera House, where Corleone's son Anthony makes his operatic debut. Is listed Cavalleria rusticana . Meanwhile, Connie gives the unmasked Don Altobello poisoned cannoli . He lets Connie try to be on the safe side, but she only bites a little. In the course of the performance, Altobello dies because he has emptied the entire pastry box and ingested an enormous amount of poison. Vincent, meanwhile, acts as the new godfather. Ultimately, all of the family's opponents are murdered: The Vatican's corrupt banker, Frederick Keinszig, is suffocated with a pillow, Archbishop Gilday is shot, and Don Lucchesi is stabbed to death with his own glasses. After the opera, the killer, who actually wanted to strike during the performance, storms at Michael Corleone and shoots. The attack fails, but Mary is fatally wounded. The contract killer is shot by Vincent.

Michael Corleone is now a broken man for good. In the final scene, he is old and alone, sitting on a chair in front of the old villa in Corleone , Sicily, where his first wife, Apollonia, was killed. He remembers the good times he spent with people he loved but who were murdered or turned away from him. He then falls from his chair and dies.

criticism

“The third part of Coppola's mafia and family saga, peppered with many quotations, mixes the fictional chronicle of the Corleone dynasty with the actual financial scandal and the puzzling death of Pope John Paul I at the end of the 1970s. Over long stretches it is overly expansive, then again a staging 'tour de force', the film, which is also not consistently convincing in terms of acting, does not find a closed style. "

- Lexicon of international film

backgrounds

  • With the shooting of the film, Francis Ford Coppola broke his promise never to shoot a third part. Big financial problems caused him to change his mind.
  • Both Coppola and Mario Puzo saw the title "The Death of Michael Corleone", but could not prevail.
  • Unlike in the previous films, Al Pacino is no longer dubbed by Lutz Mackensy , but by Gottfried Kramer - who also spoke Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone in the first film.
  • Reality and reality of the script:
    • The poisoning of the new Pope is an allusion to conspiracy theories on the death of John Paul I , in which the Propaganda Due (P2) lodge also plays a role.
    • In the film, the Vatican Bank's financial hole is given as $ 769 million; In 1972, in fact, US $ 950 million were to be spent on the procurement of counterfeit securities alone, the entry of which as fixed assets was supposed to plug a billion dollar hole in Banco Ambrosiano , in which the Vatican Bank was involved. In 1987 the bank collapsed and the Vatican reported around three billion US dollars as bad debt.
    • In the film it is Don Altobello, in reality it is Michele Sindona , a financial advisor to the Cosa Nostra , who was murdered with strychnine (other sources speak of cyanide ). The Italian banker Roberto Calvi was found hanged on Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 (named Frederick Keinszig in the film). Five tax investigators of the Italian police were killed in 1987 while solving the entire affair.
    • The P2 founder Licio Gelli served as a model for Don Licio Lucchesi ; the film character nevertheless contains allusions to Giulio Andreotti . Both survived in reality, as did the Vice Governor of the Vatican Paul Casimir Marcinkus (in the film: Archbishop Gilday), both of whom are murdered in the film.
    • The murder of Joey Zasa is reminiscent of Joseph Colombo , who was shot in the street.
    • The scenes that take place in the Vatican were filmed in the Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola .

Awards

The film received seven Oscar and seven Golden Globe nominations, but each came out empty-handed.

Sofia Coppola was awarded the Golden Raspberry for her portrayal of Mary Corleone as worst supporting actress and worst young actress. She then ended her acting career in favor of a later successful work behind the camera (direction and screenplay, including Lost in Translation ).

The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) awarded the film the rating “valuable”.

Academy Award 1991 (nominations)

Golden Globe Award 1991 (nominations)

  • Best film / drama, for Francis Ford Coppola
  • Best director, for Francis Ford Coppola
  • Best Actor / Drama, for Al Pacino
  • Best Supporting Actor, for Andy García
  • Best score, for Carmine Coppola
  • Best film song, for Carmine Coppola and John Bettis
  • Best Screenplay, for Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola

Fotogramas de Plata

  • Awarded in the Best Foreign Language Film category

American Society of Cinematographys

  • Nominated: Gordon Willis

Directors Guild of America

  • Nominated: Francis Ford Coppola

The film was also honored with two Golden Raspberries : Sofia Coppola received the award for the worst supporting actress as well as the worst young actress.

Web links

Wikiquote: The Godfather III  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Godfather III . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2014 (PDF; test number: 65 367 V).
  2. ↑ The Godfather III. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Dagobert Lindlau : The Mob. dtv, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-455-08659-4 .
  4. ↑ The Godfather III at the German Film and Media Assessment (FBW)