The Godfather (1972) Francis Ford Coppola @ Naro Expanded Cinema
Details
RUNTIME: 175 minutes
RATING: R
SYNOPSIS (from the Naro; buy tickets here): Back in 1972 young filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola battled the studio every step of the way as he transformed Mario Puzo’s pulp bestseller into an impossibly rich, deeply personal meditation on family, power, violence and the harsh realities of the American Dream. Filled with some of film history’s most iconic and imitated moments (Brando and the orange peel, “take the cannoli,” and that infamous horse’s head, to name just a few), The Godfather has embedded itself in American popular culture in ways that few other films have, pleasing both audiences and critics alike, and becoming that true rarity: a massive, blockbuster entertainment that is also great movie art. Featuring Oscar-winner Marlon Brando in his immortal role as the ultimate family patriarch, Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather also contains a “who’s who” of legendary ‘70s performers, including Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, John Cazale and newcomer Al Pacino as youngest son Michael, who is drawn ever deeper into the family business. (R, 175 mins) Newly restored in 4K Ultra HD and Digital SurroundSound.
BLURBS:
"A three-hour film that thunders by like it was only 90 minutes. Truly, a milestone film." - Elston Brooks, Fort Worth Star-Telegram / DFW.com
"It's a bloody good story, or a good bloody story and you can't take that away from it. Puzo's book hasn't half its artifice and style." - Derek Malcolm, Guardian (UK)
"If ever there was a great example of how the best popular movies come out of a merger of commerce and art, The Godfather is it." - Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
"Although the movie is three hours long, it absorbs us so effectively it never has to hurry. There is something in the measured passage of time as Don Corleone hands over his reins of power that would have made a shorter, faster moving film unseemly. Even at this length, there are characters in relationships you can’t quite understand unless you’ve read the novel. Or perhaps you can, just by the way the characters look at each other." - Roger Ebert