An Honor To Be Nominated: The Godfather, Part III

THE CONTENDER: The Godfather, Part III (1990)

Number of Nominations: 7 – Picture, Supporting Actor (Andy Garcia), Director (Francis Ford Coppola), Cinematography (Gordon Willis), Art Direction/Set Direction (Dean Tavoularis & Gary Fettis), Original Song (“Promise Me You’ll Remember,” music by Carmine Coppola, lyrics by John Bettis), Film Editing (Barry Malkin, Lisa Fruchtman & Walter Murch)

Number of Wins: Zero

(WARNING: This article contains spoilers for a movie that’s over twenty-five years old. You’ve had your chance.)

Time can do strange things to a movie’s reputation. Case in point: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III. While there are those who consider it an underrated masterpiece, it’s more often remembered as one of the most unnecessary and disappointing sequels of all time. And yet it was nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture. Did the members of the Academy see the word “Godfather” on their ballots and just vote for it out of habit? Or is the film worthy of its accolades and deserving of a reevaluation?

The early 1990s found Coppola at a crossroads in his career. He’d spent most of the previous decade gambling and losing on expensive, risky, personal projects like One From The Heart and his utopian independent film studio, Zoetrope. The closest he’d come to commercial success was the fantasy-comedy Peggy Sue Got Married, a work-for-hire gig he’d stepped into at the last minute. Paramount had been trying to convince him to return to the Corleone family for years and Coppola had turned them down flat every time. But after the financial failure of Tucker: The Man And His Dream in 1988, Coppola was no longer in a position to say no. He needed to recoup his losses and a new Godfather movie was the closest thing he had to a sure bet.

Things didn’t get any easier once Coppola signed on. He and Mario Puzo were given just six weeks to put together a script, which then had to be substantially rewritten when Robert Duvall refused to reprise his role as Tom Hagen over salary demands. Winona Ryder was cast as Michael Corleone’s daughter Mary, then dropped out after arriving on set. Her doctor had diagnosed her with exhaustion after shooting several back-to-back films. Instead of delaying the production to find a replacement, Coppola simply cast the nearest warm Italian body he could find, namely his own daughter, Sofia.

Considering all the drama behind the scenes, it’s a bit of a miracle that The Godfather Part III is even watchable. And to be fair, Coppola himself had created a legacy that was virtually impossible to live up to with the first two Godfather films. Still, it’s no accident that most of the nominations for Part III were in technical categories (all of which were richly deserved…this is a beautiful looking film).

Perhaps the biggest shock came when Al Pacino was snubbed in the Best Actor category. Instead, the Academy recognized him in the Best Supporting Actor slot for his work in Dick Tracy, a nomination that may have influenced Pacino’s decision to become increasingly cartoonish in the years that followed. This put him in competition with Part III’s only acting nominee, Andy Garcia. Both lost to Joe Pesci in GoodFellas.

There are redeeming qualities to The Godfather Part III, notably Garcia’s performance as the hot-headed son of James Caan’s hot-headed Sonny Corleone. But the movie stumbles badly in many key areas, most notably in Coppola and Puzo’s script. They can’t seem to decide which story they want to tell. Much of the movie is concerned with Michael’s attempt to gain a controlling interest in a European conglomerate but there are digressions involving other mafia dons unhappy with Michael’s decision to go legit, Michael’s declining health, his children, and on and on, none of which gel to form a cohesive whole.

Of course, the most savage critical remarks were directed at Sofia Coppola. It’s true, her performance is pretty bad, but it’s impossible to not feel a little sorry for her. In many shots, she looks like exactly what she was: a girl doing a favor for her dad that’s taking much, much longer than she expected. For a family-first guy like Francis Ford Coppola, the critical beating Sofia took must have been especially painful. But it was irresponsible of him to cast her in such a prominent role, both as a parent and as a filmmaker.

Sofia Coppola isn’t the only actress adrift in Part III. Diane Keaton waltzes in and out of the movie as Michael’s now ex-wife Kay but she’s given almost nothing to do. Bridget Fonda has a thankless role as a journalist who falls into bed with Garcia, then vanishes from the rest of the picture. She’s on screen just long enough for you to think, “Hey, that’s Bridget Fonda” and later, “What happened to that journalist I thought we were supposed to pay attention to?”

Coppola attempts to tie Part III to the previous films but his methods are heavy-handed and self-conscious. There are quite a few flashbacks (in other words, recycled footage) and like the first one, Part III opens with a lengthy celebration at the Corleone home. But the biggest misstep is saved for the final moments. After his daughter is accidentally killed, taking a bullet meant for him, Michael has a heartrending breakdown. We then cut to an unspecified time in the future, where an aged Michael dies alone in Sicily. The shot is clearly meant to echo Marlon Brando’s death in the original, but it’s so abrupt and lacking in context that it turns into a joke. I half suspect that Pacino and Coppola decided to film this just to get it out of the way so they wouldn’t have to make Part IV.

After The Godfather Part III, we should have learned not to expect too much when filmmakers revisit their past triumphs. Movies are products of their time and consciously attempting to reconstruct magic too often results in a chaotic mess. The Godfather Part III certainly isn’t as egregiously terrible as the Star Wars prequels or the most recent Indiana Jones misadventure. But the series deserved a better coda than this rambling, intermittently engaging epilogue.

The Godfather Part III is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment.

An Honor To Be Nominated: The Turning Point

THE CONTENDER: The Turning Point (1977)

Number of Nominations: 11 – Picture, Actress (Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine), Supporting Actor (Mikhail Baryshnikov), Supporting Actress (Leslie Browne), Director (Herbert Ross), Original Screenplay (Arthur Laurents), Cinematography (Robert Surtees), Art Direction/Set Direction (Albert Brenner & Marvin March), Sound (Theodore Soderberg, Paul Wells, Douglas O. Williams & Jerry Jost), Film Editing (William Reynolds)

Number of Wins: None

Pop quiz, hotshot. Which movie was the biggest loser in Oscar history, winning none of the multiple awards it was nominated for? If you answered The Color Purple, you’re only half right. Spielberg’s movie is actually tied for this dubious honor with Herbert Ross’s The Turning Point. But while most remember the Academy’s shut-out of The Color Purple as a form of highway robbery, no one really blinked an eye when The Turning Point lost, even at the time.

Some of the reasons for this are fairly obvious. For one thing, there’s nothing even remotely controversial about The Turning Point. For another, Steven Spielberg’s reputation has only increased since The Color Purple lost out. Today, the idea of a Steven Spielberg film is so ingrained in pop culture that Super 8 can be simply described as an homage to Spielberg and audiences immediately know what to expect.

Herbert Ross, who passed away in 2001, is most often remembered as a capable craftsman but not a filmmaker with his own distinctive style. He began his career as a Broadway choreographer and many of his best known films were musicals, including Funny Lady, Pennies From Heaven, and Footloose. He also frequently helmed comedies, often written by Neil Simon, including California Suite and The Sunshine Boys. In fact, Ross had two films up for Oscars in 1977: The Turning Point and Simon’s The Goodbye Girl, for which Richard Dreyfuss won Best Actor.

In the immediate aftermath of the awards, the media had a lot to talk about, all of which was more interesting than the fact that The Turning Point hadn’t won anything. Woody Allen won several awards for Annie Hall and literally could not have cared less. Not only did he not attend the ceremony, he didn’t even bother watching it on TV. He was busy playing clarinet at Michael’s Pub in New York, as he usually did on Mondays.

However, the evening’s biggest brouhaha came when Vanessa Redgrave won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Julia. Redgrave’s nomination had been picketed by members of the Jewish Defense League, upset over her very vocal support of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. After she won, she used her acceptance speech to rail against the “Zionist hoodlums” gathered outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. In light of all this, the fact that a ballet movie had just lost more Oscars than any other film in history didn’t really matter all that much.

My mother took me to see The Turning Point back in 1977, presumably because she couldn’t find a sitter. I remembered nothing about it other than my physical presence in the theater. Of course, I was an eight-year-old boy at the time, probably upset that my mom was dragging me to a ballet movie when Star Wars was most likely still playing right next door. So I was curious to see The Turning Point again for the first time, hopefully from a slightly more mature perspective, to see how it held up. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hold up all that well.

The movie is really a cliché-ridden soap opera with MacLaine and Bancroft as two old friends who used to be friendly rivals in the American Ballet Company. When MacLaine became pregnant with her first child, she dropped out to marry and raise a family. Bancroft went on to become a star, touring the world and becoming a legend. After MacLaine’s oldest daughter (Leslie Browne) is accepted into the company, old jealousies reignite. MacLaine resents Bancroft’s stardom, Bancroft becomes a surrogate mother to Browne, and every dramatic beat of the story can be recited by heart by anyone who’s ever seen an episode of Days Of Our Lives.

Even so, it’s not hard to understand why The Turning Point garnered so many nominations in spite of, or perhaps because of, its familiarity. Hollywood loves a backstage drama and this one revels in all the old tropes. MacLaine and Bancroft do the best they can with the melodramatic dialogue they’re forced to deliver. After Natalie Portman won her Oscar for Black Swan, there was a minor, pointless controversy over how much dancing she actually did herself. The Turning Point sidesteps this issue by barely showing Bancroft on stage at all, leaving the dancing to trained professionals.

In fact, there really is only one reason to watch The Turning Point and that’s Mikhail Baryshnikov. It’s hard for me to imagine that some may now know Baryshnikov primarily through his stint on Sex And The City. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, he was a big deal and watching The Turning Point, it’s easy to see why. He moves with an almost preternatural grace, spinning, twisting, and leaping in a way that seems to defy gravity. When Ross turns his cameras on Baryshnikov and the company, the movie truly does come alive.

If you liked Black Swan, I encourage you to check out The Turning Point. It may not be as good a film but in some ways, it may be the better ballet movie. At least here, the dancers look like they’re enjoying themselves. Compare their faces to those in Black Swan, where everyone acts as though they’ve been condemned by a vengeful god to painfully contort their bodies for all eternity. In Darren Aronofsky’s film, it’s almost as if the dancers are driven to do something they hate. In Ross’ world, we see them doing what they love. But when they stop dancing and start talking, you realize that this time, the Academy got it right.

The Turning Point was available on DVD from Anchor Bay (under license from 20th Century Fox) but that release is now out of print. For those with region-free players, there are several import options available, including a Danish Blu-ray release.

An Honor To Be Nominated: The Color Purple

THE CONTENDER: The Color Purple (1985)

Number of Nominations: 11 – Picture, Actress (Whoopi Goldberg), Supporting Actress (Margaret Avery & Oprah Winfrey), Adapted Screenplay (Menno Meyjes), Cinematography (Allan Daviau), Art Direction/Set Direction (J. Michael Riva & Linda De Scenna), Original Song (“Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister),” music by Quincy Jones & Rod Temperton, lyrics by Jones, Temperton & Lionel Richie), Original Score (Quincy Jones & a host of others), Costume Design (Aggie Guerard Rodgers), Makeup (Ken Chase)

Number of Wins: Zilch

In 2010, Tyler Perry found himself the center of controversy yet again, this time over his film For Colored Girls. A number of people suggested Perry, best known for donning wig and dress to perform a caricature of a sassy black woman, might not be qualified to adapt Ntozake Shange’s 1975 play for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, a landmark work of African-American feminist theatre. So Perry did what any filmmaker would do in that situation: he went on TV to get Oprah’s blessing. It seemed to work. The controversy died down, the movie opened to Perry’s usual mixture of faint praise and scathing notices, and the whole affair was forgotten in a matter of days.

If anyone could sympathize with Perry, it’s Steven Spielberg. In 1985, he was in a similar spot over his adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple. But while there was certainly concern over whether or not a nice white Jewish boy from Southern California could take on this story, there were also more general questions raised about his ability as a filmmaker. No one doubted his skill at crafting thrilling boys’ adventure stories featuring sharks, UFOs, and Nazi-fighting archeologists. But this movie was actually supposed to be… you know, about something. Was he up to the challenge?

Spielberg also had Oprah in his corner but not as the Queen of All Media she would become. At this point, her sphere of influence only went as far as the greater Chicago area, which is where co-producer Quincy Jones saw her and persuaded Spielberg to give her a shot. It was a smart move. She really is terrific in the movie. Too bad about the TV thing. She could have been a first-class character actress. The movie helped her, too. Oprah’s talk show star was already on the rise but that Oscar nomination certainly didn’t hurt when it went into national syndication in 1986.

When the movie was finally released, it was predictably met with protests from organizations such as the NAACP, who complained about perceived stereotypes as well as Spielberg’s involvement. But when the Oscar nominations were announced, two movies dominated: Out Of Africa and The Color Purple. There was one big omission, however. Spielberg himself was left out of the best director race.

Spielberg was never shy about his desire to win an Oscar. Publicly, he kept quiet, going off on vacation after the nominations were announced but the snub must have hurt. When the big day finally arrived, The Color Purple won none of the categories it was eligible for. By this time, of course, the film was a box office success, so the NAACP, who had been so critical earlier, now focused their wrath on the Academy, calling the shut-out “a slap in the face.”

Did the Academy get it wrong? Personally, I think The Color Purple is a better film than that year’s winner, Out Of Africa. But it still didn’t necessarily deserve to win. (For the record, my own choice for the best picture of 1985, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, wasn’t even nominated in the category.) Spielberg has never been a particularly subtle filmmaker. His tendency to go big when a quieter moment might be more powerful occasionally works against the film, especially when it comes to moments of comic relief. There’s a recurring gag with Harpo falling through a roof he’s trying to repair that’s especially cartoonish and out of place. Still, Spielberg and his cast make it easy to engage emotionally with these characters. If you do that, it’s possible to overlook the film’s weaker, schmaltzier elements.

The Color Purple is rarely mentioned in current discussions of Spielberg’s work. It’s been overshadowed both by the long reach of his early classics and later films that did win, such as Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, but it remains a key film in his career. Spielberg has referred to it as his first mature film, a characterization I don’t necessarily agree with. Many of his earlier films have deeply moving and even profound moments, especially Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, but the success of The Color Purple gave Spielberg the confidence to move beyond what most people consider popcorn movies, even if he didn’t have a little gold statue to prove it.

The Color Purple is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Warner Home Video.