Throughout the entirety of Part I, Vito sits mush-mouthed and stone-faced, impenetrable to analysis from inquiring minds. And heвЂ™s as internally opaque as BrandoвЂ™s Vito at the hour of his death, felled not by a hit squad of Cosa Nostra goons, but a mere heart attack. HeвЂ™s a monolithic figure, taunting the audience with his inscrutable scowl. As the doors close on Michael, brooding in his newfound authority at the close of the first film, the audience marvels at the unseen spiritual processes that have converted the familyвЂ™s last bastion of decency into its gaping epicenter of corruption. Both Michael and BrandoвЂ™s Vito are defined by their interiority, the unknowability that renders their acts of steadyhanded brutality so frighteningly human. The genius of Part IIВ is the way it works asВ parentheses on the original, expanding on CoppolaвЂ™s 1972 film in both directionsВ while refusingВ to clarify the originalвЂ™s ethical mystique. TheВ mangling of the sequencing of the original films doesnвЂ™t just diminishВ their artistic heft - it obscures the casual brilliance of Part IIвЂs very sequel-ness. Cross-cutting between young Vito Andolini and Michael underscores the dark connection between the transgressions of American cultureвЂ™s forefathers and the depraved sins of its corporate heirs. As Coppola envisioned it, and asВ Richard Marks, Peter Zimmer, and Barry Malkin edited it, elegant parallels between De NiroвЂ™s rise to power and PacinoвЂ™s consumption by that same force make themselves apparent. Part IIвЂs ambitious structural gambit splits screen time between the boy who would beВ Don Corleone growing up in Italy to become ruthless immigrant playedВ by Robert De Niro, andВ Al PacinoвЂ™s Michael as he continues his descent into a morally compromised hell.

The most major change that both the EpicВ and SagaВ make to CoppolaвЂ™s original is the reordering of scenes, opening withВ the sequencesВ depictingВ young Vito CorleoneвЂ™s ascension to the top of New YorkвЂ™s criminal heap. (It debuted last night, will air again on January 23, and is currently available on HBO Now.) But the EpicВ still commits the same cardinal sin as the SagaВ it was designed to overwrite, a gaffe that fundamentally robs both films of the formalВ grace thatвЂ™s made them classics. HBO was seeking to right some of the SagaвЂs errors with its Godfather Epic, a new rework of Parts IВ and IIВ that returns the formerly elided sequences to their proper place. The networkвЂ™sВ censorship of the grislier sequences, along with the commercial breaks sprinkled liberally across the filmвЂ™s many hours and the four-night broadcasting schedule, all combined for an experience that many criticized as unsatisfying and incomplete. Having strongarmedВ approval from a Francis Ford Coppola, who was hard up for cash while making Apocalypse Now, NBCВ hacked up the film like some jamoke run afoul of the Mafia, adding deleted scenes while also dispensing with some of the more violent footage. In 1977, NBCВ ran a massive seven-and-a-half-hour edit of The Godfather Part IВ and Part IIВ called The Godfather Saga.

The godfather epic hbo download