Goodfellas v. Casino
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Francis Ford Coppola is re-editing and re-titling the third Godfather film for a December theatrical release:
The Godfather: Part III is considered by many, including a movie critic by the name of Roger Ebert at the time of release, to be the worst of the three Godfather movies. But now, it’s getting re-edited by director Francis Ford Coppola himself for a theatrical release later this year. So… does that mean it’ll be good now?
Coppola and his co-screenwriter, author Mario Puzo, who penned the film’s source material, are working to restore and re-edit Part III. The version is dubbed Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone and promises to achieve Coppola and Puzo’s “original vision for the finale, which has been meticulously restored for the finest presentation of the Corleone saga’s last chapter,” according to a press release.
Paramount Pictures plans to release this Coppola cut in theaters this December, followed by an at-home release.
“Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is an acknowledgment of Mario’s and my preferred title and our original intentions for what became The Godfather: Part III,” Coppola said in a statement. “For this version of the finale, I created a new beginning and ending, and rearranged some scenes, shots, and music cues. With these changes and the restored footage and sound, to me, it is a more appropriate conclusion to The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II and I’m thankful to Jim Gianopulos and Paramount for allowing me to revisit it.”
Mario Puzo died in 1999, so not great editing there from Entertainment Weekly, but whatever . . .
Anyhow this news inspired me to post a question I’ve been mulling over ever since I recently re-watched Goodfellas and Casino (I only saw the third Godfather movie once 30 years ago and frankly barely remember anything about it other than I was sufficiently underwhelmed not to seek it out since).
Which is the better movie? The overwhelming consensus at the time of Casino’s release was that, for all its strengths, it ultimately didn’t stack up well compared to Goodfellas, in no small part because it was viewed as a sort of reworking of its predecessor, in which Scorsese covered similar material without doing anything particularly new or original with it.
25 years later, I don’t know how much that consensus has shifted, but in my view anyway it’s far from clear which is the better film. Or to put it more usefully perhaps, they’re both great films that stand up extremely well on their own without necessarily needing to be compared to each other.
But let’s do that anyway.
To cite some things in Casino’s favor:
The Sharon Stone character is far more interesting than Lorraine Bracco’s role in the older film, and Stone gives a great performance. ETA: this thread reminded me again of a bunch of Bracco’s scenes and this is just wrong about Bracco’s character. And her performance is great too.
Casino is the more visually interesting film.
In regard to the respective male leads, Robert DeNiro v. Ray Liotta really isn’t a fair fight.
The back story in Casino is more fully developed, and better integrated into the plot.
It’s a real close call, especially that with the passage of time the fact that Casino followed Goodfellas in the Scorsese canon becomes less and less relevant.
Feel free to go to the mattresses over this one.