‘The Godfather’ has constantly been cited as one of the all-time great movies. A masterpiece that is unequalled when it comes to crime films. 2022 see’s the film celebrate its 50th anniversary and with it comes a brand-new restoration.
I spoke with Paramount’s Senior Vice President of Archives Andrea Kalas and also American Zoetrope’s Film Archivist & Restoration Supervisor James Mockoski about the process of bringing a new restoration of The Godfather to the big, and small, screen…
Both of you have been heavily involved with the restoration process. How/where/when does a conversation about restoring the film begin?
Andrea Kalas: It started with me five years ago saying to my colleagues across the studio that we can’t let this bite us in the butt at the last minute, we need to really take this seriously and look at making a plan to get everyone involved in making sure this 50th anniversary restoration… it’s a big deal. So that’s how it started. There is a strong relationship between Paramount and Zoetrope through the years, so James is one of the first people we contacted to get everything started.
James Mockoski: To Andrea’s credit, Paramount knew this wasn’t an easy film. They knew we had three films that were challenging, especially with Part I. As Andrea said, we couldn’t just leave it until one or two years before, it needs time and work. Andrea was on it and not many studios are forward thinking, Andrea was. There is never enough time to finish a restoration, however I feel we gave The Godfather the appropriate amount of time to do the best job.
Kalas: And with each restoration we work on we have a joke, “Well, at least it’s not The Godfather.” Well, this time it was [laughs]. We didn’t want to be caught short. We wanted to make sure we had enough time to put all the attention to detail that we wanted. We didn’t want to go away thinking “oh, if only we’d have had the time to do this.” I think that helped to have that luxury of time. I think one the many things about the restoration is that there had been many duped sections that had been replaced into the original negative over time. So one of the things we did was look in every possible corner for original material that, at the time, couldn’t have been used because it was damaged but now with digital tools we can use, and we can add to the absolute originality of the entire film from one end to the other. That takes time. Crawling through cartons of material. Checking against key codes and editorial books and things like that. We were able to do that. In fact it was even during the pandemic where I relaxed all archival rules and allowed my colleague Jeffrey Osmer to take home cartons to his garage, where he set up some rewinds, to go through and find all the footage.
Mockoski: The ability to go into every can takes so much time, and if you are going through, say, the opening wedding scene and you see that it’s not cutting very because from CRI to original negative or deep negative and you’re like “Oh, I wish we could find this. Is there some way?” So having Jeffrey there was so powerful because he was creative. He would say “Well, you know, I think they used this back when they were doing another cut of the film.” He would go into those cans and say, “Ah, I think I can piece the puzzle together and find out why its not in the can it was meant to be.” To have that detective during the restoration is so powerful and it raised the bar on this.
Also, going back, the foundation was sort of laid back in 2007. People always ask why? “Didn’t you already do this? Didn’t you already do a restoration?” Yeah, the restoration sort of began in ’07 but because of technology and things have changed we could do so much better and things were found that at that point were helpful because thirteen/fourteen years later we found more stuff. We were able to unearth more stuff fourteen years later that were cut out back in the 1990s.
Kalas: The other thing we were doing was bringing it up another level for modern, home screens. That was really apparent when we started looking at the 2000 restoration. It was great start, an incredible foundation, so many of the creative decisions were documented in that restoration, Gordon Willis’ view. So it was really important place to start. But even when we looked at that… the display technology at home has changed so much since that it was another important reason to make sure that people who wanted to see The Godfather in the best possible light could do and it means upgrading to the latest technology, and it’s worth it.
Mockoski: That’s spot on. People don’t really realise that, but what televisions we were using back in the early ‘00s has changed. What was great about that ’07 [restoration] was that was the last time Gordon Willis approved colour. So we had that in the back of our mind as that was our reference. That’s what we carried on for this restoration as well.
I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier Andrea. You spoke about sending a colleague home with reels because of the pandemic. The pandemic brought a lot of the film industry to a standstill. Did it slow this process down at all?
Kalas: I think it’s fortunate we allowed ourselves a long time because if we had given ourselves a longer time then we would have been in trouble. We were able to carry on. It wasn’t ideal all the time. Ideally in a restoration you are going into a colour room with a colourist and working through and watching it a bunch of times. We were able to do that with social distancing and masking and being very careful. But not as regularly as we would have if the pandemic hadn’t have been going on. I think in some ways it actually helped a little bit. James, correct me if I’m wrong, but you were able to talk to Francis [Ford Coppola] a bit more.
Mockoski: Yeah. We were sort of pandemic ready anyway. Francis has a viewing room up in Napa because he couldn’t go down to Los Angeles because of the lockdown. But he has a good consumer model that was colour times and referenced to the master down in L.A. So we had that up here and so Paramount nicely fit into that model and supplied us footage that I could then feed up to Francis in his living room.
Kalas: James and his team did all the pain staking frame-by-frame clean-up. Often we would outsource that to India or China. But we had Zoetrope do that this time and that was another really wonderful collaboration. It was a much more personal touch and having that set up at Zoetrope absolutely saved the day.
I want to ask each of you about which scene stands out as the best piece of restoration?
Kalas: For me, I think that the technology of high dynamic range, which is fitting with today’s consumer television models, is more than just about deep blacks and high brights, it’s also about the range of subtle colour that can come out more significantly. For me, the scene that illustrates it best is just before the “Leave the gun, take the cannoli” and there is that beautiful shot of the statue of Liberty in the background and the wavy patterns in the foreground and there is a sort of golden light and it’s just breath-taking.
Mockoski: For me there are a number. But coming to Las Vegas with all those Las Vegas signs and Michael coming in for the first time. All that stuff… it wasn’t lost but we never found the original stock footage until now. So all that stuff cuts together so beautifully and there is no loss or resolution, just stunning. There are some beautiful blues. The signs just pop! The wedding scene cuts better. It’s even. The wedding scene was viewed to death. That material had been cut out of the original negatives and replaced with duplicate material. So you lost a lot of the quality. But due to finding as much of the original negative as possible it cuts better. That wedding scene is one of the most iconic parts. Now I feel it is back to that original vision.
Final question, and this is a serious question; have you removed the ghost from the funeral scene?
Mockoski: Oh No! I know this well. We joked about throughout the entire process [laughs]. We didn’t touch that because that’s an artifact of the camera, Gordy’s camera.
Kalas: Yeah, it’s still there. We said “No” we wouldn’t take it out.
Mockoski: That joke does keep coming back. We send these scenes to QC or to people who have never seen the film before and they always say that there is a problem. We always say that it is a reflection from the lens. You can’t remove that, it’s an artifact from the time.
Kalas: We did not remove the head of a crew member who appears in one of the establishing shots at Waltzs mansion as the car drives up. If you look carefully you will see someone’s head.
Mockoski: I always said that was a gardener. He was trimming the hedge [laughs].
Kalas: OK. We’ll go with that [laughs].
‘The Godfather Trilogy’ is available to own on 4K Ultra HD from 21st March 2022.
