The Godfather
To mark the premiere of Megalopolis, Lumière Classics is screening several of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic films, including a digitally restored version of his crime epic The Godfather.
Coppola’s film adaptation of Mario Puzo’s book describes the rise and fall of the Corleone family and is widely regarded as one of the most important film trilogies in cinema history. Lumière is screening the restored version released in 2022 on the film’s 50th anniversary. Every effort was made to show the films in the best possible way to a contemporary audience. Paramount and Coppola’s production company American Zoetrope decided to meticulously restore the films over a three-year period. The starting point was an earlier restoration in 2007 by the prominent film historian Robert Harris. By using new technologies, that earlier restoration has been improved considerably. The statistics show what a monumental task this has been. Under Coppola’s supervision, the restoration team looked at three hundred prints of the film, going through them one by one to find the best possible resolution for each frame. More than four thousand hours were spent repairing stains, tears, and other defects in the negatives. In addition, over a thousand hours were spent on colour correction to ensure that the result would match the original vision of Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis. Back then, the film was nominated for 11 Oscars, and won 3, including best film.