(ANSA) - NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 26 - One of the masterpieces of world cinema returns as new in theaters despite half a century from its debut in the cinema.
Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather", whose 50th anniversary Hollywood is celebrating on March 15, is released this weekend in a meticulously restored new edition that has erased stains, scratches, tears and other wear and tear caused by the passage of time.
In Italy from February 28 to March 2 in cinemas.
The goal of the project, Coppola told the 'New York Times' in one of the many interviews that accompanied the 'golden wedding', was to bring the three-time Oscar-winning film back to its first 'red carpet' status without necessarily ruining its famous "dark" look.
For the director, that film about the rise and fall of the Corleone family remains one of the most beloved of his long career: "No, never", Coppola replied when asked if, in the last half century, he has ever gotten tired to look at it.
The Italian-American was at the time semi-unknown: the choice of Paramount, who had bought the rights to the novel of the same name by Mario Puzo, fell on him after a series of excellent 'no' including Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, Peter Bogdanovich, Elia Kazan and the veteran of the gangster movies ArthurPenn.
It was almost out of desperation and for economic reasons (it was cheap) that the choice eventually fell on Coppola who belonged to the generation of "new lions" like George Lucase Martin Scorsese.
The director agreed, as long as he had Marlon Brando and Al Pacino with him.
"You have to understand, as a filmmaker, I didn't really know how to do 'Godfather'. I learned how to do 'Godfather' by doing it," he told The New York Times.
"Paramount was unprepared for success: suddenly they found themselves having to screen it in New York in five cinemas at the same time because there was so much demand and then in so many cinemas all over the world", explained the director: "But instead of thinking about preserving the original negative, they used it to obtain many copies. And by dint of being used, the copies began to no longer be as the film should have been ".
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