I've been reading Al Pacino: In Conversation With Lawrence Grobel, by Lawrence Grobel, which is basically a collection of Pacino interviews taken over a thirty year period (they're friends and softball buddies). Anyway, its an extremely interesting book, which I'll probably review in the book thread at some point. But for now, here's what Al Pacino had to say about THE GODFATHER PART III:
"You know what the problem with that film was? The real problem? Nobody wanted to see Michael have retribution and feel guilty. That's not who he was. The thing about the other scripts was that in his mind he was avenging his family and saving them. Michael never thought of himself as a gangster, ever. Not as a child, not while he was one, and not afterward: That was not the image he held of himself. So anyone who says to me that I played a gangster, I say, 'Not Michael'. He didn't come up that way. He's not a part of the GOODFELLAS thing. That's just not who Michael was. I've played gangsters ... but not Michael. Michael had this code--he lived by something that made audiences respond. But once he went away from that and started crying over coffins and making confessions and feeling remorse, it wasn't right. I applaud Francis for trying to get to that, but Michael was so frozen in that image ... Like he says to the priest, This is pointless to do this. but there was in him a deep feeling of having betrayed his mother by killing his brother. That was a mistake. And we are ruled by these mistakes in life, as time goes on. These crucial, brutal mistakes that we make in life. his choices--he was wrong. Like the way in SCARFACE when Tony kills Manny, that was wrong. And he pays for it. And in his way, Michael paid for it."
"What should Michael have done, in retrospect, with Fredo?" I asked. I loved talking to Al about THE GODFATHER.
"Ban him, exile him in some way," he said. "He was harmless. That part of Michael was off. Just as he denies the mother of his children. How could you do a thing like that? You hurt the children. That's what made it powerful. But where do you go from there?"
"A lot of critics thought Diane's role was a weak, thankless part."
"She tried `to do the best she could in III. there was a tregedy that Francis could have explored: what happened to her? The result of her loving this man. GODFATHER III should have been more about Kay. And Hagen. Michael could still have had that breakdown with the priest, that would have been fine, but that's it. All this contemplation with dealing with the KING LEAR connection: Maybe in retrospect the movie should have been more about Kay. Giving her a tragedy and investigating that. Remember, the last time we saw her, at the end of II, he was closing the door in her face and keeping her children."
