Godfather 1/2 re-release

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Paramount plans to roll out newly restored editions of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and The Godfather Part II in September prior to their release on DVD. New York City's film Forum said it plans to screen the original film during the week beginning September 12, followed on the 19th by the first sequel. During the week of the 26th it plans to screen both films back-to-back. Similar screenings are reportedly in the works for Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The restorations were supervised by Coppola, cinematographer Gordon Willis and film preservationist Robert Harris, who received much praise for his restoration of Lawrence of Arabia. The soundtrack was restored by Santa Monica-based POP Sound, which worked with the original sound mixer, Walter Murch. In an interview with the audio-recording website Mix, Murch observed that during the wedding scene in The Godfather, one of Marlon Brando's lines about the "cosa nostra" had been "suppressed" because of controversy over that term in the Italian community. In the new version, the original recording of the line was restored with "clarity." The company also said it had been able to sync up some of the dialogue that had been "looped" (rerecorded in post-production) more accurately.