Godfather Subtitles

[Dot Liljenquist]

InThe Godfather, there is an important scene in an Italian Restaurant with dialogue between Michael Corleone and Virgil Sollozzo. There is dialogue spoken in Sicilian (according to the script) that does not have English subtitles.

SOLLOZZO now begins in rapid Sicilian. MICHAEL listening carefully and nodding every so often. Then MICHAEL answers in Sicilian, and SOLLOZZO goes on. The WAITER occasionally brings food; and they hesitate while he is there; then go on. Then MICHAEL, having difficulty expressing himself in Italian, accidentally lapses into English.

The Godfather is an American film and the dialogue is in English with the exception of this dialogue between Sollozzo and Michael. (Perhaps there is some non-English dialogue while Michael courts Apollonia, but I cannot remember)

My question is, Why wasn't there English subtitles provided for this scene? The film is an American film with English dialogue. This scene appeared to be an important plot to the film. Is there an explanation from filmmakers on why there were no English subtitles provided for this particular scene?

Firstly, Coppola states somewhere in the DVD commentary that the actors spoke too quickly for the subtitles to be read properly and that was a distraction for the audience, so he let the scene play out visually instead.

The whole restaurant scene has very little to do the the negotiations but rather the killing of Sollozzo and McCluskey. This is the pivotal point where Michael makes his bones and sets off on the path of becoming the Godfather.

It doesn't really matter what Sollozo says, Michael is bound and determined to kill him (and McCluskey)...it all plays out in Pacino's expression and eyes...so, ultimately, the dialogue isn't relevant.

So I had a look at those Godfather clips. What I see is the SDR one has a yellow cast relative to the HDR one. The character doing most of the talking - his jacket is yellowy in SDR, a more realistic grey in HDR. So the differences in the subtitles seem to be general throughout the picture.

The scene I shared where Luca Brasi meets his demise does indeed have an excessively warm grade on the bluray version, which is much more natural on the new UHD. But the UHD forced subs are full grey via Kodi, not even close to disc playback yellow. I looked again at the early flashback scene in Part II where the boy Vito is taken to the villa of Don Ciccio, and here the grade is very close to my eyes between the UHD and bluray versions (though the resolution improvement on the UHD version is substantial). Here too the Kodi subs are grey, whereas the disc-rendered subs are yellow.

Is there a way to see what is being said in Sicilian when Michael is in restaurant or once in Sicily? I thought there were subtitles on years ago when I watched on dvd or vhs or blu-Ray but non present in the restaurant scene nor after, regardless of the subtitle options available when I enable them.

Reginald Harkema, Scot McFadyen, Sam Dunn. Canada, 2014. Original language, Spanish subtitles. 87'.

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