Review of Martin Scorsese’s 1995 Casino [A mob movie that has many actors that will go on to be in the Sopranos].
mods please lmk if this violates the rules. i’m posting here because I write about the mob/casino and many relevant themes that are important elements of the Sopranos, in my opinion. I think they’re of the same medium and genre so wanted to post here. Hope that’s alright. Cheers! (11 min read) ———————————————————————— EDIT 2: TL;DR - Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor. ———————- Every good filmmaker makes the same movie over and over again—Martin Scorsese is no different Scorsese's Casino is a phenomenal story of the condoned chaos and "legalized robbery" that happens on a daily basis to gamblers who bett away thousands of dollars and return each day for more “FinDom,” but without any of the sexual sadism. The whole scam only persists because the house always wins: the odds are stacked 3 million to one on the slot machines, but the same shmucks return wide-eyed each day hoping for a different outcome, devoid of any rational re-evaluation required to maintain their grasp on reality, and the liquidity of their bank accounts. Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor. Robert De Niro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, recruited by his childhood friend Nick "Nicky" Santorno to help run the Tangiers casino, which is funded by an investment made with the Teamsters’ pension fund. Ace’s job is to keep the bottom line flowing so that the Mafia's skimming operation can continue seamlessly. De Niro's character felt like half-way between Travis from Taxi Driver (of course, nowhere as mentally disturbed) and half of the addictive excess, greed, and eccentric business-mind of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. Ace’s attention to detail gives him a rain-man-esque sensibility; his ability to see every scam, trick, hand signal, and maneuver happening on the casino floor make him the perfect manager of the casino, and take his managerial style to authoritarian heights in his pursuit of order and control over what is an inherently unstable and dynamic scheme; betting, hedging outcomes, and walking the line to keep the money flowing and the gamblers coming back. I’m not claiming Ace is autistic, I'm no clinician, but his managerial sensibilities over the daily operations of the casino, from the dealers to the pit bosses, to the shift managers, are to the point of disturbing precision, he has eyes everywhere, and knows how to remove belligerent customers with class and professionalism, but ultimately is short sighted in “reading” the human beings he is in relationship with. Ace is frustratingly naive and gullible in his partnership with Nicky and the threat he poses to him, and in his marriage with Ginger. Ace has no personal aspirations to extract millions of dollars for himself out of the casino corruption venture. Ace simply wants the casino to operate as efficiently as possible, and he has no qualms about being a pawn of the bosses. While Sam, “the Golden Jew”—as he is called—is the real CEO of the whole enterprise, directing things at Tangiers for the benefit of the bosses “back home.” Ace’s compliance is juxtaposed with Nicky’s outrage upon feeling used: he gripes about how he is in “the trenches” while the bosses sit back and do nothing. Note that none of the activity Nicky engages in outside of the casino—doing the work of “taking Las Vegas over”—is authorized by the bosses. Ultimately Nicky’s inability to exert control over his crew and the street lead to his demise. In the end, capitalism, and all that happens in the confines of the casino, is nothing but “organized violence.” Sound familiar? The mob has a capitalist structure in its organization and hierarchy: muscle men collect and send money back to the bosses who do not labor tirelessly “in the trenches.” The labor of the collectors is exploited to create the profits of their bosses. The entire business-model of the Mafia is predicated on usury and debtors defaulting on loans for which the repayment is only guaranteed by the threat of violence. But this dynamic is not without its internal contradictions and tensions, as seen in Casino. In a comedic turn, the skimmers get skimmed! The bosses begin to notice the thinning of the envelopes and lighter and lighter suitcases being brought from the casino to Kansas City, “back home”. The situation continues to spin out of control, but a mid-tier mafioso articulates the careful balance required for the skimming operation to carry on: to keep the skimming operation functioning, the skimmers need to be kept loyal and happy. It’s a price the bosses have to pay to maintain the operation, “leakage” in their terms. Ace’s efficient management and precision in maintaining order within Tangiers is crucial for the money to keep flowing. But Ace’s control over the casino slips more and more as the movie progresses. We see this as the direct result of Nicky’s ascendance as mob kingpin in Vegas, the chaos he creates cannot be contained and disrupts the profits and delicate dynamics that keep the scam running. Of course I can’t help myself here! We should view Scorsese’s discography, and the many portrayals of capitalist excess not as celebratory fetishization, but a critique of the greed and violence he so masterfully captures on film. See the Wolf of Wall Street for its tale of money as the most dangerous drug of them all, and the alienation—social and political—showcased in Taxi Driver. Scorsese uses the mob as a foil to the casino to attack the supposed monopoly the casino holds on legitimate, legal economic activity that rests on institutionalized theft. When juxtaposed with the logic of organized crime, we begin to see that the two—Ace and Nick—are not so different after all. The only dividing line between the casino and organized crime is the law. Vegas is a lawless town yes, “the Wild West” as Nicky puts it, but there are laws in Vegas. The corruption of the political establishment and ruling elites is demonstrated when they pressure Ace to re-hire an incompetent employee who he fired for his complicity in a cheating scam or his stupidity in letting the slot machines get rigged; nepotism breeds mediocrity. In the end, Ace’s fall is the result of the rent-seeking behavior that the Vegas ruling class wields to influence the gaming board to not even permit Ace a fair hearing for his gaming license, which would’ve given him the lawful authority to officially run Tangiers. The elites use the political apparatus of the State to resist the new gang in town, the warring faction of mob-affiliated casino capitalists. While the mob’s only weapon to employ is that of violence. The mafia is still subservient to the powers that be within the political and economic establishment of Vegas, and they’re told “this is not your town.” I’d like to make the most salient claim of this entire review now. Casino is a western film. The frontier of the Wild West is Vegas in this case, where the disorder of the mob wreaks havoc on, an until then, an “untapped market.” The investment scheme that the Teamsters pension fund is exploited for as seed capital, is an attempt to remain in the confines of the law while extracting as much value as possible through illegal and corrupt means for the capitalist class of the mob (and the ultimately dispensable union president). Tangiers exists in the liminal space of condoned economic activity as a legal and otherwise standard casino. While the violence required to maintain the operation, corrupts the legal legitimacy it never fully enjoyed from the beginning. This mirrors the bounty economy of the West and the out-sourcing of the law and the execution of the law, to bounty hunters. There is no real authority out in the frontier, the killer outlaw on the run is not so different from the bounty hunter who enjoys his livelihood by hunting down the killers. Yet, he himself is not the State. The wide-lens frame of Ace and Nicky meeting in the desert felt like a direct homage to the iconic image of the Western standoff. The conflict between Ace and Nick, the enforcer and the mastermind, is an approximation of the conflicts we might see in John Wayne’s films. The casino venture itself could be seen as an analogy of the frontier-venturism of railroad pioneers going to lay track to develop the West into a more industrial region. I would have believed that this was a documentary about how the mob took over control of the Vegas casinos in the 1970-80s … if it were not for the viewer being expected to believe that Robert De Niro could play a Jew; it's hard to believe a man with that accent and the roles he’s played his entire career could be a “CRAZY JEW FUCK!!” I kid! But alas, De Niro is a class act and the last of the many greats of a bygone era. At times, it felt like Joe Pesci lacked talent as an actor, but his portrayal of the scummy, backstabbing bastard in Nicky was genuinely remarkable, but I might consider his performance the weak point of the movie. It’s weird to see a man that short, be that much of physical menace. There are a number of Sopranos actors in Casino. I’m sure Vincent Chase watched the movie and said to himself, “bet, i’ll cast half of these guys.”The set design and costumes were gorgeous. The styles and fashion of the time were spectacular. Scorsese’s signature gratuitous violence featured prominently, but tastefully. The camera work, tracking shots through the casino and spatial movement was incredible and I thought the cinematography was outstanding, the Western-esque wide lens in the desert was worthy of being a framed still. The Nicky//Ace dynamic is excellent and the two play off of each other well. The conflict between the two of them escalates gradually, and then Nicky’s betrayal of Ace by cheating with Ginger marks the final break between the two of them. Nicky’s mob faculties represent a brutal, violent theft that is illegal and requires the enforcement of violence by organized crime. Despite the illegal embezzlement and corruption at play with the “skimming” operation at work at the casino, the general business model of the casino stands in contrast to the obscene violence of the loan sharks. Ace operates an intelligent operation of theft through the casino, and his hands-on management approach is instrumental to the success of the casino. Nicky’s chaos pervades the casino, and the life and activities of “the street” begin to bleed into Ace’s ability to maintain order in the casino. “Connected” types begin frequenting the casino, and Ace unknowingly forces one particularly rude gambler to leave the casino, who happens to have mob ties with Nicky. The “organized violence” of the casino cannot stay intact perfectly, because the very thing holding it together is the presence of the mob. Nicky is in Vegas as the enforcer and tasked with protecting Ace but his independent, entrepreneurial (shall we call them?) aspirations lead him to attempt to overtake what he realizes is a frontier for organized crime to brutalize and exploit the characters of “the street” (pimps, players, addicts, dealers, and prostitutes) and the owners of small private businesses. Nicky is reckless, “when i plant my flag out here you won’t need your [casino/gaming] license” Nicky thinks he, and Ace, can bypass the regulations and bureaucratic legal measures by sheer force of violence alone. But ultimately Nicky is shortsighted and doesn’t have a real attachment to the success of the casino. After all, he isn’t getting profits from it (or much anyway) and isn’t permitted to play a real, active role in its daily functions because of his belligerent, untamed personality. Nicky has no buy-in that would motivate him to follow the rules or to work within the legal parts of the economy, it’s not the game he knows how to play, and win. All that he is loyal to, or deferent too, is the bosses back home; for whom he maintains absolute, uncompromising loyalty to, but still holds intense spite for. And now to the more compelling element of the narrative. Sam “Ace” Rothstein is positioned as remarkably intelligent, he makes informed decisions that aid in his skill as a gambler, he can read people to determine whether he’s being conned, he has an attention to detail—aided by the casino’s surveillance apparatus which monitors cheating—that is almost unbelievable. Ace knows when he’s being cheated, he knows how to rig the game so that the house always wins, enacting psychological warfare to break down the confidence of would be proficient gamblers, who could threaten Tangiers’ bottom line. But in the end, the greatest gamble Ace makes is his marriage to Ginger. Ginger is the seductive, charismatic, and flirtatious madame who makes her money with tricks and her sexual power. Ginger works as a prostitute, seducing men, and extracting everything she can, almost as a sort of sexual-financial vampirism. Ginger is the bad bet Ace can’t stop making even when she destroys his life, her own, and puts their daughter Amy in harm’s way. Ginger is the gamble Ace made wrong, but he keeps going back to her every time, trying to rationalize how she might change and be different the next time. Ace is not a victim to Ginger’s antics. Ginger makes it clear who she is: an addict, alcoholic, manic shopaholic who will use all of her powers to extract everything she can from everyone around her. She uses everyone to her advantage and manipulates men with her sexual power in exchange for their money and protection. Ginger had a price for her hand in marriage: $1 million in cash and $1 million worth of jewelry that are left to her and her alone as a sort of emergency fund. Ace’s numerous attempts to buy Ginger’s love—and the clear fact that no matter how expensive the fur coat and how grand the mansion, none of it would ever be enough to satisfy her—mirrored Jordan Belfort’s relationship with Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street. Both relationships carried the same manic volatility and conflict over child custody was found in both films, with the roles reversed in the respective films. Ginger may be irredeemable and a pathological liar, but Ace can’t claim that she wasn’t clear with him; when he asked her to marry him, Ginger said she didn’t love Ace. Ace replied that love could be “developed” but required a foundation of trust to develop. That trust was never there to begin with. The love was doomed from the start to destroy the two of them; two addicts, two gamblers, lying on a daily basis to one another and themselves about reality to justify their respective existences, the marriage, and Ace’s livelihood. And as Ginger pointed out, “I should have never married him. He’s a gemini, a triple gemini … a snake” Maybe astrology has some truth to it after all. Now I’m not licensed (but hey neither was Ace, and he ran a casino empire!), but Ginger has the inklings of a borderline personality: her manic depression, narcissism, drug and alcohol abuse, and constant begging for forgiveness all seem indications of a larger psychological disorder at play. In the end, Ginger runs away with all the money Ace left her and finds her people in Los Angeles, the pimps, whores, and addicts she fits in with, in turn exploit and kill her for 3 grand in mint coins by giving her a ‘hot’ dose. Overall, Casino is an incredible cinematic experience. I highly recommend watching this and seeing it as part of Scorsese's anthology of commentary on our economic system and its human victims. I’d argue that Casino, Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman all fit together nicely into a trilogy of the Scorsesean history of finance and corruption from the 70s to the 90s. ————- EDIT 2: TL;DR — Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
Excellent. For a movie stuffed with names, incidents, subplots and stories within stories, I'm surprised by how smooth those 3 and half hours went by. Stylistically it's familiar but unlike Goodfellas and Casino, Scorsese is coming through with more sentimentality by having a closer take on bonds between partners. Better late than never having Pacino, De Niro and Pesci all together on screen at this point in their lives, and it's a wonderful thing to see. De Niro is great as always, Pacino amuses with his ego, and Pesci gives the most restrained performance of his career. He's not flying off the handle and stabbing people with pens here; He's a man of business. They all carry the film equally and it's a joy to see. The de-aging, a couple instances aside, is pretty damn good. Part of me says it's not worth inflating the budget, but at the same time, it's hard to imagine any other actor really capturing De Niro and Pesci's personalities. But forget the de-aging because ... Well I don't wanna get too spoilery. The finale is sorta haunting and just so pitiful to watch, that's all I'll say. If you wanna look at this, Goodfellas and Casino as an unofficial trilogy, it works because the way everything ends here just makes sense <:-| .... Go watch it.
How do you cultivate the tradition of "double features" and how do you choose the films?
From time to time i watch double features for different reasons. I make myself something good to eat, turn off the phone and enjoy two films in the dark with my wife. Sometimes she comes up with the idea, sometimes I do. We do this on average every two months and enjoy talking about the films, directors and film industry. The best and unfortunately the rarest event is when two films suitable for a double feature, which we both want to see, are shown in the cinema and can be viewed one after the other in one evening. The last time this happend was nearly four years ago. The hateful eight / the revenant Today on my screen: Baseball Double Feature including Inglourious Basterds and Casino. Scorsese and Tarantino had a hard but succesful year 2019! Our next will be Arnold vs Sly and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot vs Kindergarten Cop. I love to see certain aspects of films in direct comparison. So how do you make your choice and why do you watch double features? What was your last one?
Scorseses cinematography through Casino and Goodfellas
I need help with a little something. I have a school assignment where I'll have to write about a directors specific directing style in regards to themes, dialogue, music and cinematography by comparing 2 movies. I chose to write about Scorsese and compare Goodfellas and Casino to each other and I'm basically done. I only have one problem, I'm absolutely stuck when it comes to the cinematography (angles, different shots, stuff like that). I'd really appreciate it if anyone could help me, or atleast show me a few websites that talk about the cinematograpic style of these movies. Thanks in advance for anyone who decides to help, I really need this.
Do we really need another Martin Scorsese gangster movie?
Hi everyone The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done? My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives. I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms. If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here: It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much. In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie. The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away. The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out. Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place. Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup. The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then? Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up? Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked. Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore. This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast. It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.
In Zootopia (2016) "Jerry Vole" is a parody of famous Italian-American crooner Jerry Vale who cameoed in Scorsese's mob movies Goodfellas and Casino. In the very next scene, the protagonists meet the local mafia boss / godfather "Mr Big".
Do we really need another Martin Scorsese gangster movie?
Hi everyone The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done? My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives. I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms. If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here: It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much. In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie. The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away. The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out. Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place. Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup. The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then? Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up? Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked. Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore. This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast. It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.
[Discussion] Do we really need another Martin Scorsese gangster movie?
Hi everyone The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done? My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives. I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms. If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here: It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much. In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie. The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away. The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out. Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place. Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup. The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then? Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up? Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked. Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore. This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast. It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.
Exploring the relationship between the upcoming The Irishman (2019) and Scorsese's other gangster movies
Hi everyone A while back I made a post where I looked at the relationship between the upcoming The Irishman and Martin Scorsese's other gangster films - Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Casino - and how things will potentially develop. Unfortunately the thread was kind of ruined because I titled my post something like "Is another Scorsese crime flick really necessary?", the idea being I would argue in my post as to why it was. Because of the title, I don't think many people actually read the post and instead instantly replied with things like "Don't watch it if you don't want to" which was unrelated to what I was discussing. So I've decided to give it another go with a more sensible title. The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done? My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives. I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms. If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here: It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much. In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie. The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away. The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out. Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place. Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup. The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then? Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up? Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked. Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore. This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast. It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.
I keep and maintain a list of my 100 favorite films, as I'm sure many of you do, and every year in March I update my blog to capture how things have shifted throughout the last year. I've spent the last year largely focused on formulating a greatest directors list, and perhaps I'll feel content enough to unveil that soon, but in the meantime, I thought this post could spark some interesting debates and conversations, and of course, more lists (because everyone loves lists!). IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls033971916/?publish=save
The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964)
Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
Viridiana (Bunuel, 1961)
Harakiri (Kobayashi, 1962)
The Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)
The Graduate (Nichols, 1967)
Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
The Cameraman (Keaton and Sedgwick, 1928)
Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1979)
Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942)
Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, 1953)
Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
The Godfather: Part II (Coppola, 1974)
Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci, 1972)
There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966)
The ‘Before’ Series (Linklater, 1995/2004/2013)
City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
Unforgiven (Eastwood, 1992)
The Treasure of Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948)
Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)
Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990)
The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987)
Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
12 Angry Men (Lumet, 1957)
Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)
Jules and Jim (Truffaut, 1962)
Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
Star Wars: Episodes IV, V and VI (Lucas, 1977/1980/1983)
Exploring the relationship between The Irishman and Scorsese's other gangster films
To see a video version of this essay, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much. In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie. The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away. The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out. Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place. Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup. The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then? Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up? Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked. Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore. This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast. It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle. My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men.
[Discussion] - Exploring the relationship between the upcoming The Irishman (2019) and Scorsese's other gangster movies
Hi everyone A while back I made a post where I looked at the relationship between the upcoming The Irishman and Martin Scorsese's other gangster films - Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Casino - and how things will potentially develop. Unfortunately the thread was kind of ruined because I titled my post something like "Is another Scorsese crime flick really necessary?", the idea being I would argue in my post as to why it was. Because of the title, I don't think many people actually read the post and instead instantly replied with things like "Don't watch it if you don't want to" which was unrelated to what I was discussing. So I've decided to give it another go with a more sensible title. The Irishman will mark the fourth time director Martin Scorsese has made an Italian Mafia movie starring Robert De Niro in a major role. I wanted to take this opportunity to have a look at Scorsese’s gangster pictures through the years, and explore The Irishman’s relationship with the previous films. Do we really need another mafia film? What can the upcoming crime film add to Scorsese’s résumé that hasn’t already been done? My personal hope is that The Irishman is more thought provoking than the previous 3 films. The most interesting thing for me is the 'old man/aging gangster' aspect about Frank Sheeran looking back on his life. It ties nicely with mean Streets being about lowlife degenerates, Goodfellas about middle-of-the-pack hoods, and Casino about made men. This whole thing comes full circle with the aged men looking back on their lives. I made the below video briefly looking at the relationship between the 3 main gangster movies that Scorsese has done, and what potentially The Irishman could bring to the table, validating its existence: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qnx_S0MTQ I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and criticisms. If you prefer to read instead of watching the video, I wrote it up here: It must say something about how good Martin Scorsese’s mafia movies are when this director of over 25 feature length films is often only remembered by some as a director of mob flicks. In reality he has only made 3, with one more on the way – The Irishman. I wanted to have a look at the upcoming picture, and see how it could relate to Scorsese’s crime resume, and what, if anything, it could add to a group of movies that already have said so much. In 1973, up and coming director Scorsese cemented himself as someone to watch with the visceral and fierce crime film Mean Streets, about a duo of hoodlums growing up in Little Italy, where Scorsese himself lived his youth in. What we saw on screen had an improvisational feel to it, like all the mundane conversations, date nights and bar fights were really happening, and we just happened to be there. But the chaos was being puppeteer by a future master, suggested by the way this film was shot and edited. Rock n Roll, long takes, ultraviolence and whip pans were just some of the few elements, in addition to themes of machismo and catholic guilt, that would go on to be staple Scorsese trademarks. The film dealt with degenerates and scumbags, and yet they were human. In some cases they were even charismatic, their lifestyle inviting, but ultimately Scorsese would pull the plug on this romantic fantasy that was the mob way of life, and unleash chaos in the final third of the movie. The film had a dirty feel…gritty and rough around the edges. It had a feel of something trying to burst out and move away from the piss-stained and littered sidewalks, trying to be something different and to stand out, much like the main character and the man behind the camera. Scorsese had poured personal dilemmas and his own internal conflicts into this movie, and it been suggested that we could see the main character as Scorsese himself in his earlier days. Something interesting to note was the movie’s lack of plot. If you had to explain what happens in the movie in a couple of sentences, what would you say? It’s difficult. Scorsese has said that he does not pay a great deal of attention to plot, in fact he claims The Departed made in 2006 is the first movie he ever made with a plot. Rather his attention is fixated on character. And Mean Streets, despite being directed by a no name starring no names on a shoe string budget, has great characters. Characters that feel real. Characters who don’t move or act for the sake of the plot or sequences of events, but rather their emotions and interactions are the centrepiece of the film, a core element without which Mean Streets doesn’t exist. With this movie, it isn’t ‘such and such happens’, then ‘such and such happens’ and because ‘such and such happens’ ‘such and such happens’. Cause and effect is thrown out the window, replaced with an emphasis on what is said, what isn’t said, what is meant, what is this character feeling, how is this character changing, if you put these two characters in a room together and lock the door, what will happen? When the characters are strong enough as they are in Mean Streets, who needs a plot? Let the characters take it away. The style in which Scorsese directed Mean Streets, the beautiful marriage of music and images, coarse and jagged though admirable, was perfected by the time he revisited that world with the incredible Goodfellas. Again, the mob life feels entrancing and inviting, and again it is shown to be ruthless and ultimately not rewarding. A generation who had grown up on gangster films showcasing mobsters as operatic and tragic figures, almost samurai like, were given a slap to the face and a gun to the head with the captivating but punishing 1990 picture. Nowhere is the essence of this best summarised than Henry Hill’s chuffed explanation as to why the gangster Tommy DeVito being ‘made’ was such a great thing. The movie lures you in through a combination of great acting, a blissful soundtrack and a genuine sense of happiness for these crooks – no matter what they are, and the things they’ve done, in this moment in time we feel their joy. And then – bang. Out of nowhere Tommy is 'whacked'. There’s your gangster life. See yourself out. Despite the obvious dangerous nature of the mob world, we can’t help but feel seduced at the lifestyle, reconstructed so brilliantly by Scorsese. When Henry Hill peers down from his windows at these mobsters, as an asthma-stricken and bedroom confined Scorsese must have once done atop the streets of Little Italy, we are right there with him, hopping along with him on this doomed fairy-tale. Henry represents us, the ever outsider, looking in on this world but never really fitting in. He’s unable, given his bloodline, but disregarding that Henry is closer to us than we are to any of the rest of the characters. He shares our bemusement when Tommy, after beating a man almost to death, is worried that he spilled blood on floor of the club owned by Henry, or when the crew of gangsters show more concern about digging a hole to throw a murdered bartender in, as opposed to actually murdering him in the first place. Goodfellas is easier to be immersed into than Mean Streets, not just because of the improvement of the craft, but because of this character of Henry, who acts as our window into this world where bloodshed is an everyday occurrence. And like Mean Streets, though things seems to not be so bad on the whole, the veil is lifted towards the end of the film. Paranoid, tense, and anxious are just a few of the ways to describe Henry in the last half an hour of the film, and the kinetic and coked-up style the film goes in, accelerating to his inevitable downfall, and the ironic ending. Now the fairy-tale is over, he can’t stop thinking about the life, ignorant to the fact that he should be happy to be alive, not spend his time complaining about egg-noodle and ketchup. The wiseguys in this film are of a different calibre to Mean Streets, a step up. Where those guys were merely hoodlums, street thugs with dead end prospects, the characters in Goodfellas are a step up. They are the money earners, the guys sticking their head out of the water trying to avoid jail time, a bullet to the head, in the hope of being made and officially recognised as part of a crime syndicate. What about those who are actually in a crime syndicate then? Enter Casino. These guys were certified Mafioso. The bosses. Pretty much as high as you could go, the very people who would be in charge of the level of mobsters in Goodfellas. The income is better, the power more influential, the stakes higher…but the mistakes made by those in the film are just as prevalent as the low level thugs of the previous films, and in the end it topples an entire empire. The technique and style that was used for Casino was very similar to Scorsese’s 1990 Oscar nominated film, which drew criticism from critics at the time, claiming the film was basically Goodfellas in Las Vegas. With that in mind, I think the film was quite symbolic in the sense that some of his favorite themes, mainly greed, are elevated and bought to the forefront. Henry is touching the waters in Goodfellas, sometimes just trying to stay alive, keep his sate constant, but here the primary characters much like Scorsese himself are indulging in their wants to the fullest. Scorsese was at the height of his power here, and it’s fitting that he makes a movie about the mob at their highest peak too. If the question in goodfellas is why would someone want to join the mob, and how does one do so, then the question in Casino is what happens once you’ve made it, and how on earth do you mess something like that up? Scorsese said about Casino that it is “essentially having no plot, it’s all about character”, another link to the previous 2 movies. Though Goodfellas is almost unanimously touted as the better film, Casino is not to be dismissed. In fact it touches on things that its predecessor does not. As stated the theme of greed is front and centre, and even arguably the greed of the film-makers and studios for entering this world again after only 5 years. There’s something about the film the screams excess, indulgence and in relation to the development of the characters’ lives, the false hope, the dangling bait that is the American dream. Yes, I always felt that Casino had a tragic element to it. It’s difficult to put the finger on what exactly gets me to feel this way – perhaps it’s the church choir the movie’s opening titles are accompanied with, perhaps its seeing these characters waste away such an amazing gift in life as effortlessly as they received it in the first place, or perhaps it’s just the fact that the mob life, on screen at least, always seems to be accompanied by a sense of tragedy full stop. Crime and cinema has always been fascinatingly linked, going back to what was one of the first narrative films ever made with The Great Train Robbery, which is homage at the end of Goodfellas. What is it about these characters, this way of live that is so inviting, attractive and appealing? I’m in no way educated enough to properly articulate just what appeals to me about these kind of films, but perhaps it is this screen, this camera, this barrier which separates us from the violence and death, giving us peace of mind and allowing us to be entertained, to enter a world of crime without consequences for ourselves, a bit like how going on a rollercoaster ride is like experiencing the thrill of a car crash without the danger, or watching a serial killer movie for the excitement without the fear of death that would accompany actually being stalked. Either way, what is ultimately tragic, for me at least, is that Casino was the last of the great American crime movies. Yes there were some good ones that came after, like Donnie Brasco or American Gangster, but nothing quite touched the level of Casino. Scorsese never made a film as good as, De Niro or Pesci never made a film as good as. The genre came to an abrupt close, with most modern crime films like Gangster Squad coming and going without any real significance. With mainstream movies adjusting to become politically correct, it doesn’t seem the gangster genre is even welcome on the big screen anymore. This is why The Irishman is so important to me. It’s another film, despite the cast and director, that never really got to the big screen, instead being produced by the streaming service Netflix. But this film, for me, will act as the curtain closer, the swansong of a genre that didn’t really get one before it died. It becomes even more perfect that the golden generation of De Niro, Pesci and Keitel will return, and Al Pacino and Marty will work together for the first time. The old guard will all slip back into Mafioso roles, whilst newcomer Pacino will instead play the outside Jimmy Hoffa, a fitting placement given his detachment to Scorsese compared to the rest of the cast. It’s a movie that will hopefully be the most mature and though provoking of the four films, focusing on the days after the heyday. What happened to Charlie after the attack on him and his friend Johnny Boy at the end of Mean Streets? What happened after Henry closed the door of his cheap home off a construction site in the middle of nowhere at the end of Goodfellas. Those periods in the men’s lives were never explored, but here with the life of Frank Sheeran we will take a trip down memory lane with him through the highs and lows. But after the business successes and the flourishing mob connections, eventually everyone he would come to know such as Russell Buffalino and Angelo Bruno would die, and we’d be left with a frail old man looking back on his life, a life in which he is supposed to have murdered over 2 dozen people. This, surely, will be where the heart of Scorsese’s film will be. Sheeran’s real life confession was prompted by a wish for attornment for his sins, which harks back to our protagonist Charlie in Mean Streets, and his juggling of his religious dilemma and his criminal lifestyle. We had the lowlife thugs, we had the middle of the park hoods, we had the bosses of bosses, and now we have the film centred on aging, elderly gangsters, past their primes looking back at the glory days of their zeniths. It’s only fitting then, that a selection of actors and a director known for these kind of movies will portray these characters, all of whom which are also past their prime and thus Scorsese’s gangster resume comes full circle.
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