The gangster or mob film genre has captivated audiences for nearly one hundred years, dating back to the silent film era. Introduced through films such as The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) and Underworld (1927), the genre has become increasingly complex in its development, evidenced by the sophisticated narratives and advanced cinematographic techniques of more recent films such as Road to Perdition (2002) and The Departed (2006). This paper will serve to analyze only two of these brilliant works, and will do so through a compare and contrast format.
Howard Hawks’s Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932) focuses on gang warfare and police intervention during a power struggle for Prohibition-era Chicago. This pre-Hays Code gangster film also contains a cry for political and social change regarding the way in which the federal government handles crime. The earliest to be compared, this film employs all of the characteristics of classic Hollywood style, as well as setting the mode for subsequent films of this type. Melodramatic in nature, gangster films use conventional characters such as heroes, heroines, and villains often placed in narratives that include predictable plot elements such as improbable reversals of fortune, accidents, and last-minute rescues. These characteristics can be identified in both Scarface and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Upon completion of critical analysis of both of these films, it may be recognized that Scorsese employs the use of allusion to previous works known in the art, and in particular, The Departed may be seen as paying homage to Scarface: The Shame of the Nation.
While Scarface shows the beginnings of the genre of gangster films, The Departed makes use of previous works and puts a spin ...
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3. The Departed. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson. Warner Bros., 2006. DVD.
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They wear fancy suits, drive luxurious cars, and parade around with different women each day. Although being a gangster has some advantages, everything comes with a price. Tom and Matt were such successful gangsters that they attracted enemies from other gangs. The audience watches as Tom and Matt walk down the street, and suddenly gunshots are heard, Matt has been shot and killed. The audience may have assumed all the violence and tragedy would end there but the death of Tom only sparked a bloody mob war. This film was one of the first films of its time to show a mob war which were very common during the 1920s. Competition was one of the biggest parts of being a gangster. Al Pacino who played a famous gangster in the movie The Godfather says in the film, “Everybody loves you until you become competition.” Gangsters were perceived as powerful men who were above the law and who could handle anything, but that is not always the case, especially for Tom. In the end of the film, Tom reign as a gangster comes to an end. He wanted to get revenge for his friend Matt, but it only resulted in his death as well. Some people aren’t as tough as they think they
In conclusion, from my perspective, the movie is presented in the middle 70’s, showing a portrayal of a City of New York overcrowded. The violence presented is the primary ingredient, drugs, betrayals and murderers are also included in this film that shows the city from a perspective of the streets and the world of the mafia, probably something that happened in those days and remains part of an unseen
While there are many different ways to classify a Neo-noir film, Roman Polanski’s, Chinatown captures many. The 1974 movie consists of many of these elements, including both thematic and stylistic devices. One of the main themes of neo-noir film that is constant throughout the film is the deceptive plot that questions the viewers’ ideas and perceptions of what is actually happening in the film. Every scene of Chinatown leads to a twist or another turn that challenges the practicability of the film’s reality. All of the never-ending surprises and revelations lead up to the significant themes the movie is trying to convey in the conclusion of the film.
The movie Gangs of New York takes place in Lower Manhattan’s Five Points’ neighborhood. It begins in 1846. The main protagonist Amsterdam Fallon, Priest Fallon’s son, watches his father who is the leader of the Dead Rabbit gang prepare and die in battle. As his father is on his last breadths of life giving his son counsel, Billy “the Butcher” Cutting snaps the Priest Fallon’s head. Amsterdam runs away from Cuttings henchmen to hide his father’s knife before he is captured by the Natives gang. He is taken to Hellgate orphanage. In 1862 Amsterdam returns to Five Point’s neighborhood and finds his old friend Johnny Sirocco. Johnny works now for Billy “the Butcher” and introduces Amsterdam to Cutting. Amsterdam makes his way into Cutting’s inner circle of Natives. Amsterdam also meets Jenny Everdeane while hanging out with Johnny. She bumps into Johnny to pickpocket his watch. Amsterdam notices and lets Johnny know. Johnny claims he always lets her take things. As both Cutting and Jenny take a liking to Amsterdam Johnny becomes jealous. He notices young Vallon quickly making his way into Cutting’s gang’s high ranks and into Jenny’s heart. Out of jealousy, Johnny reveals Amsterdam’s true identity to Cutting. Cutting decides to make Vallon angry. He succeeds by playing a dangerous game that involves knives with Jenny at the annual celebration of Priests Vallon’s death. Amsterdam then attempts to assassinate Cutting but fails and is taught a lesson by Cutting. Amsterdam lives at the help of Jenny. To avenge his father he starts the outlawed Dead Rabbit gang up again. He proposes a challenge to Cutting after his friend “Monk” McGinn is killed by Cutting. The fight takes place at Five Points’ neighborhood on the day the ...
Aside from its acting, the other major influence which Mean Streets had upon American film-makers was through it's use of a rock n' roll soundtrack (almost perfectly integrated with the images), and in its depiction of a new kind of screen violence. Unexpected, volatile, explosive and wholly senseless, yet, for all that, undeniably cinematic violence. The way in which Scorsese blends these two - the rock and roll and the violence - shows that he understood instinctively, better than anyone else until then, that cinema (or at least this kind of cinema, the kinetic, visceral kind) and rock n' roll are both expressions of revolutionary instincts, and that they are as inherently destructive as they are creative. This simple device - brutal outbreaks of violence combined with an upbeat soundtrack - has been taken up by both the mainstream cinema at large and by many individual `auteurs', all of whom are in Scorsese's debt - Stone and Tarantino coming at once to mind.
There is a thin line that exists between the depiction of a villain and a gangster that Hollywood has mastered walking on. While villains and gangsters may do many of the same things in movies, like stealing and killing, they each do them for different reasons. Villains enjoy crime because that is what gets them off; some may feel they are doing society a favor, like Uncle Charlie in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, and others are more simply portrayed as naturally evil or mentally ill. But Gangsters are doing what they do for something American society can relate to—to make a living and, ultimately, get to the top.
TELOTTE, J. P. (1989). Voices in the dark: the narrative patterns of film noir. Urbana, University of Illinois Press.
The gangster genre within films in America has accomplished numerous positive criticisms and constant willing audiences due to containing outstanding spectacles and mind-blowing action. The Godfather, being second on the IMDb Top 250 Movies, has set a new popular concept to life within the Mafia from their point of view. Doing so, creating a positive association. Yet within Italy, the same topic contains a complete different view. Movies such as I Cento Passi demonstrate unenthusiastic view by those whom are outside yet negatively affected by those members. Unlike American films, the gangsters are not as often viewed at the protagonist and are the main causes for the problematic events. But how different is Italian Mafia and American Mafia in cinema?
In ¾, the leitmotif with its astonishing feel, evokes the audience to focus on the dialogue between Don Coreleone (Marlon Brando) and a father who came to ask the godfather to avenge his daughter who have been raped. With the combination of Marlon Brando’s charismatic acting, the Godfather Leitmotif immediately sets the dark, charismatic, almost expressionist feel of the film. Gangs of New York begins with the sound of the Priest shaving with a knife. Howard Shore gently places strings followed by marching music. The beginning of Gangs of Newyork introduces many characters that will lead the film and throws the audience into the battlefield that is portrayed more like the dark ages or the middle ages than the 19th century new york. For audiences who must have expected the movie to have a dark, gritty Noir feel, the raw and barbaric feel of the opening scene and the music comes as surprising and
The Godfather is the “dark-side of the American dream story” (Turan, pp2). The film follows the practices of a fictional Italian mafia family, the Corleone’s. Though most Americans do not condone the practices of the Italian mafia, they cannot deny that Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is a cinematic masterpiece. This film gave insight to a mysterious way of life that the average person does not have knowledge of. As the audience is educated about the mafia they also are introduced to many stereotypes.
The noir style is showcased in Sunset Boulevard with its use of visually dark and uncomfortable settings and camera work, as well as its use of the traditional film noir characters. In addition, the overall tone and themes expressed in it tightly correspond to what many film noirs addressed. What made this film unique was its harsh criticism of the film industry itself, which some of Wilder’s peers saw as biting the hand that fed him. There is frequent commentary on the superficial state of Hollywood and its indifference to suffering, which is still a topic avoided by many in the film business today. However, Sunset Blvd. set a precedent for future film noirs, and is an inspiration for those who do not quite believe what they are being shown by Hollywood.
The Godfather is most notably one of the most prolific films of its time. This "gangster" film displayed many transformations of permeating color to give the viewer observable cues in its mise en scene that drew one right into the movie. The dramatic acting set the tone of the film with a score that lifted the viewer right out of their seat in many scenes. The directing and cinematography made The Godfather ahead of its time. The nostalgic feel of family importance and the danger of revenge lets us into the life of the Mafia. Even though no other techniques would have given the viewer a feeling of inside the mob like the mise en scene of the power the godfather held, the characters are reinforced literally and figuratively because the story views the Mafia from the inside out, and the cinematography of the film gives it a dangerous and nostalgic feel.
“American Gangster” is based on the true story of Frank Lucas’ life. It is the story of how he cut out the middleman in the heroin business and the story of how Ritchie Roberts caught him. Throughout the film we see the parallel between a cop and a criminal as we inch forward to see their lives finally meet.
Like Jordan Belfort who follows his own code, Scorsese often makes movies with protagonists who live outside mainstream norms (Connelly). Howard Hughes (the aviator) is another example of Scorsese’s work in which he demonstrates the eccentric protagonist character of Hughes and his contribution in the aviation history. Other Scorsese films, such as The Departed— about an undercover cop and his battle with the Irish American mafia— is also about the exceptional way that the cop character, also played by DiCaprio, acts outside conventional police work in order to perform...
In this essay the following will be discussed; the change from the age of classical Hollywood film making to the new Hollywood era, the influence of European film making in American films from Martin Scorsese and how the film Taxi Driver shows the innovative and fresh techniques of this ‘New Hollywood Cinema’.