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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Gangster movies

  
 
Jackie Susann
05:42 / 24.05.06
Two of my all-time favourite movies are Godfather II and Scarface. In general, I love gangster movies. I love the serious sagas of honour and family, I love the trashy crime-drama schlockfests. There is just something about the mob that makes for great movies - I think this is basically proved by the fact that most of the big American auteurs of, at least, the second half of the twentieth century count mob movies among their best work.

One thing I find really interesting about them is a tropism toward a critique of nationalism. The tagline for Scarface was, 'He loved the American dream... with a vengeance', and throughout the movie Tony drops these great lines that gesture towards the imbrication of capital and sexual politics in US nationalism (i.e., 'In America, first you get the money, then you get the power, and then you get the women'.) Each of the Godfather movies, and as far as I'm concerned there are only two, start with a scene that specifically questions the limits of the American dream - the 'I believe in America' speech in part one, and little Vito Corleone, his real name lost to some Ellis Island dickhead, looking out the window of his cell at the Statue of Liberty. For ages I have been meaning to work up a proper argument about this, but the basic reasons are pretty obvious - these are movies about migrants and money in America. There's no way they can avoid being about US nationalism.

So many of my favourite movie scenes and quotes and performances come from gangster movies it's almost unbelievable. Michael Corleone in Havana as the revolution overruns the city, Tony Montana's final stand, 'Say hello to my lil friend!', the crowds frantically stocking up on liquor before midnight, when prohibition kicks in, in Public Enemy, 'It means, 'Luca Brazi sleeps with the fishes',' the 'what do you mean I'm funny?' routine in Goodfellas, Tom Hagen talking to Frank Pentangeli in the prison yard - in fact I could list practically every Godfather II scene.

So come on. What are your favourites, and why. I'd be extra keen for non-US recommendations because I've hardly seen any.
 
 
lonely as a cloud...
06:33 / 24.05.06
Well, if you want to talk non-American gangster movies, there's a plethora of excellent to passable Hong Hong Triad/Yakuza/generic ganster movies out there.
 
Johnny To's The Mission is great, and an obvious influence on Reservoir Dogs, at least stylistically. The Infernal Affairs trilogy are also excellent gangster movies - described by some critics as Hong Kong's answer to The Godfather trilogy - the first especially.
 
Other asian gangster movies that spring to mind... John Woo's Hard Boiled and Tsui Hark's Time And Tide.
 
 
sleazenation
06:58 / 24.05.06
The Brit gangster movie is a well worn path from biopics of real gangsters, such as The Krays to 60s gangster film Get Carter (a london based hitman returns to his home town in the industrial north to find out who killed his brother) through to stuff like The Long Good Friday(a film about the shifting nature of gangsters in the 80s and the rapid fall of one such specimin). Some might even claim Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a gangster film, but it is more of a caper movie in the tradition of The Italian Job.


But above all else, the single Brit gangster film i would recommend above all the others is Sexy Beast It is more of a love story than a gangster story, but the gangster story is what gives the love story its weight. An ex-con is invited to do 'one last job' and discovers that turning this opportunity down is not an option - you get halfway through the film and you genuinely don't know how the film could progress...
 
 
GogMickGog
08:58 / 24.05.06
I always think Carlito's Way is like Scarface with soul: when ol' Carlito's running for that train at the end you really want him to make it (even though you know he won't). Tony, on the other hand, is an objectionable so and so: No tragic hero in that he starts out as a twat and gets progressively more and more horrible. Maybe that's the point but still, I've never understood the canonisation of that horrible little flick.

Two absolute greats are John Boorman's Point Blank, with Lee Marvin as revenge incarnate, and an under-rated gem, Jez Butterworth's Mojo. It's an adap. of a stage play with a cast of brit stalwarts- Ian Hart, Harold "fuckpig" Pinter, Ewen Bremmer, Andy Serkis etc. Anyhoo, it's a hoot and wonderfully done to boot.
 
 
Shrug
21:43 / 26.05.06
I'm reasonably partial to Scarface: Shame of a Nation (1932)(Howard Hawks directs) of which the Al Pacino one was a remake. Paul Muni plays Tony Camonte. Great pulp novel feel to it, tommy-guns, gangster mols, slapstick comedy, some laughs, lots of casualties. There's a nifty motif of X's throughout the film, which is fun to look out for (it really does appear alot). It suffered because of the Hayes Code, I think; despite the body count there's never any blood, and the ending was changed around a bit to bring a more heavy handed morality to the events. Even the title was ammended "Shame of a Nation" added on just in case people got the wrong idea. It does still glorify the gangster life-style despite all this, though, (even with numerous jokes at Tony's expense provided by Poppy, Tony isn't the sharpest guy on the block and then there's his disquieting borderline creepy relationship with Cesca.)

There's alot of anti-urbaness (or othering of the city) filtered through gangster films and film noir (of which early gangster films acted as a precursor) and even a conflation in negative terms between immigrants and urban life (sometimes, although women and criminals remain the main villains). There's also a type of glorification of the gangster life and a twisting of the American dream. I'm not sure if it works as a commentary against US nationalism, Jackie, but the dichotomy between the two is definitely present in Scarface:SOAN.

I haven't watched many other Gangster/Mob/Mafia films other than Goodfellas (not even the Godfathers). Alot of scenes from it stick out as you say but one that always comes back to me is the scene (early on in the film) where they bury the made-guy (we see it through a red gauze creating a black/red silhouette) following the previous scenes violence it's really pervasively unsettling.
 
 
grant
02:31 / 27.05.06
Non-American options: Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer is over the top. I can't say I really loved it, but I don't think I'll forget it. It's apparently one of those manga adaptations which become baffling movies. Heroin and feces! Atomic destruction!

And Krzyzstov Kieslowski's Three Colors: White is a romantic comedy that involves (tangentially, if memory serves) some organized crime stuff. It's interesting in that it plays with the nationalism thing quite a bit -- Polish man, obsessed with French wife, who sort of uses mob connections as a power equalization thing, if I'm remembering right.
 
 
Jackie Susann
03:22 / 27.05.06
Shrug - the first two Godfathers are really worth watching. The first time I saw the first one I found it a little hard going, since the first hour is basically every gangster movie cliche going - I mean, you know watching it that they invented these cliches but that doesn't stop the visceral impact of shit like the horse head in the bed or 'Luca Brazi sleeps with the fishes' losing some of their kick. But as a story and a movie, it is easily epic and commanding enough to get past that. By the end, the last thing you are thinking is 'cliche'. And I don't think there's much debate that the second is the best sequel ever, at least in English language cinema. It is maybe my favourite movie, and just thinking about it makes me want to go watch it again.

Really, I think the Godfathers fit the 'Scarface with a soul' tag much better than Carlito's Way (which I do love). Like Scarface, the Godfathers (taken together) chronicle the rise and fall of an Al Pacino-acted mob leader, but here the fall (despite what he actually loses) is much more internal - moral and spiritual - than crazy Say Hello To My Lil Friend gunfight bullshit. The end of Godfather II is about as chilling as anything you will ever see.

And Mick - Carlito aside, everyone in gangster movies is an objectionable so and so. It's part of the genre. I kind of understand what you mean, except when you call it a 'horrible little flick'. It may be horrible, but no way is it little - it's main appeal is its insane, operatic HUGENESS. The sets, the costumes, Tony's ego, the mounds of cocaine - everything is manically larger than life. How are you not gonna love, like, the 'make way for the bad guy' speech? Tony isn't supposed to be sympathetic or tragic, more like an elemental force of resistance to limitations.

I haven't seen the original Scarface - my video store doesn't have it. (Was unimpressed by the confused look on the clerk's face when I asked if they had 'the 1930s Scarface'.) I think probably the stuff about nationalism (I was oversimplifying - its more a complex thematisation than any straightforward critique) is probably a post-Godfather trope. I don't really see it in, like, Public Enemy or On The Waterfront.

I am going to check out as many of these recommendations as I can. I am worried all my posts in this thread are going to be too long, cause I can't shut up about these movies.
 
 
Shrug
22:59 / 20.11.07
I've recently had a brief flirtation with some of Jimmy Cagney's earlier gangster movies.
Just thinking about Jackie Susann's reaction to The Public Enemy I still pretty much think that it does work as critique of nationalism although more tied to contemporaneous discourses of crime than anything immediately recognizable.
The Public Enemy for example (although largely unstressed) does have a reasonable rise and fall narrative (tied to consumerism-feasibly recognized as a perverted take on the American Dream). Although mainly I think that the earlier scene's Wellman constructs point to slum life (once again the city as the sight of anti-civilization) but as Deborah Pye (or somesuch theorist might point out) also as the sight where "us-ness" rather than "them-ness" is constructed (those scary immigrants, non-wasp-ers etc). Cagney's character Tommy Powers constantly espouses 'gangsterism' as a legitimate way to make money in the city as opposed to his brother Mike's school-going "learning to be poor" etc.
There's talk of the gang as an interstitial group in sociologcial studies of the time too. Where youth gangs and those of the real criminal and hoodlum type often make up for the lack of a stable family unit either as child or in marriage. Which is probably why the family is so inherently important in most gangster movies and sexuality and marriage often seem to pose a threat to the gang-family (sometimes actual family although often a construct of like minded criminals). Both Scarface: SOAN and The Public Enemy through opening inter-titles posit themselves somewhat as not just guns and gals films but as sociological studies too. Quite interesting anyway.

If your still looking for recommendations: White Heat (1949) another Cagney title is a good jaunt. The criminal as psychopath, lots of binaries to look into, mommy issues, post atomic-worry, not in as such a critique on nationalism but still pretty worthy of a watch.

This whole post is something of a tired afterthough so apologies for garbledness.
 
  
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