The Evolution of Scorsese’s Mob Classics: An American Crime Story Unveiled – Hot

Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman will be released next month first in a limited theatrical run in New York and then on Netflix. Early reviews of the picture are already hailing it as one of Marty’s finest, a capstone on top of the director’s prolific 50-year career. The film reunites long-time Scorsese collaborators Harvey Keitel, Joe Pesci, and Robert DeNiro, and it is the first time that Scorsese has directed Al Pacino. Getting goosebumps yet?

The film tells the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro), a mob hit man associated with the Bufalino crime family, who presumptively played a role in the famous disappearance of labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa. The story is adapted from the memoir “I Heard You Paint Houses” by former homicide prosecutor Charles Brandt. Clocking in at 210 minutes, The Irishman is Scorsese’s longest feature film to date.

Before you go and invest 3 hours of your time watching what is sure to be a remarkable and sprawling cinematic experience (fingers crossed), it’s time to do your homework. Scorsese is the godfather of modern gangster cinema for a reason. He found a way to draw on his experiences growing up on the Lower East Side of New York to give a voice to the stories of the Italian-American community, in a way that hadn’t been done before.

His stories are authentic and stripped of the gaudy romanticism surrounding organized crime that we see in films like The Godfather and Scarface. His films are about real people, street guys who are just trying to survive in the environments they grew up in, and almost always revolve around a protagonist with a blurred sense of moral purpose trying to escape from or change the world around them with disastrous consequences.

The Irishman will likely revisit many of the same themes that Scorsese explored in his earlier work but with a new twist, a sort of retrospective on what it all means within the context of the American experience. The American flag billowing in the wind toward the end of the film’s latest trailer is a big hint. Understanding the evolution of Scorsese’s mob hits and the cinematic methods he employed to make them timeless classics will enrich the viewing experience of his latest and longest feature.

 

The Foundation: Who’s That Knocking At My Door (1967)

Who’s That Knocking At My Door, initially titled I Call First, was Scorsese’s directorial debut. The film stars Harvey Keitel as J.R., an Italian-American boy struggling to come to terms with his hypocritical attitudes toward women. It explores many of the themes that would become mainstays in future Scorsese films, central among them are the moral and religious conflict within the protagonist and the macho, Mafioso attitudes fostered by his environment. Scorsese draws overt parallels to the tough guy personas of Dean Martin and John Wayne in famous Westerns, cutting between movie posters as a gun goes off at a party, a comparison he will also make in Mean Streets (more on that later).

J.R. is trying to escape the environment he was born into only he is locked in, literally. He is constantly locked into rooms and cars and looking unhappy with his friends. He is rarely shown on screen alone and when he is, it is isolating. In one scene, after an argument with one of his friends on their way to a brothel, he gets out of the car and stands in the middle of a busy street just long enough for his friends to pull around and pick him back up. In the car he is somebody, out of the car and alone, he is nobody. Even though he clearly disagrees with the decision to visit the brothel on moral grounds, he gets back in the car because he has nowhere else to go. The scene highlights the societal pressures on individuals like J.R. who are brought up in a tight-knit ethnic community with a clannish tinge. It’s hard to break away from the only way of life you’ve ever known.

But he is in love with a girl who isn’t Italian, which may be his ticket out. To him she is a pure blonde virgin who he withholds sex from to save her innocence until they get married. Scorsese makes obvious parallels to the Virgin Mary here by frequently cutting to an angelic porcelain figurine holding the baby Jesus. J.R. holds his lover up to what he was surely taught in Sunday school to be the ultimate ideal of women, equivalent to the Mother of God. His hopes are dashed when he finds out that a former boyfriend had raped her. Ultimately, and hypocritically, he is able to ‘forgive’ her, but she doesn’t accept his apology, claiming the relationship will never work because he will always hold her impurity over her head, to which J.R. replies, “Who do you think you are? The Virgin Mary or something?”

Visually, the picture is cut like an art film, and many of the tricks of the trade employed here have become trademark moments in Scorsese’s more popular films. Scorsese is a master at incorporating music into his films and his debut is no exception. The opening scene is a homage to West Side Story (1961), with a rock n’ roll twist as J.R.’s group of hoods gets into a rumble on a sidewalk lined with chain-link fences. The editing is riddled with jump cuts in a nod to Godard, who Scorsese has admitted to being a huge influence on his work. In a nutshell, much of what makes Scorsese’s more popular films so great came from this one: the ornate camera movements, long panning shots, and use of slow motion effects to accentuate certain scenes have all become classic Marty staples.

Who’s That Knocking On My Door is streaming now on Netflix, so it is the perfect time to give it a watch.

 

The Saga Continues: Mean Streets (1973)

“You don’t make up for your sins in the church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit, and you know it.”

The opening phrase to Mean Streets, narrated by Scorsese himself, pretty much sums up the idea behind this thematic follow up to his debut film. The picture follows a young Italian mob associate, Charlie (Harvey Keitel), who is trying to be a good person despite the chaotic environment in which he lives. His friend, Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro), to which he has an unexplained bond of loyalty, is in over his head in gambling debt. Charlie continually tries to save Johnny from falling into the sinister hands of his debtors, but despite his best efforts, Johnny manages to take it too far by flagrantly enraging a loan shark who then puts a hit out on him. Ultimately, Charlie finds salvation by sacrificing himself for Johnny on the streets.

What is particularly striking in this film is Scorsese’s depiction of the blurred line between camaraderie and business in the mob community. Even though Johnny owes thousands of dollars to loan sharks, they are also his friends. The opening title sequence is a home movie of Charlie, Johnny, and the boys hanging out in front of the social club and attending a baptism of someone’s baby. They grab drinks, which Johnny never pays for, and party together as if the debt never existed.

When his creditors finally turn on him, it feels like he is being betrayed by his family, not just some omnipotent mob boss ordering hits from the shadows. It demonstrates the realism behind Scorsese’s characters. These aren’t just hardened gangsters. They are real people that have the same feelings as you and me. They grew up with each other, so it isn’t as simple as ‘he owes us money so let’s kill him,’ which shows up as a frequent trope in less nuanced organized crime films.

Similar to Who’s That Knocking At My Door, Charlie is trapped and constrained by his association with the mob. He can’t love who he wants (Johnny Boy’s epileptic sister), and it’s impossible for him to do the right thing by helping Johnny without sacrificing his reputation and embarrassing his mob boss uncle. Again, the protagonist’s moral standing is at odds with his environment, and chaos ensues.

Fans of Goodfellas will recognize a familiar shot in this film. The camera slowly moves in on Charlie, tracking along the row of patrons lined up at the bar and cutting in between slow motion shots of Johnny Boy stumbling towards Charlie in the arms of two women while “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Rolling Stones plays in the background. It’s a moment of emphasis that increases the tension between the two characters and gets us excited for what’s going to happen next. Scorsese employs the same technique on DeNiro in Goodfellas, slowly zooming in on his character Jimmy Conway smoking a cigarette at the bar while Cream riffs in the background. It’s at that moment we know Jimmy will kill Morey. We didn’t need to be told. The tension this technique creates speaks for itself. And it’s just badass.

Mean Streets is also streaming on Netflix, so you have no excuse not to watch this masterpiece. Add it to the queue.

 

The Mob Goes Mainstream: Goodfellas (1990) & Casino (1995)

They are two of Scorsese’s most well known mob masterpieces, and they have a lot in common. Both films star Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci – Pesci is essentially the same wonderfully unhinged, violent sociopath in both. They were also both adapted from nonfiction books (i.e. “based on a true story”), which is important to note.

Scorsese’s first two gangster classics were both original stories written or co-written by Marty himself, and you can tell the difference. Who’s That Knocking At My Door and Mean Streets both have meandering narratives that are somewhat characteristic of independent cinema, focusing more heavily on the thematic weight of the subject matter instead of a pure entertainment factor.

Goodfellas and Casino are certainly not gritty, independent features made on a tight budget. They are studio films in the truest sense. They have tightly structured narratives with a clear beginning, middle and end, and both have plenty of bloody quarrels, sex, and drugs to keep us stimulated throughout. Ironically, because both of these films were big budget productions ($25 million for Goodfellas and a whopping $52 million for Casino) they tend to rely on more conventional mafia tropes like loyalty, honor, respect etc. that garner mass appeal among audiences. Despite selling out just a little bit, Scorsese was able to strike a fine balance between commercial viability and authenticity by including frequent collaborators like Frank Vincent (Raging Bull, Casino, Goodfellas) and maintaining his unique visual style.

I would be remiss not to mention Marty’s famous tracking shot in Goodfellas that follows Henry (Ray Liotta) and Karen (Lorraine Bracco) as they wind their way through the back entrance of the Copacabana nightclub. It may be the most referenced shot in modern cinema history. But there are smaller moments in these big budget films that remind you it’s a Scorsese picture. It’s moments like the scene in Casino, when security is about to bust a cheat at the blackjack table.

The camera is set high above the table, mirroring the POV of the “eye in the sky”, and we see the security officers step forward one by one in an evenly spaced line behind the table. As each one steps forward they are illuminated in a cone of light, like they are contestants on a game show. It’s a small touch, but it builds the momentum of the scene until it reaches its crescendo with a cattle prod being thrust into the cheater’s back. It’s details like these that make Scorsese’s pictures so enthralling. There is no moment too small to be interesting.

These films are a must-watch. If you haven’t seen them, an immediate screening is recommended.

 

As American as Apple Pie: Gangs of New York (2002) & The Departed (2006)

As Marty moved past his blockbuster success with Casino and Goodfellas, his organized crime epics expanded beyond the Italian-American experience to the American experience in general. These films seemed to ask, “Why does organized crime exist in America, the land of opportunity?” As Mr. French (Ray Winstone, The Departed) would say, because “This is America. You don’t make money you’re a fucking douchebag! Now what you going to do?”

Both films touch on the origins of organized crime in America.

Gangs of New York goes back to the very beginning, to groups of immigrants fleeing their homelands in search of opportunity only to be discriminated against and harassed, who discover that opportunity is not doled out equally, even in the land of the free. Against the harsh brunt of capitalism, they are forced to rely on each other and subvert the law in some cases to improve their station in society’s ranks. Once they’ve carved out their piece of the American dream, they will do whatever it takes to protect it, including discriminating against newcomers in search of the same – hence The Native’s contempt for Irish immigrants in the film.

The Departed picks up where Gangs of New York leaves off. It reveals a world where organized crime and politics are so intertwined that they are, literally, indistinguishable from one another. Amidst the rats in Frank Costello’s (Jack Nicholson) crew and the moles in the Massachusetts’s State Police Department (a lot of rodent references in this one), it’s hard to tell who the real bad guys are. It’s the type of morally ambiguous story that Scorsese thrives on. When the political system that you operate under is corrupt, is it wrong to manipulate that system to your advantage? If you didn’t you would be a sucker, right?

If my predictions are correct, The Irishman will build on the themes explored in Scorsese’s last batch of gangster films, while orientating the question to the current political climate. The question of relevance today seems to be: Does the system we idolize as the truest form of democracy in the world actually promote corrupt behavior? We’ll find out what The Irishman has to say November 1st, 2019. In the meantime, it’s worth doing your homework.