Gangster Movies

Paper Summary:

The paper explains that, in the same way that the Wild West outlaw represented certain values to audiences of the nineteenth century, the urban, organized crime element came to represent many of the same values in the following century. The paper then discusses the films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and relates that the first significant break from the traditional storytelling technique came with Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 creation of "The Godfather" that arguably set the tone for organized crime based films for the next three decades. The paper also focuses on the film "Goodfellas" by Martin Scorsese that attempted to make this picture of the dark side of the American dream a bit more vivid and even more gritty in its realism. Finally, the paper examines "The Sopranos" by David Chase that was a modern day fusion of many different ways of representing gangsters in entertainment that resulted in a shocking amount of realism.

From the Paper:

"The era of the gangster movies began shortly after the era of organized crime in the United States first began. The outlaw, in one form or another, has always been a fascination of mainstream America, and this has been reflected in our popular culture. The dime store novels of the nineteenth century were, in some ways, the precursors to the crime-based films of the twentieth century. In these books, characters like Billy the Kid and Jesse James were immortalized as rugged individualists who lived by their own rules and challenged authority in cunning and daring manners. Essentially, the character of the outlaw has been fascinating to American audiences for ages. But what the Wild West outlaw was to audiences of the nineteenth century, the urban, organized crime element came to represent many of the same values in the following century."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Biskend, Peter. "An American Family." Vanity Fair, April 2007. Available: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/04/sopranos200704?currentPage=1.
• Earp Trial Homepage. "Shoot-Out Scenarios." University of Missouri, 2007. Available: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/earp/scenarios.html.
• Faludi, Susan. "An American Myth rides off into the Sunset." New York Times, March 30, 2003. Available: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0330-03.htm.
• The Godfather. Feature film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. 175 min. Paramount Pictures, 1972.
• The Godfather Part II. Feature film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. 200 min. Paramount Pictures, 1974.

More papers on Gangster Movies:

• Film Review # 9213 : "The Gangster Movie Genre"
• Comparison Essay # 3938 : "Gangster Films and their Evolvement"
• Film Review # 136074 : "American Gangster: Critique"

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