American Gangster Film - Essay Example

American Gangster Film The development of the gangster genre as a “static and dynamic system” from the ical to the modernist to the post-modernist expression of the genre Introduction Gangster films are developed around the evil actions of gangsters and criminals, most specifically underworld figures, bank robbers, of cruel hoodlums who violate the law, stealing and ruthlessly killing their way through life. According to Schatz, a dialectal division of the evolution of genre films that represents an effort to devise a systematic way of getting the deep systems of genre films by observing reoccurrence patterns and variations in the films’ surface structures. The gangster genre is a series of cycles, where each draws and develops from its forerunners, but at the same time reflecting the characteristic concerns and feature of its time. The classical genre expression in the 1930s The classical expression of the genre film is based on the rise and fall of the criminal, often involving the simple beginnings from early youth to maturity at the peak of their criminal careers, seemingly and finally ending tragically. The classical expression of the early thirties was viewed by the audience as a clear response to the depression and the expanded misery over the public policy value and government institutions, law and finance (Shadoian 57). This can help describe the key actors such as Rico in Little Caesar and Tony in Scarface, who were powerful figures who thrived in the face of executive opposition, through their own efforts. After the disagreement over Scarface, there existed a short suspension of gangster films, even though some of the forces behind the classical cycle had disappeared with the elimination of the Volstead Act of 1933. However, by the mid 1930s, a new range of post-abolition, post-production Code gangster films developed, looking at similar themes and involving most of the previous actors, though shifting the focus away from the gangsters and instead focusing on the implementers. The Depression pessism led to the optimism of the New Deal and the gangster genre sought to reassert the legality of executive authority through a couple of films. Nonetheless, classic cycle could still offer its audience with similar vicarious experience of corruption and heroic violence as the forerunners, though the violence was continued more or less legally. Some of the films that set the pace for this phase of genre development were the Little Caesar of 1930, the Public Enemy of 1931, and Scarface of 1932 (Munby 19). These gangsters are often immigrants who are victims of circumstance and always depicted as egotistical maniacs. In the 1930s, the films were arguably developed to initiate a level of security and stability for the audience in the throes of Depression. The film noir phase of the film genre development This is a phase experienced in the 1940s and 1950s, looking at the darker features of modernity, and often exploring the impacts of a criminal act. Gangster films within the film noir phase may have portrayed a shared iconography with the forerunner of the 1930s, though they brought a distinctive attitude and a darker tone than any other did. After the war, films gave an obvious reflection of a pessimistic and darkening mood, among the challenges to “traditional” values that service men experienced. Even though this phase of genre development has been conceived as aesthetically deviant and experimental, portraying little links to what happened before, noir gangster films took over from where pre-war crime movies had left. Viewers received them as an awkward reminder of issues whose solution had been put off by the quest to prosecute the war. Examples of such films are the High Sierra of 1940 and White Heat of 1949 (Booker 105). Filmmakers in 1940s and 50s were not really making the noir film, but creating pictures for masses of viewers which are still hugely entertaining. Films in the classical genre were subversive and queried the facade of daily lives in narratives that had broad appeal. They held on to their popularity, simply because their motives and themes had universal appeal. On the other hand, film noir focused on the individual in a hostile world (Silver &Ursini 89). The gangster film supported the “Establishment,” which co-existed with the film noir cycle in the 1950s and 1960s. Hollywood was galvanized by the thought of the danger of the Cold War; no more romanticized villains or bent cops. The modern cycle-1960-1970s gangster films With some generic convention, gangster films provided a model in which modern political and social concerns could be looked into. There is a critical steady theme; for all the traditional elements, which were evidenced in gangster films throughout history, and the ambiguities, they generate. The gangster films in this modernist period mediated the most profound eras of conflicts and transformation in the 20th century of American history from the Depression. According to Silver and Ursini, the genre in this period was precisely portrayed through the Bonnie and Clyde, which attempted to demonize the American societies as the gangster cycle of the thirties that is the banks, the law, and the police, though this time round in metamorphic terms. The film used criminals of the thirties to attack the vices of the modern times and the violent unfairness of the American familiarity in the Vietnam. Bonnie and Clyde of 1967 is one of the modernist era most talked-off, controversial, and volatile gangster films merging comedy, love, ferocious violence, and terror. It seems appropriate that this revisionist, innovative film idealized and redefined the genre and the portrayal of screen violence forever. The metaphor in the film was used contentedly to strike into ant-established rage. With the development of the genre, the films were altered to maintain their freshness for new viewers. The 60s and 70s counterculture offered the momentum upheaval of the gangster genre, thus reversing the conventional roles between the police and the gangsters. By then, it was the cop who was on the wrong, or at least giving way to the law to do good. This cycle was a combination of sorts between the Gangster film and the West. The age of post-modernist Gangster genre These films involve reaction to modernist films and their tendencies. While modernist film exposed and explored concerns of the medium through putting them as a first priority of consciousness, the genres in this development phase are interested in the limited space that would be practically disregarded by more modernist or classical narrative films. The notion is that the meaning is usually generated more productively by us of the collisions and transitions between moments and utterances and images. These films have a number of distinctiveness that separates them from classical and modernist films. They include mixing of numerous styles and genres into one film; self-reflexivity of methods that emphasize the building and relation of the pictures in the media rather than to other kinds of external reality; untying and the fall of the difference between high and low presentation styles and techniques (Silver &Ursini 126). Post-modernity entails the discard of history, with the themes in the films being experienced in the 1980s. The Gangster genre crossed ethnic borders as proven in most post-modern day gangster films. As a result of the racial discrimination, of the early film years, trendy ethnic gangster films failed to appear till the 80s and 90s, positions had had been formerly held by Jews and Italians. These post-modernist films mostly revolve around distressed youths living in poor neighborhoods and think they have to opt for violence by joining gangs. Post-modernist films are fully realized art forms and give a compendium of what current genres can achieve. The Goodfellas of 1990 have pushed the movie craft into a postmodern, nearly hallucinogenic art. It is what a film can be. The Goodfellas is kinetic, as well as a vertiginous film, a trademark of postmodern films. It creates a sense of ambiguity concerning the external reality of its story; the viewers come to perceive that Henry, as the storyteller symbolizes truth, thus creating a post-modern effect (Booker 34). Following the genre-auteur of the 1980s, came such pastiche auteur of the 1990s. What makes this development cycle unique is their flowing use of cinematic orientation as a way of influencing cinematic language. The developers are the innovative silent-era modernist filmmakers and experimentalists. They renew the old and advance the new films. Most of the films may differ widely in the subject and tone, but they intersect post-modernly in features such as cinematography, transgressive, intertextual appropriation, and subjective narrative. Conclusion The Gangster genre is firstly identified with three films namely: The Little Caesar, Public Enemy, and Scarface. The three are the standard semantic components and syntactic compositions of the gangster genre into place. They also provide the most powerful inspiration and influence for the setting and style of the other films. While the films in the classical cycle each finished with their Hero’s respective fall, the genres that came after had overwhelming patterns charted and single-focused the rise and collapse of their protagonists with little attention paid to the law, the church, or the family. Historically, the Little Caesar, Scarface and Public Enemy remain the representative and most memorable films of the classical era of the Gangster genre. Works Cited Booker, Keith. Historical Dictionary of American Cinema. New York: Scarecrow Press, 2011. Print. Munby, Jonathan. Public Enemies, Public Heroes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Print. Shadoian, Jack. Dreams and Dead Ends: The American Gangster/Crime Film. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977.Print. Silver, Alain and Ursini, James . The Gangster Film Reader. Harvard: Hal Leonard, 2007. Print. Read More