The Death of the American Gangster Film

Comments · 4.4K

• EY

  @EyebrowCinema · 4 years ago · pinned

  Hey everyone, I had to make a small trim near the beginning of my video that cuts off a bit of my voiceover to appease a copyright claim. Apologies for the inconvenience.

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• AT

  @atomicdancer · 6 years ago

  So first Sergio Leone kills off the American Western, with &apos;Once Upon a Time in the West.&apos; <br>Then he kills off the American gangster movie, with &apos;Once Upon a Time in America.&apos; <br>Such a shame he didn&apos;t live long enough to make a superhero movie!

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• CA

  @CapitalFProductions · 6 years ago

  Great video but I think it also misses one crucial detail: the decline of the mafia and gangsters in general. By the time the 90’s rolled around, mafia gangs were decimated by law enforcement and its rare they ever made headlines or felt relevant. That’s a big running theme for Sopranos, about how that era was ending and times were changing, like how mafia movies replaced westerns. Now corporate CEO’s and white collar crimes are the go-to villains since they’re more relevant

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• 23

  @23skidoo46 · 6 years ago

  nah, the real reason it died is DeNiro, Pesci and Pacino got old.

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• CA

  @carlosschroeder3638 · 4 years ago

  I once read that Sergio Leone filmed landscapes as if they were actors and actors&apos; faces as if they were landscapes. He was magnificent.

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• CH

  @ChristiantrospectiveGamer · 6 years ago

  One thing this ideal about Micheal Corleone leaves out...his first wife, Apollonia, being murdered by a car bomb. &nbsp;I think that&apos;s ACTUALLY what broke him...not executing the two guys in the restaurant. &nbsp;The reason he isolated himself from everyone else is because he never truly loved anyone else. &nbsp;I also believe it&apos;s why he could never live up to his father. &nbsp;Her death damaged him in a way that he never was able to recover from.

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• NA

  @nateds7326 · 6 years ago

  If once upon a time in america put the nail in the coffin for the glamorized gangster I think the irishman absolutely cremated it.

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• LL

  @LLlap · 6 years ago

  I always interpreted the dessert scene as a commentary of how actually young the kids are. Like they want to be adults, to have money, power, sex but cant help eating the dessert. Like they`ve been robbed of their childhood and forced into the gritty adulthood.

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• RE

  @remka2000 · 3 years ago

  You mentioned it but that Morricone soundtrack is absolutely haunting.

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• NA

  @nateds7326 · 7 years ago

  Are we gonna ignore the incredible old age makeup on De Niro and woods?

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• ID

  @idcook · 5 years ago (edited)

  A great follow-up to this might be a study of &quot;The Irishman.&quot; A story that never actually presents the mobsters as glamorous so much as violent middle-class wannabes.

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• SA

  @samd2013 · 5 years ago

  The Wolf of Wall Street is a criminal movie, it feels like a natural evolution from the gangster genre. The movie feels like a spiritual successor to goodfellas; they both have practically the same opening line, have a similar ending, and an entertaining as hell rise/fall crime story in the middle. At the end of goodfellas, which is in the 80s, somebody mentions that “those people at Wall Street are the real criminals”. The wolf of Wall Street isn’t a “gangster movie”, but it’s definitely in the same vein as it.

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