Joker (2019)

Director: Todd Phillips

Extremely well-done film that was compelling but grim enough to not demand a re-watch by me anytime soon.

Ostensibly offering a possible origin story for arch Batman villain "The Joker," Joker tells the story of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a mentally troubled, severely down-on-his-luck man who is trying to find some place for himself in a grim and deteriorating city. Fleck is an aspiring stand-up comedian who lives at home with and cares for his invalid mother, while trying to make ends meet through menial clowning jobs around the depressed metropolis. In addition to generally being very awkward socially, he suffers from emotional swings and a condition which causes him to laugh hysterically and uncontrollably at random moments. When Fleck is bullied one night on a train, he lashes back and kills his tormentors, setting in motion a spiral into violence and true madness for not only Fleck but also the entire city.

More than any "comic book" movie I've seen, Joker has a very clear vision, and it is exceptionally dark. Writer and director Todd Phillips has himself admitted that he sort of hoodwinked Warner Bros studios by dressing up his movie as an origin story for one of the most famous villains in modern pop culture (in an interview on NPR, Phillips pointed out how the title of the movie is "Joker" and not "The Joker"). What he really offered was a brooding commentary on the state of modern U.S. society and its social ills. Fleck can easily be seen as one of the countless people afflicted with mental illness and carrying the burden of caring for unwell family members, but who have been abandoned by the world around them. Fleck and his mother have no other family, no friends, and early in the movie, Arthur's public assistance and medical care are stripped away from him, leaving him to deal with his myriad difficulties on his own. One doesn't have to look very far in the real world to see much of what is portrayed in Joker. The clarity and commitment to this theme distinguish this film from any other "comic book" movie that I can think of (and I've seen tons of them).

For a better comparison, one need only look at several of the grittier films by Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader. Todd Phillips doesn't bother disguising the fact that he's drawing heavily from movies like The King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, or even the more recent First Reformed. All of these movies deal with angry men who are already teetering on the edge of sanity, and whom we see pushed off. Arthur Fleck is the latest version of a Rupert Pupkin, Travis Bickle, or Toller - people who are struggling to keep a toehold in society but fail in spectacular or violent fashion. What is impressive is not only that Phillips decided to draw from such dark inspirations for this kind of movie, but that he so clearly succeeded.

Arthur, in the middle of one of his uncontrollable and often
out-of-place bouts of laughter. As of now, Joaquin Phoenix is
the second actor to win Oscar Best Actor playing the
notorious villain of comic book origins.

By this time, I probably don't need to point out that Joaquin Phoenix's performance is brilliant (I write this only about a week after he won Best Actor for the role). It is truly a marvel, as painful as it is to take in. All of the supporting cast does a fine job as well, including Robert De Niro himself as an echo of the talk show host character played by Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy. These performances, along with outstanding costume and set design, lighting, cinematography, and an Oscar-winning musical score, shape the story into something that really is a piece of art.

It must be said, though, that the movie is just as depressing as it sounds. Also in keeping with its inspirations and themes, this is not the easiest film to take. Yes, there are a few moments of dark and gallows humor in a few places, but for the most part this movie is one gut punch after another. And just like those aforementioned Scorsese and Schrader films, Joker is a great movie that I find too tough to take more than once in a very rare while. 

The Irishman (2019) [No spoilers]

Spoilers ahead (it's mostly historical record, though).

Director: Martin Scorsese

It's a mammoth of a gangster movie by arguably the greatest director of such films, and it is among his very best.

If you only know a few of Scorsese's rather large and impressive filmography, chances are that Goodfellas and Casino are two of them. They both offered dramatic re-tellings of real-life events in the world of organized crime. In Goodfellas, we saw the rise and fall of Henry Hill, a street-level soldier for the Italian mafia in New York who, after living the criminal life from the 1960s to the early 1980s, turned state's evidence and testified against his former colleagues and bosses. Casino followed the closely intertwined lives of Sam "Ace" Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, who both served to help the mafia carve out a solid niche in Las Vegas during the 1970s. Both movies offered us a view of the rises and falls of the more violent, influential mafia figures, but seen from the perspective of guys - Hill and Rothstein - who were just far enough away from the truly violent and powerful that they avoided complete disaster.

The Irishman follows a very similar blueprint, for most of the way. Scorsese mainstay Robert DeNiro plays Frank Sheeran, an Irish-American truck driver and World War II veteran who eases his way into working for the Italian mafia during the 1950s. Through a chance encounter with Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), a high-ranking mafia boss, Sheeran soon works his way into becoming a reliable hitman. Despite being a foot solider, he builds a great deal of trust with Bufalino, who eventually introduces him to Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). At this point in history, the mid-1950s, Jimmy Hoffa was about as famous a figure as there was in the United States. A hard-nosed and charismatic people's man, Hoffa was never above a little strong-arming and bribery to accomplish his goals, which were often to the benefit of himself as much as the Teamsters. Sheeran and Hoffa strike up a friendship, with Sheeran becoming Hoffa's bodyguard and occasional confidante for a number of years.

In the succeeding decades, Hoffa's star famously falls, starts to rise again, and then completely disappears under famously mysterious circumstances. The Irishman, however, offers an answer to the mystery - that a highly conflicted Sheeran played a role in sabotaging and assassinating Hoffa after he refused to take marching orders from the powerful mafia figures with whom he had previously worked. After Hoffa's death, Sheeran himself remains connected to Bufalino in both professional and friendship capacities. Eventually, though, Bufalino and all of Sheeran's human connections to the mafia and Hoffa pass away, leaving him the last one alive to recount his tale a few decades later.

The epic scope and the sordid nature of organized crime dealings prevalent in The Irishman will feel very familiar to anyone who knows Scorsese's mafia flicks. Some low-rent, morally dubious dude is lured in by the money, and gets a front row seat to some pretty dastardly business, all set to a great soundtrack. But The Irishman does offer something more. Sure, the thugy killings and beatdowns are there. Yes, the hilarious exchanges between not-so-smart guys trying to sound smart are there. But what elevates this movie above even Scorsese's past mafia masterpieces is the final analysis of Sheeran. In the much quieter final 30-or-so minutes of the movie, we see Frank Sheeran reckoning with the cost of his loyalty to Bufalino, Hoffa, and forces far more powerful, personal, and spirit-crushing than he ever quite realized. It all leaves a much deeper impact than Scorsese's earlier mob movies, not unlike how Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven left an indelible final stamp on his own career in Western movies.

As important as any of the typical gangster-film violence in
the movie is the bond that forms between Frank and Jimmy
Hoffa, as well as Russell Bufalino. In the end, Frank has to
live with the decisions he made regarding both, which is
far from easy.

The only thing that might be surprising about the fact that The Irishman is so technically brilliant is that Martin Scorsese is still doing this in his late-70s. The movie is no less sharp or eye-catching than anything in his exemplary career. And it was probably his age, wisdom, and the fact that Netflix granted him the freedom to make a three-and-a-half hour movie that he could extend his previous boundaries a bit and offer broader circumspection on a character type whose story he's told so expertly several times before.

It feels a bit silly to nitpick over such a well-crafted movie, but there were a few things that I couldn't help but notice. Mainly, the fact that DeNiro and Pesci, both 76 years old, are playing characters over a span of four to five decades. Rather than find younger "look-similars," Scorsese had the late-septuagenarians play their own late-30/early-40 year old selves in the earlier flashbacks of the tale. And no amount of makeup and costume ingenuity could cover all of that up, making few of the scenes from the earlier times a tad distracting.

That little gripe aside, it's an excellent movie. The length and relatively somber final act may prevent me from firing it up again anytime soon, but I'll certainly see it again in the future. 

Gangster Flick Home Stretch: A Bronx Tale (1993)

A Bronx Tale (1993)

Director: Robert De Niro

A strong and unique gangster movie that overcomes some noticeably weaker aspects.

Based on a stage play by Chazz Palminteri written from his own experience growing up in the Bronx, the movie looks at two key periods in the life of Calogero as he struggles between the lessons taught by his father and a local mafia figure. In 1960, a 10-year-old Calogero is enamored by the swagger and presence of Sonny (Chazz Palmenteri), a neighborhood guy who is the most powerful crime figure. Despite the warnings of his parents, the impressionable Calogero can't help but be mesmerized by the sharp dress and image of strength found in Sonny. Sonny takes no notice of the fawning young Calogero until the boy publicly refuses to tell the police that he witnessed Sonny kill a man in broad daylight. From that point, Sonny tries to take Calogero under his wing and introduce him to the criminal lifestyle. When Calogero is caught spending time in Sonny's bar by his father Lorenzo (Robert De Niro), a tense standoff occurs between Sonny and Lorenzo. While no violence occurs, a quiet but severe tension arises between the earnest, hard-working Lorenzo and the lethal Sonny.

The story flashes forward eight years to 1968, when we learn that the now-18-year-old Calogero has been managing to toe the delicate line between doing what his father wants while also maintaining ties with his wastrel friends as well as the still-powerful Sonny. Calogero dresses the part of a would-be hoodlum and even does some low-level loan sharking, but always stops short of committing any serious acts of violence or criminality. Things eventually come to a head when Calogero develops a crush on an African-American girl, Jane, from a nearby neighborhood, something which could potentially make him a pariah among his intensely racist friends.

One of the more intense confrontations between Sonny and
Lorenzo. The battle over Calogero's life and upbringing is
one of the most human dramas you'll see in a gangster movie.

The movie bears many aspects familiar to those who have seen the New York gangster movies of Martin Scorsese, but Palminteri tells a story that is far more personal and presents several unique elements. For one, the character of Sonny is splendidly well-rounded. Yes, he is a brutal criminal who garners respect through fear. At the same time, he is more than a mere thug. He displays an intelligence and wisdom with Calogero that is unusual in such a character but authentic in this story. It is Sonny who repeatedly tells Calogero to get away from his small-minded friends, who Sonny says will eventually bring him down. It is Sonny who urges Calogero to stay in school and create opportunities for himself. It is also Sonny who tells the young man to follow his heart and start seeing Jane, regardless of what his ignorant peers think. At the same time, Sonny still runs a criminal operation through violence and intimidation, which is why Calogero's father is continually fighting for his son to turn away from Sonny as any sort of mentor. The specific dilemmas are often wonderfully subtle, such as when Lorenzo takes his son to a boxing match, where Sonny offers to bring the two down to their ring-side seats. Lorenzo, trying to maintain his integrity, refuses the offer but has to watch his son fight the urge to join Sonny. Simpler moments like these are rare for gangster movies, and A Bronx Tale includes several very well-executed sequences like it.

The movie isn't flawless. Some of the performances are rather weak, most notably Taral Hicks as Jane and even Lillo Brancato as the older Calogero at times. Part of this is due to a script that is occasionally tepid, but it also doesn't help that the performances by Palminteri and De Niro are typically phenomenal. I suppose this can always be a risk when using such amazingly talented actors - that the shortcomings of any other actors become much more obvious. The weaker performances hardly undermine the movie, but I did find them occasionally distracting.

I really enjoyed this movie, and I wish that I had seen it earlier. I would recommend that anyone watch A Bronx Tale, and then follow it up with a viewing of Scorsese's Mean Streets - two movies very different in general theme and tone but which take place at very similar times and within similar settings. They are two of the very best New York gangster movies that one could possibly watch, although for different reasons. 

Gangster Flick 3-Pack: Midnight Run (1988); Dinner Rush (2000); Infernal Affairs (2002)

Ah, the days when an honest bounty hunter could smoke on a
train. And Robert De Niro still starred in good movies.

Midnight Run (1988)

Director: Martin Brest

Still a great genre-blending comedy that can help remind us all of what Robert De Niro was a decade before he decided to simply parody himself for massive paychecks.

Unlike nearly all of the gangster movies which I have been blogging about here, Midnight Run was one that I had seen a few times before. However, since I hadn't seen it in over 20 years and I remember thinking it great, I wanted to see it again. It was well worth it.

Robert De Niro plays Jack Walsh, a bounty hunter who is tasked with tracking down Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin), a former Mafia accountant who has jumped bail. Once Walsh tracks him down, he must attempt to return the Duke to his bail bondsman while evading police, the FBI, a rival bounty hunter, and the Mafia, all of whom want the Duke either in jail or dead. As stressful as all of this is for Walsh, it sometimes pales in comparison to the ever-nagging Duke, a gentle but pestering chatterbox.

The chemistry between De Niro and Grodin is fantastic. The two actors take a decent script and turn it into gold. The exchanges between the cagey, foul-mouthed Walsh and the oddly empathetic Duke stack up with any road/buddy movie released in the 28 years since this movie hit theaters. Enhancing the entire movie is its stellar supporting cast. Made up from the likes of Joe Pantoliano, Yaphet Kotto, Dennis Farina, and other great character actors, the various pursuers of Walsh and the Duke are just as entertaining as the focal duo.

There is a brief detour into drama concerning Walsh's life as a former Chicago police officer which breaks the comedic tone of the movie a bit, but this is hardly a weakness. Midnight Run is still a great movie that I can see being just as great in another three decades. It's still just as funny and just as quotable as it was back when Robert De Niro was nearing the peak of his career's impressive second act.

Dinner Rush (2000)

Director: Bob Geralda

One of the more curiously unique gangster movies that I've watched, having more in common with a Robert Altman than a Martin Scorsese movie.

Dinner Rush takes place almost exclusively in one of Manhattan's hottest restaurants, which is owned by bookmaker Louis Cropa (Danny Aiello). Cropa's two sons work the kitchen: Udo is a brilliant but moody chef whose culinary skills have brought great acclaim to the eatery, while his brother Duncan is personable but a degenerate gambler. The three Cropas become involved in a wild maelstrom of an evening, with patrons including self-styled elite Manhattanites, a couple of mobster thugs, and a police detective, among others.

The movie combines many "New York" elements extremely well, creating a chaotic and exciting atmosphere in the restaurant that one would equate with "The City That Never Sleeps." A supremely arrogant art critic harangues the staff. A prominent food critic demands frustrating levels of attention. In the downstairs kitchen, the typical kinds of mania runs through the chefs and cooks as they try to keep up with the brisk pace of the orders. As if these typical Manhattan variables weren't enough, the various dramas in the lives of the Cropas catalyze the madness. Yes, the gangster thread is ever-present, but it is part of a larger, brilliant tapestry that could only be found in Manhattan. Director Bob Giraldi juggles everything with impressive skill over the film's tight 98 minutes.

It certainly helps that the acting and cinematography are fantastic. There are plenty of familiar faces among the cast, but also a good number of lesser-knowns who round out the ensemble. The dining area of the restaurant itself feels as warm and electric as you would hope, even amid the frantic bustling of the crowd. In contrast is the kitchen, which is given the claustrophobic and tense feel of a submarine in the middle of an attack. There is an upstairs/downstairs feel not unlike Gosford Park or similar shows.

It stands that Dinner Rush is resolved in a way atypical for a "gangster" movie, given that it is different in so many other ways. Suffice it to say that it is rather satisfying, and in keeping with the general tone of the rest of the picture. This is a somewhat hidden gem which plenty of people, not merely gangster movie fans, would appreciate.

Infernal Affairs (2002)

Directors: Wai-kung Lau and Alan Mak

An impressive Hong Kong crime movie with the primary misfortune of having a superior version made a few years later by an all-time great director.

If you've seen The Departed, then you know the tale. A young man, Lau, who is part of the local organized crime gang is planted into the police force as a recruit. Simultaneously, Chan, a police cadet-in-training is sent into the crime world as a long-term undercover operative. Years later, the two moles close in on each other as the police close in on the crime boss responsible for much of the local gang activity. Rather than taking place in Boston, as you can imagine, Infernal Affairs takes place in Hong Kong.

This original movie really is impressive. It is a great premise, carried out extremely well. The reverse, double cat-and-mouse idea was a novel one for a cop-and-robber film, and directors Lau and Mak executed it in a tight way that maximizes the tension. There are several great scenes and devices which Martin Scorsese himself directly carried over into The Departed a few years later.

Scorsese's adaptation into The Departed exhibited several characteristics typical of his gangster movies. Rather than completely focus on one or two characters, he included a larger panorama for the story, complete with engaging and entertaining characters. Infernal Affairs, in contrast, really hones in on the moles Lau and Chan. Other characters, who received much more screen time and dialogue in Scorsese's version, were either absent or greatly minimized in this original movie. Normally, this would be completely fine, but compared to the strong and often hilarious characters in The Departed, one can't help but feel like Infernal Affairs is missing out on opportunities.

How much one enjoys this movie is likely to depend on familiarity with The Departed. If you are not terribly familiar with Scorsese's movie, or maybe saw it only one time many years ago, then you're likely to love Infernal Affairs. It is far easier to appreciate the original's merits and avoid harsh comparisons. Even if, like me, you have seen The Departed several times, it is easy to appreciate what a strong film Infernal Affairs is. 

Film #90: Goodfellas (1990)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Initial Release Country: United States

Timed Previously Seen: probably around eight or nine. Maybe more. 

Rapid-Fire Summary

Goodfellas is a rather epic movie, spanning several centuries. I’ll keep my summary short, but if you want many more of the details, you can check out the synopsis here at imdb’s website. Here’s my version:

In the late 1950s in Queens, New York, young teenager Henry Hill has big dreams. He dreams of becoming a gangster, like the fellows that he sees regularly on the streets of his neighborhood. Though his parents completely disapprove, Henry gets more and more involved with the crime circuit in the area – starting with simple errand-running for book-makers, progressing to orchestrated property destruction, and advancing to the sale of stolen goods. The more he gets entrenched in the life of a criminal, the more he feels welcomed by his fellow criminals, and the more normal it all becomes for him.

This normalized life of larceny follows Henry into adult life (played by Ray Liotta), when he regularly partners with two other noted crooks – the thief and hitman, Irishman Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and the volatile yet charismatic Sicilian mobster Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). These three, along with many other local hoods, spend the next few decades of their adult lives robbing, and occasionally killing, their way to lives of luxury for themselves, their wives, children, and mistresses. Though their methods of attaining wealth are highly illegal, all of them keep up the appearances of being responsible family men who are “providers” for their friends and families. This is all in keeping with the Italian mafia tenets of organized crime, to which all of these three men pay homage.

Tommy, Henry, and Jimmy taking a look at on of their many stashes of ill-gotten money.

Eventually, however, things start to crumble. Starting in the later 1970s and into the early 1980s, Henry starts to get involved in selling cocaine. Despite clear warnings from the mafia father-figure, Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), Henry continues to sell the highly illegal substance. His mistakes catch up to him, and he is caught by the police. Now facing the very likely prospect that he will be killed by any one of his criminal associates, in order to prevent him from informing on them, Henry and his wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) decide that their only recourse is to join the witness protection program. Henry testifies against all of his former friends and criminal associates, thus escaping jail time. However, he lives out the rest of his days in a sterilized suburban neighborhood, far removed from the action, money, and excitement of his former life of crime.

My Take on the Film (Done after this most recent viewing)

Goodfellas is an absolute classic, and it may be the only English-language mafia movie that can hold a candle to The Godfather, in terms of scope, technique, and revolutionizing the genre.

I first saw this movie in the theater when my mother brought me to see it. I was only fourteen or fifteen at the time, and I remember the language blowing me away. The characters drop the f-bomb like most people blink, and violence is as normal as getting a haircut. About an hour into the movie, my mother, who grew up in Queens right at the time that this movie’s events were taking place, leans over to me and says “I think I grew up with these guys.” Now, she didn’t mean that she literally grew up with Henry Hill and the gang; she just meant that she grew up with guys eerily like them. She always said that the dialogue and attitudes depicted in Goodfellas were spot-on, in terms of how the guys from those neighborhoods spoke and acted.

This authenticity has been a hallmark of Scorsece’s New York pictures right from the very beginning. While he’s certainly done other excellent movies that are not based in New York (The Departed, Kundun, et al), his street-level stories have always been his signature ones. The verbal exchanges in Goodfellas, like Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, feel completely organic. Despite being so deeply rooted in a particular region, even people who have never been within a thousand miles of Long Island can sense and be hypnotized and amused by it.

Just another night of booze and poker. This is one of the many scenes in which the dialog and interactions between the New York tough guys are at their most realistic. 

But the dialogue is simply one of several triumphs of this movie. If The Godfather was the ultimate American criminal take on a classical Greek tragedy, Goodfellas is the ultimate deconstruction of the gangster myth. Based on the real story of Henry Hill, the movie depicts the ground-level thugs who made the mob go. There are no honorable Vito Corleones here. Henry Hill and his cohorts were unapologetic thieves and murderers who reveled in their power over others. One line that sums them up fairly well is when Henry Hill is describing Jimmy: “The one thing Jimmy loved to do was to steal. I mean, he actually liked it. Jimmy was the kind of guy who rooted for the bad guys in the movies.” These guys knew they were bad, embraced it, and pummeled anyone who had a problem with it.

Tied to this is probably the element that truly sets the movie apart from other classic gangster movies. Through Henry Hill’s life story, we see the complete and utter sham that the “honor” of the mafia is. All of the seeming friendships that Henry makes are only authentic as long as they don’t threaten any of his fellow thieves’ illicit livelihoods. The moment any one of the crew is suspected of threatening others’ freedom and fortunes, that crew member is not long for this world. The camaraderie is revealed as shallow in the face of real adversity, as evidenced by the protagonist himself. After decades of thinking of his criminal associates as family, he turns on them to protect himself and sends them all to prison. Goodfellas may have been the first film to so carefully and stylishly deconstruct the myth of honor among mobster thieves.

Normally, much of the above would make for thoroughly repugnant, unwatchable characters. Yet herein lies one of the most brilliant part of this movie – at times, you forget what they are and get completely caught up with who they are. Whether it’s Tommy cracking up his fellow mobsters with hilarious stories, Jimmy railing against the stupidity of his partners in crime, or Henry trying to juggle his passionately crazy wife and mistresses, it’s simply fun to watch. Most of the time, you laugh at them, but some of the time you actually laugh with them. There are even times when you feel a twinge of sympathy, as when Henry learns that Karen has flushed their bags of cocaine, their only remaining source of revenue, down the toilet, effectively flushing his entire life down the toilet. His desperation and fear are so palpable that you might be tempted to forget, just for a few seconds, that it’s all his selfish own doing.

Karen visits Henry while he serves time. At this point, it almost seems as normal for us the viewers as it does for the troubled couple and their kids.

All of these moments come through in large part due to the acting. While De Niro rightfully got top billing for this movie and did an outstanding job as Jimmy, it was Pesci, Liotta, and the entire ensemble crew that fully rounds out the picture and makes it come to life. By using that rare combination of world-class actors with lesser known, fully capable New York regionals, not one moment of Goodfellas rings untrue. For the full two-and-a-half hours, they pull you right into a completely different world.

It goes without saying that Scorsese was arguably at his finest with this movie. The cinematography, editing, and music are all blended into a fast-paced story that hums along without missing a single beat. Of his great films (of which there are many), this one is arguably his very best, and one would be hard-pressed to find much fault with it. At this point, anyone who is into crime movies has seen and loves this film. If, by chance, you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor. As long as you are not put off by rough language and graphic violence (none of which is gratuitous, by the way – we need to see how visceral these thugs can be, lest we start to glamorize them), you need to watch this true modern masterpiece.

Henry takes one last look at us from his quaint little house, courtesy of the Witness Protection Program. While he survives, he would hardly call it a "life," as he came to know it on the streets of New York.

A side-note: Any fan of Goodfellas should watch Casino. It’s sometimes called “Goodfellas 2” with good reason. It’s certainly not a sequel, but so much of the tone and feel of it is the same, that one might feel like they’re watching the companion piece to the earlier film. Casino is a bit more sprawling, and some say bloated (I disagree), but it’s another excellent film in the same vein.

That’s a wrap. 90 shows down. 15 to go.

Coming Soon: Unforgiven (1992)

From the movie that deconstructed mafia gangsterism to the movie that deconstructed the American Western film. This is another of my absolute, hands-down, all-time favorites. I’m looking forward to watching it again and writing out my thoughts on the dark tale of Will Munny. 

Film # 79: Raging Bull (1980)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: three or four (last time – about 5 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Real-life boxing champion and general dealer in violence Jake LaMotta doles out serious beatings to opponents in the ring, as well as to his closest family members outside the ring.

Extended Summary (More detailed synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning.)

It’s the early 1940s, and middle-weight boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) is coming into his own. A bruising, tenacious fighter from the Bronx, New York, LaMotta makes up for in sheer will and toughness what he lacks in grace and technique. His punishing style of boxing has him on a path towards a championship title fight, except for the fact that his way is blocked by the New York mafia, which controls boxing in order to manipulate outcomes to its own advantage. Jake’s manager and younger brother, Joey (Joe Pesci), tries to convince Jake to relent and allow the mobsters to help them get their title shot, but the eminently stubborn Jake refuses any outside assistance.

Jake soon becomes infatuated with a fifteen-year old neighborhood girl, Vicki (Cathy Moriarty), for whom he leaves his wife. After a few years, the two get married. Jake grows ever more jealous and controlling of Vicki as the years go on, relentlessly questioning her every move and suspecting every man around her as trying to take her from him. Through it all, Jake continues to win fight after fight in the ring, though he is still refused any shot at the title. Even after two solid fights, including a victory, against the other prime fighter of the era, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake is blocked from championship contention by the corrupt powers that control the sport.

Joey and Jake, sweating it out in a training session. Despite Jake's prodigious in-ring toughness, the mafia blocks their title shot for years.

Jake continues to win in the ring, with his main rival Robinson now in the army. He even pummels a supposedly handsome up-and-coming young fighter into a bloody mess, after Vicki offhandedly calls him “good-looking”. Shortly after this fight, with Jake out of town, Joey spies Vicki in a bar with a few local men. Though her evening out is innocent enough, Joey loudly proclaims that Vicki is embarrassing his brother, and he demands that Vicki go home. She refuses, Joey becomes enraged, and attacks one of the men she’s with, local Mafioso and former friend, Salvy. The fight is soon straightened out by the local Mafia boss.

Jake is then allowed his title shot by local gangsters, but on one major condition – he must throw the fight so that the mob can make a killing by betting against him. Jake reluctantly accepts. Throwing the fight, though, is easier said than done. His opponent, Billy Fox, is far inferior to Jake. Jake almost knocks him out on accident, and then refuses to fall down at any point in the fight. The fight is stopped and victory briefly given to Fox, but an investigation in launched and LaMotta is banned from boxing for a time. However, when the ban in up, he receives his first true shot at the title, winning convincingly against current champion, Marcel Cerdan.

Three years pass, and Jake manages to retain his title throughout, though maintaining his fighting weight becomes more and more difficult. One day, he begins to question Joey about the fight that he had with Salvy. Jake, now so obsessed with jealousy over his wife, suspects that Vicki has been having affairs, including with Joey himself. Joey refuses to answer the interrogation and leaves. Jake then begins to question Vicki, who is frustration sarcastically screams that she has had affairs with every man in the neighborhood, including Joey. Jake, too enraged to see that his wife is being sarcastic, storms over to Joey’s house and begins to beat him unmercifully. Vicki catches up and tries to stop Jake, but Jake knocks her out with vicious punch to the face. When the dust settles, Vicki starts to pack up and leave Jake, but decides to stay after Jake apologizes and begs her forgiveness.

Jake wins his next fight, and tries to call Joey afterwards, in order to try and mend their broken relationship. The attempt fails, though. Jake’s next fight against Sugar Ray Robinson is a bloodbath. Jake, either outmatched or simply in a completely masochistic temper, allows Robinson to land vicious blow after vicious blow, though he refuses to fall down. The fight is stopped, and Jake loses his championship title.

The Bronx Bull, in the midst of getting mangled by long-time rival, Sugar Ray Robinson. It all goes downhill from here for the champ.

Several years later, Jake is tremendously out of shape and with his family in Miami. He has retired from boxing and opens a night club, where he spends his evenings drinking hard and doing bad standup routines. Vicki soon divorces him and takes their children with her. Jake’s life slides down even farther, as he gets arrested for serving under-aged girls and introducing them to older male patrons in his night club. In an attempt to raise bribe money, Jake even hammers the gems out of his middleweight champion belt, but all for naught as the gems without the belt are far less valuable. Jake does several months in a Miami-Dade county prison, in which he breaks down and wails in despair at his own stupidity.

Jake is eventually released, and he returns to New York, where he does more shoddy standup routines in dive bars. He runs into his brother Joey, with whom he tries to reconnect, with very little success.

The last we see of Jake, he is preparing to do a stage performance for a modest crowd in New York. He gives himself a pep talk, as if he were still the fierce fighter of his younger days.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any further research.)

One of my all-time favorite films, and the one that I think is Scorsese’s best. And that’s saying something.

The real-life story of Jake LaMotta, as Scorsese tells it, is arguably the most artful and profound sports movie of all time. It exhibits the psyche of an athlete as it spills into his personal life, and does not blanch for one second at showing you the ugliest parts of it.

I don’t know that every person would feel as I do about this movie. For one thing, it helps that I find boxing fascinating. I’m no expert, but I know a little bit of my history and went through several years in the 1990s when I followed the sport rather closely. Though it’s one of the most brutal of popular sports, there is an undeniable artistry to it. More than this, I am enthralled by the psychology of stepping into a ring and voluntarily exchanging blows with another human, until one of you is likely knocked unconscious. Raging Bull gives us a shocking and entrancing look at a man who was, even by boxing terms, a unique specimen.

Though a disaster in his personal life, Jake LaMotta was arguably the toughest middleweight fighter in boxing history.

Boxing has been called, by the sports’ devotees, “the sweet science”. What Jake LaMotta did, though, was neither sweet nor scientific. He walked towards his opponent, took every punch they could dish out, and never backed away. His ability to take an unholy number of punches without going down is admirable in a way, but it does make the stomach turn. Though filmed in a less visceral black-and-white, Raging Bull is shot in a way that conveys the brutality not only of boxing, but especially of La Motta’s style, which of course earned him his nickname, “The Bronx Bull”. The ever-present smoke, sweat, and dark pools and rivers of blood seen during the matches threaten to choke the viewer. Every time I watch this movie, I feel like toweling myself off.

While the in-ring scenes are brilliantly filmed (my only gripe is that there are more than a few “phantom punches” that are easily noticed), the real tale is what goes on outside of the ring. LaMotta’s personal life is what vaults this movie to a higher plane of film. Scorsese’s approach strikes me as something akin to the way Stanley Kubrick would have made a boxing movie, or the way that Darren Aronofsky approaches his major theme of obsession in all of his films. The darkness in La Motta’s soul, which we see as irrepressible jealousy and unstoppable rage, is the stuff of universal fascination. As disturbing as it is, it’s hard to look away from it.

I compare Raging Bull in certain ways to Kubrick and Aronofsky, but there is a major difference that is all Scorsese – the dialogue. As with all of his New York films, Scorsese nails the urban language dead on. There is a pace, rhythm, and vulgarity that can be wonderfully entertaining to listen to, and Scorsese has always been well aware of this. This is also where we get moments of levity. Let’s face it – these characters are generally not very bright, and it’s easy to laugh at them much of the time. And when we’re not laughing at them, we’re laughing at the insults that they hurl at each other. These moments keep the movie from becoming a two-hour slog through bloody violence and depression. In other words, it’s an incredibly well-rounded story, with many of the elements of real life, good and bad.

Many of the exchanges between the LaMotta brothers (De Niro and Pesci's first film together, by the way) are as funny as they are insightful towards their relationship.

Every time I watch this movie, the time flies. The story, scenes, and character interactions are so gripping that I will continue to watch this movie every few years for as long as I live. This is the reason that it is one of the very few DVDs that I personally own. Whether a sports fan, boxing fan or not, as long as one can stomach the gritty violence in the picture, I feel that nearly any mature film lover can watch and appreciate Raging Bull.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research.)

There are all kinds of great little documentary pieces on Raging Bull. The ones I mostly delved into came on the bonus disc of the special DVD release in 2004.

The story of the film’s making is rather interesting. It basically was made because of Robert De Niro’s fascination with LaMotta’s autobiography. De Niro approached Scorsese repeatedly to do it with him, but Scorsese was ambivalent, not being any find of sports fan and knowing virtually nothing about boxing.

Eventually, though, Scorsese took interest, wanting to do something a bit different. After a crash course in boxing, Scorsese took the story of La Motta and found the universality in it. He described how he saw it in 2004: “The hardest opponent that you have in the ring [of life] is yourself.” Who better to exemplify this than the tragically unaware La Motta?

Around 1977, there was a renewed interest in boxing films by the viewing public. This, of course, was due to the 1976 smash hit, Rocky. While some of the producers of Raging Bull were initially interested in doing another Rocky film, they were intrigued enough to sign onto De Niro and Scorsese’s project.

De Niro, a noted practitioner of "The Method", felt strongly enough about LaMotta's story that he famously put on a solid 60 pounds of weight, just as the real LaMotta did in his post-boxing years.

I was stunned to learn how little interest in or knowledge of boxing Scorsese had. It’s a tribute to the man’s dedication and artistic genius that he managed to bring a novel approach to filming boxing matches as they happen. He employed several very clever visual special effects to create various moods and convey La Motta’s psyche. These and the strange and evocative sound effects add immense power to the fight scenes. To give an example, in some scenes the ring was expanded to give a sense of openness and freedom, while in another it is obscured by smoke and distorted visuals. I never quite realized the effect that these components were having on me, but they are absolutely true.

Another interesting note about the visuals is the decision to film it in black and white. Why did they do this? The main reason is that Scorsese didn’t like the way that the colors were coming through, particularly the bright red of the boxing gloves. Once they talked it over with the crew, everyone was on board. Also, it helped distinguish Raging Bull from the four other boxing movies coming out that year.

Upon the film’s release, the initial reviews were very mixed. Some reviewers didn’t know what to make of it, and they even advised MGM not to distribute it. Alas, they did. The movie was a modest commercial success, but really garnered attention at the Academy Awards, being nominated for eight awards and winning two.

Maybe the most interesting story I heard about the film’s release comes from Jake La Motta himself. In 2004, the real Bronx Bull recalled going to see the movie upon its release in 1980. He had brought his ex-wife Vicki, also prominently depicted in the film, to watch the portrayal of Jake as the relentless, brutal, thuggish character that we can all see. After the film was over, Jake asked Vicki, “Jesus, was I that bad?” Vicki looked at him and replied, “You were worse.” When you see the movie Raging Bull, you will see why this is a rather stunning announcement.

Hard to believe after you watch the film, but the real Vicki told her ex-husband that he was worse in real life than the film's portrayal of him.

The other fascinating notion I heard came from Scorsese. It had to do with sports culture, and boxing culture in general. There is a very unreal expectation thrust upon prize fighters that few fans of the sport are willing to accept – we demand that the fighters be relentless, vicious, and violent inside the ring, but tend to act with shock and reprehension when they behave that way out of the ring. (Mike Tyson, anyone?).

In Raging Bull, it is clear as day that the man inside the ropes and outside the ropes cannot easily be separated, if at all. This is why, to me, anyone who revels in the violent aspects of certain sports has little room to criticize any of the athletes in those sports when they behave similarly outside of the lines. These are the kinds of topics that a great movie like Raging Bull brings up, and it is why it will not fade into obscurity for as long as more violent sports like boxing or mixed martial arts remain popular.

That’s a wrap. 79 shows down. 26 to go.

Coming Soon: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982):

This is the second in a break-neck 1-2-3 sequence of movies: Raging Bull, E.T., and then Blade Runner. This middle flick was one of the first ones that I remember going to see in the theater multiple times. It’s been a while, but come on back to see how it holds up to me.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film # 75: Taxi Driver (1976)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: twice (last time about 8 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers.)

Lonely cab driver tries to maintain his sanity & humanity in the grunge of 1970s New York City.

Extended Summary (More detailed plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning.)

In mid-1970s New York City, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is struggling. An honorably discharged Marine, Travis is now making a living as a cabbie in Gotham City, though the going isn’t easy. His insomnia and constant headaches lead him to add night shifts to his busy schedule. To take his mind off of his nagging unrest, he tells his dispatcher that he will go “Anywhere, anytime.”

As Travis works through his shifts, he sees some of the darkest aspects of humanity. Drug pushers and abusers, prostitutes and pimps, killers and victims. Travis sees it all pass both outside and inside of his cab. He feels a desire to do something about it, but he doesn’t know what or how, and he cannot articulate his feelings to anyone. Added to this is that he has no close friends. The only people he sees regularly are a handful of other cabbies, who are as jaded and he is becoming.

Travis one day sees a stunningly beautiful woman, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) walking along the street. He becomes transfixed and begins regularly driving past her place of work, the campaign headquarters for presidential hopeful Senator Charles Palantine. He eventually musters up the courage to walk in, awkwardly introduce himself and ask Betsy to coffee. Betsy, seemingly intrigued by Travis’s unusual energy and intensity, agrees. Over coffee, Travis professes his loneliness to Betsy, but also claims that he senses the same loneliness in her. Betsy continues to be intrigued, though in a somewhat reserved way.

Travis and Betsy get to know each other a bit. Betsy is intrigued by the "contradiction" of Travis, never suspecting the darkness with which he is struggling.

A few days later, Betsy agrees to see a movie with Travis. Much to her surprise and disgust, the socially inept Travis brings her to a graphic, X-rated film. Betsy gets up and walks out. Travis tries to stop her and apologize, but she hustles away. Travis tries to call and make amends over the next several days, but Betsy does not return his calls.

Travis begins to grow more hateful towards the world around him, his personal failure with Betsy now piled on top of the degradations that he sees nightly in his job. He soon becomes totally insulated. He buys several handguns from an illegal dealer, and stays in his cramped apartment, fantasizing and acting out confrontations with invisible enemies. He even studies himself in the mirror as he vocalizes his delusional conversations.

Travis begins to focus on Senator Palantine in a strange way, noting his campaign speeches and their locations. He also goes back to the campaign headquarters, where he loudly berates Betsy and condemns her, only to be escorted out of the building. A few nights after, Travis accidentally stumbles across a robbery in progress. He guns down the thief and flees the scene at the shop owner’s urging.

Travis later has a run-in with a painfully young prostitute named Iris (Jodie Foster), who tries to get into his cab. She is pulled forcefully out by a rough pimp named Matthew, or “Sport” (Harvey Keitel), who bribes Travis to stay quiet about the whole thing. Travis continues to dwell on this for several days, and he eventually finds Iris and talks to her. Travis learns that she is a runaway and is not even 13 years old. He tries in his clumsy if passionate way to convince her to leave her life in New York and return to her parents. Iris leaves, considering Travis’s urging. However, Sport smooth talks Iris into staying, with Travis watching through a window.

Travis, now gone completely off the deep end. He has taken on his "warrior" garb and prepares for his suicide mission to kill the Senator.

Now seemingly devastated, Travis goes home and loads for bear. He writes a farewell letter to Iris and puts it in an envelope with all of his remaining money. He then goes to Senator Palantine’s next public speech. Sporting a wild-looking mohawk and an oversized army jacket (hiding Travis’s veritable arsenal underneath), Travis makes towards the Senator and nearly has his chance to shoot him. He is spotted just before he pulls his gun, though, and flees the scene.

That same night, Travis goes into the lower East Side of Manhattan and confronts Sport. After a heated exchange, Travis shoots Sport, then continues to shoot his way past one of Sport’s lookouts, into Iris’s room. Travis also shoots the “john” that is with Iris, but not before being shot himself, once in the neck and once in the shoulder. Bleeding profusely, Travis sits on a couch while Iris crouches in horror next to it. The police arrive to find the bloodbath.

After a short time in a coma, Travis recovers his health. He wakes to find a letter from Iris’s parents, who explain that after the shooting, they came from their home in Pittsburgh and brought Iris home. Travis is also hailed as a sort of vigilante hero in the newspapers. Once recovered, he returns to his job driving a cab, and seems to be more well-balanced. One night, his fare happens to be Betsy. When she asks Travis about it, he denies that he was any kind of hero, and he quietly and calmly does not charge her for her fare.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any research.)

I remember a classmate of mine back in college once telling me that he would watch Taxi Driver once every year. He explained that this was so he could keep a certain perspective on everything. In keeping with this, I understand and agree with what he meant. Taxi Driver is an incredible movie that, while difficult to stomach in several ways, should be required viewing for everyone, at least once in their lifetimes.

Watching the mental fracturing of Travis Bickle is as fascinating as it is uncomfortable. Currently, in the year 2012, we are far more familiar with the psychological profile of the classic “loner(s)-turned-madman”, as in the cases of the Columbine or Gabby Giffords shootings, just to name a few. I have to guess, though, that on Taxi Driver’s release in 1976, this was very new and frightening territory. New because it made a homicidal man the protagonist, and frightening because of just how real it all seemed. Even more, it still has the same power, 36 years later.

I was hardly a year old in 1976, but I wouldn’t time travel back there if you paid me. My general impression of that short era, based solely on films between 1976 and 1978, is that it was hell on earth. The movies are always grainy and shrouded in shadows, and the themes were often doom-saying prophecies spawned by decades of Cold War paradigms and hopelessness. Taxi Driver is, for me, the epitome of it all, boiled down and distilled into the form of Travis Bickle.

An early shot in the film. The washed-out browns, shadows, fluorescent lighting, and disheveled humans are what seemed to be part of every U.S. film made between 1976 and 1978.

Travis Bickle, however, cannot be written off as simply a maniac. Faced with depravity and degradation at nearly every turn, Travis has a powerful desire to see it made better, but he isn’t equipped to enact it. Any attempt he makes at a positive connection is stymied by his own lack of awareness or social graces. His frustration simply fuels his hatred for the things that he sees, rightly or wrongly, as cancerous elements. Eventually, it erupts into the final shooting spree and killings.

What I picked up far more on this recent viewing were not the iconic scenes of Travis doing his “You talkin’ to me?” monologue or the visceral final shootout. Instead, it was Travis’s attempts at real human connection with people. Not only with Betsy and Iris, but even with his fellow cabbie “Wizard” (played well by Peter Boyle) and Senator Palantine, Travis makes a real attempt to communicate to people his pain and frustration at watching the world die around him. The problem is that either he isn’t able to articulate it, or his listeners aren’t willing or able to really hear him. Taxi Driver is easily as much about human contact (or lack of) as it is about social ills and mental instability. Again, this is not an amusing topic, but one that this film explores in an entrancing way.

What can I say about De Niro’s performance that hasn’t been said before? Nothing, really. While he had already made his name in The Godfather Part II, his role in Taxi Driver put him in rarefied air for actors. The man’s range even within this one movie is incredible. Bickle is terrifying at times, but the real power of the movie comes from the more delicate moments when he’s trying to reach out, in his confused and reserved way. As he would show in another Scorsese film, The King of Comedy, several years later, De Niro was equally effective at conveying the vulnerability that the role demanded. As someone who has grown disappointed in Robert De Niro’s roles in the last 10 or so years (don’t get me started on the whole Meet the Parents atrocities), I was glad to go back and be reminded of exactly why he is a film acting legend.

De Niro is obviously the big draw in the movie, but even the lesser roles played by familiar faces are great. A disturbingly young Jodie Foster is perfect, and Harvey Keitel is as I can’t recall seeing him in any picture – a street-jiving pimp, complete with red velvet bellbottom pants and wide-brim hat. Even Peter Boyle in his very small role as Wizard adds to the film.

Yes, that is indeed Harvey Keitel as the long-haired pimp, Sport. Keitel's is one of several excellent minor performances in the movie.

Scorsese’s direction of this movie is rock solid. I need to research it, but I can’t imagine that he had a tremendous budget for this movie. Either way, the entire tone of it is just right for the story it tells. Granted, most of us would want to take a shower after watching it, so grungy and distasteful are the environments and behavior in it, but this is exactly the point. It is this filth that sends Travis Bickle down the road of madness, and we are riding shotgun the entire way, as much as we don’t want to.

At this point, I have seen most of Scorsese’s feature films, and he’s one of my favorites. Seeing Taxi Driver again reminds me of the man’s strengths. While he’s clearly a director of the highest order, no matter what kind of film he decides to do, his greatest seem to come from his home – New York City. Sure, nearly all of his movies set there involve crime, insanity, depravity, and any number of other deadly vices, but the stories he tells of them have always been incredibly gripping. Taxi Driver was one of his very first in this vein. I come away from this latest viewing about the same way I went in: I’m glad I watched it again, and I was able to glean several more things from it than before. I will now let five, seven, maybe ten years pass before I feel the need to watch it again. Watch it again, I will though.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research.)

This is another film that one doesn’t have to research much, in order to learn why it has been put on the “All TIME 100” and many other “best films” lists. The craftsmanship of the tale and the acting is superb, and critics early on proclaimed it an outstanding film. The public also appreciated it; while Taxi Driver was far from a smash hit, it did make a relatively nice profit, grossing just under $30 million. I would say that this is surprising for such a dismal tale of urban decay and insanity, but I suppose it struck a chord with people.

It’s interesting to learn how Taxi Driver was a sort of unintentional bridge between two high profile assassination attempts. To write the script, Paul Schrader researched the personal diaries of Arthur Bremer, who shot presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972. (Travis Bickle’s journal entries are fairly prominent as insight into his mind in Taxi Driver.) Fast forward to 1981. In a delusional effort to impress Jodie Foster, John Hinckley Jr. dons a Bickle-inspired Mohawk and shoots then-president Ronald Reagan. Life imitating art, imitating life, I guess.

Initially deemed too bloody and given an X rating, Scorsese washed out the colors a bit, lessening the visceral nature of Bickle's final suicide assault to rescue Iris. Still, it's plenty disturbing.

In researching the film’s influences, it’s hard not to think of several more modern movies that use a rough Travis Bickle template. The John Doe character in Se7en and even Tyler Durden in Fight Club are clearly cut from the same cloth. Those were also films of malcontented loners who first internalized their disgust at the world around them, and then lashed out with the force of a natural disaster.

Back to Taxi Driver. The ending is certainly food for thought. After the final, bloody shootout and Travis’s recovery, the final scenes at first seem out of place to me. Travis is back out on the street, driving his cab, seemingly in far better mental condition. After picking up and dropping off Betsy, there is a very brief flash of Travis’s face in the rearview mirror, reacting with surprise and anger to some kind of blurred motion. Before you know it, though, the moment is gone. I was left to wonder if I had even really seen it.

Well, it turns out that I did see it, and it is an allusion to the fact that Travis is far from OK at the end of the movie. This was something that sparked debate and confusion upon Taxi Driver’s initial release. However, Martin Scorsese and script writer Paul Schrader confirmed that the scene is, indeed, meant to show that Travis is still thoroughly unstable, and that final, lightning-quick flash of his contorted face portends another violent outburst sometime in his future. This also banished a theory that the final few minutes of the film were a dream sequence and we were seeing inside Travis’s mind for a short while. Not so.

And here’s a final perplexing oddity. In surfing around, I discovered that there are plans out there to make a sequel to Taxi Driver. In both 2010 and 2011, both De Niro and Scorsese confirmed this, and director Lars von Trier is rumored to be involved. Don’t ask me exactly how they plan to do this, as the only information out there says that it would be about an older Travis Bickle. If it really comes off, I don’t know what to expect. Scorsese is an absolute master, no doubt, but it’s hard for me to imagine him capturing the feel of the original setting and character without diminishing it somehow. We shall see.

That’s a wrap. 75 shows down. 30 to go.

Coming Soon: Star Wars (1977):

Talk about a thematic shift. I go from a violent loner in a scum-encrusted New York to an intergalactic hick getting wrapped up in a space opera and learning how to fight with a glowing magic wand. It goes to show how movies truly can take you anywhere…

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #73: The Godfather, Part II (1974)

*This is, of course, the second of the Godfather series, which are considered one “film” by the fellows who put together the TIME magazine list of “100 great movies”. Here’s my review of the first movie, done a few months ago.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: three (last time about 6 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No Spoilers)

Long before dying in an orange orchard in the 1940s, Vito Corleone immigrated to the U.S. and became a respected and feared crime lord. Four decades later, his son Michael struggles to maintain and expand the family’s criminal empire.

Extended Summary (Slightly longer plot synopsis, including spoilers. Fair Warning.)

This is a relatively short (used loosely – the movie’s 3 and ½ hours long!) summary. For a much more thorough synopsis, check out this one at the Internet Movie Database website.

Roughly 45 years before the events chronicled in The Godfather, a nine-year old Vito Andolini lives in the town of Corleone, Sicily in 1901. He must flee the country to escape murder at the hands of the local mafia head, Don Ciccio, who has already killed his father, older brother, and mother. A few sympathetic clergy members stash him on a freight ship, and he arrives in America a few months later. At Ellis Island, his named is inadvertently altered to “Vito Corleone”, which is the name he will use for the rest of his life.

A nine-year old Vito arrives at Ellis Island, quietly dealing with all of the chaos and change.

Nearly 20 years pass, and Vito (Robert De Niro) is living in a poor Italian district in New York City. He has a decent job at a grocery store, a loving family, and a small, barely adequate apartment. One day, however, his job is taken from him at the behest of Don Fanucci, the obnoxious, vain, and greedy mafia underboss who has the neighborhood in his grip. The quiet, meditative, and thoughtful Vito gently gives up his job, assuring his employer that there are no hard feelings.

Through a series of events and in order to support his family, Vito takes to crime with his friends, Clemenza and Tessio. The three lead a successful, if relatively small, thievery ring. When Don Fanucci finds out, though, he demands a cut of their action. While Tessio and Clemenza would like to bow to Fanucci’s wishes, Vito convinces them to let him handle it. They agree, and Vito “handles it” by assassinating the despicable Fanucci.

The three friends then continue to slowly build their criminal empire, with Vito as their head. Vito, not only interested in criminal profits, also develops a reputation as a man who will help any friends in need. Thus, he becomes not only feared, but also a highly beloved and respected figure in Italian New York.

Vito Corleone, ascended to successful, deadly, and highly respected crime boss.

Around 25 years later, the events depicted in The Godfather take place, with the mantle of “Don Corleone” passing from Vito to his youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino). The Godfather ends with Michael having his 5 main rivals assassinated and beginning to move the Corleone family to Las Vegas.

Seven years after these events, in 1958, the Corleone family is in Lake Tahoe, celebrating Michael’s son’s first communion with a massive party. As with his sister, Connie’s, wedding to Carlo ten years prior, this grand celebration serves as a front for Michael to conduct family business with other powerful people, including corrupt Senators and mafia bosses who work for him. Michael’s grand scheme is to partner with Hymen Roth, a very wealthy, long-time associate and financial supporter of his father in various illegal activities. They plan to bribe the president of Cuba into letting them open and run their own businesses in the Caribbean country. A monkey wrench exists, however, in the form of Michael’s underling Frank Pantangeli wanting to eliminate a rival New York crime family who is backed by Roth.

That evening, after the party guests have all left, an attempt is made on Michael’s life. In his very bedroom, where his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) is sleeping, a pair of assassins opens fire and riddles the room with bullets. Both Michael and Kay escape, unharmed, but Michael now must guess who sent the would-be murderers.

Over the coming months, Michael travels from Lake Tahoe to Miami and Cuba, speaking with Roth, Pantangeli, and his older brother Fredo, in order to determine who tried to kill him and exactly how they were able to get so close to him and his wife. In the middle of it all, Michael must face Senate questions about his alleged crimes. Pantangeli and his bodyguard, Cicci, have become witnesses to the prosecution, after the former survived an attempt on his life, seemingly ordered by Michael.

Through his own cunning and willpower, Michael learns that it was, in fact, Hymen Roth who ordered both his and Pantangeli’s murders. Not only this, but Roth obtained access to the Tahoe compound from Michael’s own brother, the weak-willed and petty Fredo. Added to this, any designs of the Corleone family in Cuba are crushed when Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries take over the government and oust the president. A final, more devastating and personal blow is given Michael by Kay. Michael had believed that Kay’s recent pregnancy had ended in miscarriage, when in fact it was an abortion. Kay explains to her husband that she has become disgusted at their lives and refuses to bring any more of Michael’s children into the world.

Michael in his fortress-like compound in Reno, dealing with some enemies while creating many more.

Michael resolves each problem in his own ruthless way. Hymen Roth is assassinated in an airport. Frank Pantangeli is coaxed into recanting his testimony against the Corleones, in exchange for assurances that his family will be taken care of. Michael completely shuns Fredo, cutting him off from the family. After their mother passes away, Michael has Fredo killed for his past treachery. As for Kay, she too is cut off from her own two children. The divide is so severe that, upon finding Kay secretly visiting their children, Michael coldly slams a door in her face.

The tale ends with a final flashback to 1941. All of Michael’s immediate family members are alive and happy, and they prepare to eat a surprise birthday meal for their father, Vito. Michael then reveals that he has enlisted in the Marines, much to the disgust and anger of his eldest brother, Santino (James Caan). When Vito arrives, everyone leaves the table to greet Vito. All except for Michael, who merely sits and contemplates his decision.

In 1959 in Lake Tahoe, Michael Corleone, now seventeen years older, sits in a similar thoughtful pose – completely alone.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done before any further research on the film.)

Just as with my re-watching of Part I, this one was a treat, yet again. Part II is a seamless continuation of, and deeper exploration into, the epic and tragic tale of the Corleone crime family. This sequel/prequel combo may still be the only “great” movie that matches or surpasses its classic predecessor.

In watching these two films within about two months of each other, I realize that one is best served by watching them in rapid succession. The two really are one long movie, and should be watched as such. As excellent as Part I is on its own, my appreciation for it is so enhanced by watching Part II that I really can’t imagine watching one and not the other any more.

One of the early scenes of Vito Andolini, just before his mother is brutally gunned down. This camera shot is one of countless that could be stilled and hung on a wall.

On a few counts, it’s difficult to separate the merits of the two. Being created by exactly the same film-makers, based on the same source, using all of the same actors, and filmed a mere two years after Part I, Part II has exactly the same amazing aesthetic appeal. Whether it’s early 20^th century Sicily, 1920s New York, or 1950s Lake Tahoe, Miami, or Cuba, many of the shots are studies in framing and composition. The panoramic shots give you so much to drink in that you can almost forget about the stories and plots unfolding.

Almost.

I assume that Mario Puzo’s book tells the Corleone story in standard chronological order. By choosing to reshuffle the tale and go simultaneously backwards and forwards in time, Coppola did something that I can’t recall seeing in any earlier film. Or at least, not done so effectively. Watching the quiet boy Vito Andolini steadfastly overcome his hardships through his own conviction and willpower is the more enjoyable and entertaining part of the three-and-a-half behemoth that is The Godfather Part II.

Though it is the more pleasing of the two tales, Vito's story serves the greater purpose of casting Michael’s story into very dark relief. By the end, Michael is having to deal with all of the fallout of his own lack of the very thing that made his father a better man – genuine compassion. Michael gets respect from other powerful people because he has always had money and because he is clearly intelligent and capable. His father, however, did not initially have the luxury of financial might to impose his will; what Vito had was real concern for his family and his countrymen, and he had a sense of justice that weak and strong alike would support. As was developing in the latter half of Part I, the intellectual Michael understands these characteristics of his father, but he does not and cannot genuinely feel them.

The tone of the movie is also very much in keeping with Part I. There are intense moments of emotion, fear, and anger, but also moments of levity provided by taking a look at the “gangster lifestyle”, especially the far less polished under-bosses and henchmen. The drunken and obnoxious Frank Pantangeli and his body guard, Cicci, provide as many chuckles as Sonny or Clemenza do in Part I. The reverse is true of the flashback scenes with Vito – his tale contains more humor (we know he’s going to succeed, having seen Part I), but there are certainly moments of tension and bloodshed. Everything is balanced exceptionally well.

Speaking of the violence. It’s interesting to realize that, while there is certainly graphic violence in Parts I and II, alike, I never feel that it is gratuitous in any way. There is never any slow-motion photography, no stylization of it, or any music to try and intensify anything. A murder, even a fictitious one on screen, is intense enough. When I see a murder occur in these movies, my clenched teeth and cold guts tell me that these are the horrors that are part of this type of criminal life. The fact that the victims are often slain by those they know and trust is an even greater horror, and one that should leave a viewer no doubt as to whether the lifestyle is truly glamorous or noble.

One of the more iconic shots - Vito murdering the corpulent Don Fanucci. The unstylized presentation of this  killing gives a cold sense of just how matter-of-fact Vito can be about assassination, when it comes to providing for his family.

The acting is, as you would expect, perfection. All of the returning cast members continue to nail their roles, and I even see a little more depth added to the relationship between Michael and Kay. The newcomers to the Godfather story only enhance it. De Niro is incredible, as expected, but even the smaller roles of Frank Pantangeli and Hymen Roth are played expertly by Michael Gazzo and Lee Strasburg, respectively. As with Part I, even the tiniest of roles seemed to be cast with someone who could add some kind of memorable accent to the picture.

Probably the thing that I gained a better appreciation for upon this viewing came from the end of the movie. I don’t know that I ever fully grasped the comparison that the two movies were making between Vito and Michael, and just how aware Michael is that he does not have his father’s most valuable gifts of character. Nowhere in the movies is this clearer than at the very end, when we shift from Michael in 1941, sitting alone at the family dinner table, to Michael in 1958, having just had his brother killed for treachery. The divide between father and son is now all too clear, and Michael is left alone.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after a little research.)

As with Part I, the commentary on The Godfather Part II is almost limitless. The handful that I read was mostly unsurprising. The Godfather Part II was a very solid commercial and critical success, raking in 11 Oscar nominations and 6 wins. The reasons for this are the same reasons for Part I’s acclaim.

A few curious notes popped up in what I read, though. The primary one was that a handful of respected film critics, including Roger Ebert, weren’t completely enthralled with this sequel. In Ebert’s original 1974 review here, it’s clear that he recognizes several clear strengths, but he felt that the telling of the dual tales of Vito and Michael was a bit of patchwork job that weakened the picture. He wasn’t completely alone in his assessment. I myself did feel that the shifts, while not very distracting to me, were a tad abrupt at times. Still, I don’t know that there was a better way to tell the story and still provide the interesting parallels and divergences between Michael and his father.

Apparently, the slightly stilted nature of the narrative was not a figment of a few critics’ imaginations. The studio and advance critics’ protestations were enough that Coppola actually was in the process of reediting and restructuring the film so that the two different stories were more self-contained and impacting. However, he couldn’t get it done by the release date, so we were left with the greater number of flashbacks and forwards.

The other major area of interest is just how much reality provided the source material for The Godfather Part II. Even more than Part I, the sequel drew from very real mafia doings in Las Vegas and Cuba. The Senate hearings were based on actual hearings in the 1950s in pursuit of gangster Frank Costello (not to be confused with the character of the same name in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed). Hymen Roth was based on an actual major financier for the mob named Meyer Lansky. It’s a bit frightening to think that so many of these insidious machinations are not just the stuff of make believe. Just who do you think might own that nice hotel you’re staying in? It might not be some kindly hotelier, eh?

Hymen Roth and Michael in Cuba (actually filmed in the Dominican Republic), trying to outmaneuver each other and drop their dirty stakes into the country at the same time.

The final thing that dawned on me in these reading is something that I didn’t find mentioned, specifically. I was left to think about a rather understated comparison that one can make – it involves Don Ciccio, the Sicilian mafia Don in Corleone who brutally murders young Vito’s entire family. When the grown Vito comes to him and exacts his revenge, Don Ciccio is portly, hard of hearing, and, most importantly, he is completely alone except for his paid body guards. It’s hard not to see Michael Corleone as the very same man at the end of the movie. He has killed anyone who is his enemy, leaving him with no one left, for enemies are all that he has created for himself. The true tragedy is that this is exactly what his own father, who wanted Michael to be a great man, despised and sought to overcome.

*A final thought about The Godfather Part III (1990): In brief – if you’re thinking about watching it, don’t get your hopes up. Amazingly, it’s horribly inferior to Parts I and II. The visuals are great, and the plot is halfway decent, but there are some really bizarre shifts of character and laughably atrocious acting by a few “thespians”. The greatest offense was the notoriously bad performance by Sophia Coppola. Watching this third installment might give a bit closure, but realize that there are very good reasons that this one is never included in discussion of the “great series” that the first two films make up.

That’s a wrap. 73 shows down. 32 to go.

Coming Soon: Barry Lyndon (1975)

I don’t meet too many people who know of this movie, but I love it. It can be filed under “lesser-known Kubrick”. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a nice overcast day to kick back and drink in this meditative, visually lush epic.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.