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Colton Turner

Ashli Dykes

ARTS 2013 Introduction to Film

1 Nov. 2021

The Legend of The Gabagool: Gaba-Goodfellas, The Meatfather, and Cold Cut Casino

The renowned crime-centered genre of film, considered as one of the most revolutionary

genres of film by many, has caused the birth of several sub-genres. While all of these sub-genres

are popular amongst different groups of people, one that is constantly celebrated by everyone is

gangster films. Gangster film has produced some of the most iconic and acclaimed movies in

history, having so much influence on our pop culture even now, but the genre has had many

changes throughout its history. The early gangster story was popularized by Warner Bros in the

1930’s, typically following a rise and fall setup where a gangster, typically a young man who has

a blatant disrespect for authority, tries to rise from poverty by committing numerous crimes but

ultimately ends up arrested or worse from his actions. Some of these anti-hero character traits

can still be seen in the newer adaptations of the rise and fall of the American gangster as well.

In more recent years the gangster genre has split apart from its mafia roots and now

follows a different setup that focuses on the criminals as much as they focus on the authorities

that chase them. According to TheScriptLab, gangster film is: “a sub-genre of crime films that

center on organized crime or the mafia. Often the plot revolves around the rise and fall of an

organized crime leader. Many Gangster films explore the destructive nature of organized crime,

while others attempt to show the humanity of the individual characters.”(TheScriptLab) Movies

like Goodfellas, Casino, and The Godfather, are some examples of what makes a mafia movie

good and, by their nature, shows the features that make a movie a mafia movie.
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Goodfellas is arguably one of the best crime stories ever told through film, one of the

many factors that make it so good is that the story is real. The film is based on a book titled

Wiseguy, the book follows the life of Henry Hill, an American mobster, who was active in 1955

through 1980. It explains the details of his mafia lifestyle until the point when he became a

police informant after being arrested for drug charges while being threatened with getting killed

by the mafia. Of course the movie changes some things from the book for the sake of

entertainment, but the important parts stayed unchanged. The movie, similar to the book, follows

the life of three anti-heros, Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta, Jimmy Conway, played by Robert

De Niro, and Tommy DeVito, played by Joe Pecsi. The film manages to romanticize the mafia

lifestyle by showing the advantages that come from having power, but also manages to show the

real violent and brutal things that must be done to maintain power. One of the first things the

film does is throw the viewer into the middle of a murder that the three main characters just

committed, later we learn the reason behind it was because Tommy, the groups hothead, lost his

cool and killed him. This is a recurring thing that Tommy does and each time it happens Henry

begins to regret choosing this lifestyle, but soon after these scenes there is something that makes

up for it. As the story progresses Henry regrets more and more, this life had formed Henry into a

person who was bitter and resentful of what he thought he loved. As Pileggi puts it in the book

Wiseguy:

“Of course, no matter how Henry tried to rationalize what he had done, his survival

depended upon his capacity for betrayal. He willingly turned on the world he knew and

the men with whom he had been raised with the same nonchalance he had used in setting

up a bookie joint or slipping a tail. For Henry Hill giving up the life was hard, but giving

up his friends was easy.”

(Pileggi 258)

Following the groundbreaking success of Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese returned to the

gangster genre and created Casino. Similar to Goodfellas, Casino is based on true events but due

to legal reasons there were numerous details that got changed, things like names, cities, and other

various details. Besides all the required changes, the movie is made up of events that actually

took place during the 1970’s and 1980’s that led to the fall of one of the biggest organized crime

groups of all time. The film mainly follows Sam "Ace" Rothstein who was played by Robert De

Niro, Ace Rothstein is a gambling expert who was asked to oversee the Tangiers Casino in Las

Vegas by the Chicago Outfit, the Chicago Outfit’s best enforcer and friend of Sam, Nicky

Santoro, who was played by Joe Pesci and Ginger McKenna, who marries Sam and has a

daughter with him, who was played by Sharon Stone. While all the character’s names are

different from the real people most of their actions remained unchanged, Sam “Ace” Rothstein is

based on Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, he actually made sure each blueberry muffin had ten

blueberries in them, and criticised the show girls on their weight.

The film follows the volatile relationship between these three characters, and how they

cause their own downfall. Nicky was too greedy and started doing robberies and shakedowns

that angered the Outfit bosses until they had enough and buried him alive. Ginger, still being in a

relationship with her ex boyfriend and her addiction to alcohol and drugs, puts he marriage in

turmoil then cheats on Sam with Nicky and ends up overdosing, and finally Sam who acts too

recklessly causing the FBI to figure out how the mafia gets money from the casino and finally

shutting it down, which causes the bosses to make a failed assassination attempt and him ending

back up where he started.

Goodfellas and Casino were made when gangster movies started to gain more popularity

due to the death of spaghetti westerns, they started a big revival in the popularity of gangster

movies seeing as how they were amazing films, but there is another film that is older that has

done so much for, not only the gangster film genre, but for film in general and our pop culture, as

Britannica puts it: “Dialogue from the movie—especially the line “I’ll make him an offer he

can’t refuse”—became common parlance, and scenes from the film were frequently quoted in

other movies and TV shows”(Britannica). The Godfather, similar to the previous movies, comes

from a book with the same title but unlike the other movies, The Godfather, is based in fiction.

The Godfather takes less of an internal conflict within one family of the mafia approach and has

a war between the five major ones the Tattaglias, the Barzinis, the Cuneos, the Straccis and, the

one the audience follows, the Corleones. The first part of the movie is based in the late summer

of 1945, at the wedding reception of Don Vito’s daughter, Connie. Don Vito, the head of the

Corleone crime family, is known to friends and associates as the Godfather. Don Vito is hearing

requests for favors because, according to Sicilian tradition, no Scicilian can refuse a request on

his daughter’s wedding day. After listening and fulfilling a few requests, there is a scene that

takes place that shows how powerful Don Vito is. After a man refusing to give an acting job to a

singer Don Vito helped, he sent one of his men there to convince him by making him “an offer

he can’t refuse” (The Godfather). Shortly after this, the director who refused to give him a role

wakes up in his bed covered in blood with his prized horse's head at his feet. Before Christmas,

Sollozo, a drug trafficker that is backed by the rival Tattaglia family, asks Don Vito for an

investment and protection in his business, Don Vito declines and sends his best enforcer, Luca

Brasi, to spy on them. This is where the major conflict begins because after the rival family finds

out, they kill Luca and try to kill Don Vito, he survives but cannot run the crime family and his
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son takes over. After Don Vito dies due to a heart attack, his son gets all of the other Dons

murdered.

In conclusion the organized crime centered genre has changed a lot over time, but there

were three movies that can be traced back as the reason behind the change. With The Godfather

setting an example to what a good mafia movie should feel like in the 1970’s through 1980’s and

Goodfellas and Casino adding a more modern twist on what The Godfather layed out.
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Works Cited

Buffam, Noelle. “Crime..” The Script Lab, 26 Mar. 2011,

https://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/988-western/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2021.

Pileggi, Nicholas. Wiseguy: The Story of Henry Hill. Simon and Schuster, 1985.

Bauer, Patricia. “The Godfather.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 15 Sept. 2017,

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Godfather-film-by-Coppola.. Accessed 30 Oct.

2021

Scorsese, Martin, director. Goodfellas. Warner Bros., 1990.

Cappola, Francis, director. The Godfather: Part One. Paramount/Alfran, 1972.

Scorsese, Martin, director. Casino. Universal Pictures, 1995.