Crime Genre - Mafia Sub Genre Essay

Mafia Conventions – Michael-Lee Davies

I have chosen Mafia/organised crime style films because I believe they portray particularly interesting conventions that throw certain curveballs to the audience. More often than not these style of films are set in the 50’s late 40’s just after world war two, when the Sicilian immigrants came to the USA after escaping the rule of Mussolini. These people found that amongst the irish and the Chinese that had already settled, work was difficult to come by and a life of organised crime was the way to get what they wanted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVKPzmR1gds 

This philosophy is the way the anti-hero emerges, where the protagonist has the audience empathising with him/her in their struggle, they usually play a character who has been wronged in some way or has a plight they will do anything to overcome, they have the allegiance of the audience as they usually have a quality about them, an honest heart and a line they wont cross on principle, like the role Tom Hanks plays in road to perdition, as Michael Sullivan, a mob enforcer who had his family murdered by a rival gang and seeks revenge, we know as spectators and an audience that violence and murder is wrong but we can help feel for Hanks as he has been terribly wronged and we want his revenge as much as him, also his fatherly quality’s, trying to steer his son (See Below) away from the path he chose down the life of crime gives us a sympathetic feel towards him.

Also in the godfather, Don Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando) may be the icon of the series, but Michael Corleone (Al Pacino)  is definitely the anti hero, even going so far as to have a hit on his own brother.

An underlying motif within ALL Mafia/Gangster films is murder, and the way it is portrayed, often in gunfire or even silently in cold blood, it is shown as an exciting part of the mafia life and a stage all members in ‘the family’ will go through as the term “whack somebody” more or less a person with a hit on their head such as Michael Corleones brother in The Godfather. Al Pacino's performance as the Cuban drug lord Tony Montana received a mixed reception with views as the movie Scarface received, especially disgust at the notorious “chainsaw” scene, which has cause people to walk out including big name writers Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving  at the premire, this goes to show just how much violence is portrayed in these types of film and just how close to reality they really are.

Mafia films show the mob as a reputable and honorable family, well at least a family not to be messed with, they have had points where they get there message across and persuade people by any means, in the infamous scene from The Godfather where Woltz, after refusing to cast Don Corleones godsonvin a movie, caves in, when he finds the severed head of his prized racehorse "Khartoum" in his bed the next morning.

A film that takes the Mob genre to a certain level of comedy however is Pulp Fiction, starring Samuel Jackson and John Travolta as a couple of hit men who are hired by there respective mob boss Marcellus Wallace, to kill a boxer who failed to throw a fight. They kidnap a male to interrogate in a notable scene where Travolta mistakenly shoots him in the head making a gory mess (See Below), however their reaction to it is a comical almost bickering couple-esque dialogue between Jackson and Travolta were they argue as if it were something as trivial as breaking the others pencil. Also there affinity to drug use where Uma Thurman (Wallace’s daughter) goes out with Travolta, who is ordered to show her “a good time”, to where she inhales a dubious amount of cocaine and Travolta is forced to take her to the dealers house to save her, drugs are openly used on screen as this is to portray the “do what they want” mafia lifestyle, the concept of Thurman dying is covered to the audience as the Dealer and Travolta argue amongst each other in a slapstick style ‘routine’ looking for a misplaced book.