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Tumblr is obsessed with the mafia film âGoncharov.â The problem is it isnât real.
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The Fake Scorsese Film You Havenât Seen. Or Have You?
Tumblr is obsessed with the mafia film âGoncharov.â The problem is it isnât real.
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Credit...Alex Korotchuk
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By Madison Malone Kircher
Nov. 22, 2022
Tumblr cinephiles have a new favorite movie this week. Itâs decades old, so maybe youâve already seen it. It is called âGoncharovâ and stars Robert DeNiro in the titular role as a Russian hit man and former discothĂšque owner. It takes place in Naples, Italy. Cybill Shepherd plays his wife, Katya, and rounding out the cast are Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Harvey Keitel.
The 1973 film, billed as âMartin Scorsese presents,â has everything: murder, a love triangle, homoerotic undertones, a striking original score and a dramatic final scene that film buffs have been debating for years.
Thereâs only one other thing to know about âGoncharov.â It does not exist.
The story of Tumblrâs beloved fake film began with a shoe. Several years ago, a Tumblr user posted a photo of a pair of âknockoff bootsâ they ordered online that arrived with a strange tag. âThe greatest mafia movie ever made,â read the top line. âMartin Scorsese presents GONCHAROV.â âDomenico Proccacci production,â it continued. âA film by Matteo JWHJ0715.â âAbout the Naples Mafia,â read the final line. (The userâs Tumblr is no longer active and attempts to reach the user were unsuccessful.)
In August 2020, Aveline McEntire, a college student in Missouri, reblogged the image on her personal Tumblr after seeing it on a friendâs page.
Ms. McEntire added an additional image to her reblog, a screenshot of a comment from a third Tumblr user, reading, âthis idiot hasnât seen goncharov.â Ms. McEntire, 20, had not thought much about the post until recently when it suddenly started gaining popularity, with tens of thousands of people beginning to reblog it earlier in November.
Even Tumblr has gotten in on the act. âGoncharovâ was ahead of its time âand itâs contribution to cinema is remarkable,â the platform tweeted on Sunday from its official account. âRarely does a film tell as many diverse-yet-interconnected stories. Hard to imagine so few ppl have seen it.â
On Tumblr, users have created an entire universe to support the idea that âGoncharovâ is real. A poster for the film, riddled with bullet holes and crediting Matteo JWHJ0715 as the director of the âgreatest mafia movie (n)ever made,â was created by Alex Korotchuk, a 20-year-old-artist in Prague, who said 50 people have placed orders to buy a print version of the poster. Alix Latta, a 25-year-old music teacher in Indiana, composed a theme song â a waltz inspired by the theme from âThe Godfather.â
Elena Asofsky, 23, has been making fan art inspired by the imaginary movie, focusing on the alleged subtle sexual tension between Goncharov and Mr. Keitelâs character, Andrey âThe Bankerâ Daddano.Credit...Elena Asofsky
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There are Tumblr posts full of lore about the film and vivid details about the plot, including stills and GIFs pulled from other films and TV shows being repurposed as scenes from âGoncharov.â
âItâs essentially a Russian gangster coming to Naples, and itâs a long story about his eventual downfall and betrayal by everyone in his life,â said Erika Paulson, 27. âTo quote one of the posts thatâs been going around, itâs him coming to Naples to try and escape his life of violence.â
A frequent Tumblr user, Mx. Paulson, who lives in Philadelphia, remembered seeing the âGoncharovâ boots years ago and was excited to contribute to the story, posting several pictures of a cat, now known by some on Tumblr as Patchka, with the caption, âanyway i think we all know who the true best character in Goncharov (1973) is.â People have pointed out the cat could be another nod to âThe Godfather,â but Mx. Paulson was inspired by street cats spotted on a trip to Rome. âWhatâs a gangster movie without a cat?â
Lynda Carter got in on it too on her Tumblr. The âWonder Womanâ star posted two black-and-white photos of herself and Henry Winkler captioned, âMe and âThe Fonzâ at premiere of Goncharov(1973) at Graumanâs Chinese Theatre.â The image is actually a photo of the two actors at the 1977 Golden Globe Awards. A representative for the movie reviewing platform Letterboxd said it had removed multiple user reviews of the fake flick.
Elena Asofsky, 23, initially fell for the mythmaking. âI start asking my roommates. Iâm like, âHey, have you heard about this âGoncharovâ thing? What is this? Can we get in on it?â And my roommateâs like, âI know, itâs fake. Itâs all not real.ââ Since then, Ms. Asofsky, a substitute teacher and illustrator in Columbus, Ohio, has been making fan art inspired by the imaginary movie.
Mx. Paulson pointed out Tumblr users have a rich history of this very particular brand of creativity, recalling how users several years ago created a similarly real fandom for âSquiddles,â a fictional TV show within the universe of the web comic âHomestuck.â But for some Tumblr users, it can be frustrating to be on the outside of inside jokes when other users refuse to cave and admit the thing they are talking about isnât real.
Thatâs not whatâs happening with âGoncharovâ though, according to Dani Mays, an illustration student in Kansas City, Mo. âWhen that happens, it feels like theyâre laughing at your expense, watching you get increasingly frustrated at the dissonance and taking that frustration as part of the bit, turning you into part of the punchline,â Ms. Mays, 24, wrote in a popular post on Tumblr. âIâm not seeing any of that with Goncharov, at least as far as the more popular users participating in it.â
âThe fact that people are so willing to break the joke long enough to tell people whatâs going on and then bring people into the fold, so to speak, is nice,â Ms. Mays added in a phone interview with The Times.
How the title âGoncharovâ came to be on the bootâs tag in the first place continues to be a mystery. Michael Littrell, a musician from Minneapolis, has a theory. After seeing the boots floating around Tumblr for years, Mr. Littrell, who studied journalism in college, started investigating in October and eventually came across an Italian producer named Domenico Procacci. (The same producer named by the boots.) From there, he connected the dots to a 2008 film called âGomorrah,â about Italian organized crime.
Mr. Scorsese was not the director, but according to Mr. Littrell, 24, and a years-old story from The Hollywood Reporter, âGomorrahâ had a presentation credit from the famed director when it arrived in the United States.
A poster Mr. Littrell found in his search reads âMartin Scorsese Presentsâ at the top and is stylized much the same as the bootsâ label, with Mr. Scorseseâs name in red and the title of the film in capitalized black letters. The director of âGomorrahâ is Matteo Garrone. Who shares a first name with Matteo JWHJ0715.
A tagline proclaims âGomorrahâ to be âBASED ON THE BEST SELLING EXPOSĂ BY ROBERTO SAVIANO ABOUT THE NAPLES MAFIA.â Details that bear a striking similarity to the boots that started this whole saga.
âI really want Scorsese to see this and maybe make Goncharov,â reads a reply on Mr. Littrellâs Tumblr post documenting his findings.
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Happy Christmas Eve! Weâre back to sharing links here to Robin River posts on Pillowfort.
Soon. Soon my generation will be done, and I will stop being the one responsible for everyone being able to follow along. Soon.
And miles to go before I sleep, I suppose...
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