#maniacts

I've written this article for the ManiACTs. It appeared in the playbill for Reservoir Dogs which you should totally watch if you haven't done so already. Quentin Tarantino's cult classic finally on stage - a world premiere and there's no excuse to miss it!!! Anyway, here's my contribution to it:

I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman; blood is a big expense.

- Sollozzo to Tom in Godfather (1972)

A scruffy bar, somewhere in America. Lonely chaps are drinking their whiskeys in the smoky room and a plangent tune by Ennio Morricone supports the fierce and dodgy atmosphere. A man enters the scene, says (probably) nothing but takes out his revolver and starts shooting - maybe adding a cruelly cool slogan to complete the scenery.

This is it - the classic scene of the gangster movie genre. Introduced into the cinematic world in 1931 with Mervin LeRoy's Little Caesar, the gangster film quickly began to play a significant role in the history of moviemaking. The magnum opus of these movies is without any questions Mario Puzo/Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather (1972). Very characteristic for these films are their intricate setting and the plotline of betrayal that revolves around the life of pawns and big fish in the delicate underground world dominated by illegal poker games, smoking, drinking and a good deal of swearing. It is the last great coup, that one big crime that promises to solve all problems, that drives the plotline forward. Add some femmes fatales to spice it all up, a soundtrack that just cries out "Fuck yeah" and a hero - or rather, anti hero - who solves his problems in the most manly manner possible: with balls, booze and bullets.

But what is it that makes them so appealing? It is the celebration of the real man, that tough guy who does whatever it takes to get what he wants. Or the sympathetic underdog loser who suddenly finds himself the focus of the big gangster bosses' attention and somewhat smoothly manages to get out of the whole mess, leaving a trail of blood behind. It is the callousness of everyone involved, the coolness that reigns, the absurdity that makes them so tongue-in-cheek and makes films such as Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932) so fascinating.

The great directors of the gangster movie, Sergio Leone, Guy Ritchie, or the master himself, Quentin Tarantino, always know how to let their protagonists say something incredibly cool before getting involved in some pretty dangerous revolver action. Tarantino especially developed his very own line within the genre throughout his career. Many of his movies invoke the golden years of the gangster movie, glorifying the genre for everything it stands for.