Five 2023 Films

 SPOILER ALERT! The plots will be discussed.

I thought I would make some brief comments on five 2023 movies:

BARBIE:

Greta Gerwig’s film was a critical and very big commercial success. She was able to present a funny movie that was also heavy on theme. The opening is an enjoyable reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the evolutionary progression moving away from girls playing with one-dimensional versions of dolls to the multifaceted menu of Barbies. However, as the story moves forward, those versions are shown as creations by men who are trying to cash in on women adopting various professions in the modern world.

In the real world, women are still not respected for their roles, so there is disenchantment that their lives are not living up to the ideals presented in Barbie World. This disillusionment is represented by Gloria (America Fererra). Her unhappiness affects Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), who shocks other Barbies by ruminating on death, and travels to the real world to explore the problems there.

She has a stowaway in her Barbiemobile. It’s Stereotypical Ken (Ryan Gosling). In Barbie World he is just an accessory, as are the other Ken dolls. In the real world he learns how to be macho, and he brings that attitude back to Barbie World to share with the Kens. Barbie must return to set things straight before revisiting the real world at the end.

The thrust here is that neither gender should dominate, and that women must become empowered by way of their own identity, and not by what is prescribed by men.

The film is accomplished at bringing the world of Barbie to life, and the performances hit their marks. Great last line, when Barbie says she is in an office to see her “gynecologist.”

 OPPENHEIMER:

Christopher Nolan dazzles again in this story about the scientist who created the atomic bomb. In this film, unlike some others by Nolan, it is not that difficult to follow the different timelines. The story jumps between Oppenheimer in his early years associating with the Communist movement and his early brilliance as a physicist. There is the time period when he works on the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bomb. When he refuses to continue work toward developing the even more devastating hydrogen bomb, the government persecutes him for his early association with Communism. Eventually, the film depicts his acquittal.

We discussed this film in an online forum that the Bryn Mawr Film Institute presented. I asked about how the instructors viewed Nolan’s attitude toward science in general, mentioning his films, Inception, Interstellar, and his Batman trilogy. The instructors stated that Nolan appears to view people as flawed creatures who are not equipped to handle the fallout (pun intended in this case) from their technological advances. Inception shows the psychological devastation of delving into the dreams of others. Interstellar, although optimistic in the end, shows the need to leave Earth because of how humans destroyed the environment with technology. There is the section in the Batman stories where Bruce Wayne can listen to everything that the citizens are saying, totally invading their privacy. He allows that technology to be destroyed, but the fear is there if unscrupulous individuals used that system. In Oppenheimer, the ethical question that torments the main character is if he doesn’t develop the nuclear bomb, then Hitler might dominate the world if he is not stopped. However, by developing the A-Bomb, he opens a nuclear Pandor’s Box that threatens the existence of the world.

Great performances by Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, and Robert Downey, Jr. as the scientist’s eventual nemesis, Lewis Strauss (both Golden Globe winners).

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON:

The title of the movie refers to an Osage Native American ceremony that cherishes the blossoming of flowers each year. During the ritual they discover oil on their land and the tribe becomes rich. However, they are surrounded by the enemy, the white man, who cherishes the land for profit. The whites exploit the Natives by marrying into the tribe and then bringing about the deaths of the Osage community to inherit the land’s wealth. They even have some declared incompetent while living to gain control of the assets.

The Native population is somewhat to blame for being seduced by the white culture’s love of materialism. Martin Scorsese’s film suggests that the desire for oil destroys the soul of the people who were its initial residents and pollutes the land with whom the Osage people were joined. One image that backs up this theme is when the natives have visions of their ancestors, they are covered in the dark liquid coming from the gushing oil, suggesting a blackening of their souls.

The film is very much about being in denial. The best example in Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Ernest Burkhart (The “Earnest” name comes off as ironic, since he deceives his wife and himself). He comes to Oklahoma seeking financial help from his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), who is a deputy sheriff and big landowner. On the surface he appears as a benefactor to the Osage community, but appearances are deceiving in this film, and he orchestrates the deaths of Osage natives for the personal gain of the whites. Ernest marries Mollie (Lily Gladstone, Golden Globe winner for her role), and fools himself into thinking he is helping her treat her diabetes when he is actually poisoning her. Mollie herself also deludes herself by not seeing how the man she believes she loves is attempting to do away with her. She finally comes to her senses after personal losses and is strong enough to get the Federal Government to investigate the many killings of Osage natives. The self-denial is general here, as the white people act as if they are helping the Native Americans while actually ruining their way of life.

Scorsese employs the camera to good effect when he places it at ground level and makes the audience feel as if it is a character walking with the film’s characters in rooms in houses. There is a smart image of Ernest swatting flies on two occasions. It brings to mind Beelzebub, the “Lord of the Flies,” and generally acts as a symbol for decay and corruption.

We discussed this film in a Zoom class. One instructor thought, given the length, that there should have been more of the story told from the Native American perspective. It seems a valid observation. This movie, and exceptional films such as Dances with Wolves and Little Big Man, tell the stories from the perspective of the white man, and not from that of the Native American.

 MAESTRO:

Bradley Cooper does it all here, writing, directing, and starring in this biopic about musical conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein, who composed the music for West Side Story. The movie is stylized, as it moves at the beginning from one location to another without breaks, which stresses the artistry of the filmmaking and thus can be distancing for the audience to invest emotionally. There is not a great deal of background information about Bernstein’s early life. Some may find the lack of exposition admirable while others may again find it difficult to understand the main character’s passion for music. But that passion is undeniable, and Cooper is submerged in the character, energetically demonstrating his conducting ability. Along with the makeup, Cooper inhabits Bernstein, and it is a virtuoso performance. I did, however, find his voice distracting, since he constantly sounded like he was suffering from a cold.

The film focuses on his marriage, and the conflict between his love for his wife and his homosexual orientation, and the homophobia of the time period. Carey Mulligan plays the spouse, Felicia, and she shows her love for and frustration with her husband. She displays emotional depth as she battles the cancer that ends her life.

 THE HOLDOVERS:

While the above films stress moviemaking artistry and theme, this film by Alexander Payne is very much about character. Paul Giamatti reunites with Payne after previously starring in Sideways. He is Paul Hunham, a sarcastic ancient history teacher at a boys’ boarding school who bemoans the lack of educational accomplishment of the privileged students who attend the school by way of their affluent parents. There is a School Ties and Dead Poets Society feel as to the locale of the story.

Hunham is stuck with having to babysit a few of the students over the Christmas holiday period because the boys’ parents are otherwise engaged. One of the fathers eventually arrives, literally as a helicopter parent, and whisks all but one student to a ski getaway after the child emotionally blackmails the patriarch. The one remaining boy, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa, in a wonderful performance) has shown his anguish about the demise of his parents’ marriage.

The story is set during the beginning of the Vietnam War, and the cafeteria worker, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), has lost a son who was a student at the school. She took advantage of her employment to allow her boy to attend. There is a definite class antagonism here as Hunham’s background is more in tune with the workers at the school.

There is a great deal of witty and insightful dialogue in the movie. Hunham’s pessimistic attitude is shown when he says, “Life is like a henhouse ladder: shitty and short.” He tells Tully at one point the need for learning about history when he says, “history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present.”

As the film progresses, secrets about the lives of both Hunham and Tully come to the surface, and they find that there is more to each of them than appears on the surface. This film says that you don’t understand people until you take the time to really get to know them. Preconceived stereotypes don’t always conveniently fit into one’s world view.

Both Giamatti and Randolph deserved their Golden Globe wins.

The next film to be analyzed is Badlands.

Recent Films Dec. 2019

As I have done in the past, here are some short reviews of recent movies. There will be some references to the plots:

Motherless Brooklyn

This movie, set in 1957 New York, stars Edward Norton, who also wrote and directed the film. The title refers to the fact that Norton’s character, Lionel Essrog, is an orphan who was taken in by private investigator Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Lionel becomes a PI working for Frank, as do other orphaned men. They make up a sort of family business of outsiders. Lionel is the most outside of the bunch because he has Tourette’s syndrome. Sometimes what he says, or the way he says them, is funny, but mostly is truthful. His honesty contrasts with the corruption going on around him. Others call him “freak,” but the criminals in this story are the real freaks of a just society. Lionel has a connection to jazz, which makes sense since that music form allows for improvisation and is nonconformist in its compositions. The so-called freak, Lionel, does hold to an honest code of behavior that a civilized world would aspire to.

The darkness of the plot fits in with this film noir story. The dialogue is stylized and witty which occurs in movies that fit into this genre. Like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, Lionel investigates the death of his partner, in this case Frank. Lionel is smart and has an amazing memory which makes him a good investigator, despite his condition. He even wears Frank’s coat and hat, showing how he is continuing the legacy of his mentor. The music even sounds like the soundtrack of Chinatown, maybe the greatest of the film noir movies.

The villain here is Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin), and his character is based on a real person, Robert Moses, a city planner who supposedly caused the Brooklyn Dodgers to leave for Los Angeles. (His name "Moses" is ironic since he seems to be leading his people into, not away, from moral enslavement). Here, Randolph is a New Yorker described as a real estate businessman who acts like he cares about the people but actually has contempt for them, and is only concerned with his own selfish acquisition of power and money. Could the movie be making a connection to Donald Trump? Without giving too much away, there is information damaging to politicians and Randolph that Frank possessed, and Lionel then tracks that evidence down.

Usually in a film noir there is a femme fatale. There is no such character here. Frank’s wife, Julia (Leslie Mann) did cheat on him, but he was also not a very attentive husband. The other females are exemplary characters. Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Gabby Horwitz (Cherry Jones) are defending the poor and minorities in the face of the demolition of their neighborhoods. 

The title of the film is Lionel’s nickname, but it may also refer to Brooklyn itself, and maybe much of America, that feels it has lost the nurturing presence that fed it on hopes of truth and justice that symbolized the American way.

Harriet

Although most people have heard of Harriet Tubman and her association with the Underground Railroad to free slaves, this biographical motion picture dramatizes what a force of nature this woman was. Powerfully portrayed by Cynthia Erivo, Harriet, whose name was changed from Minty, propels herself into action because of the need to keep her family together and safe. 

When the plantation owner defies the law that says that her children should be free since her husband, John Tubman (Zachary Momoh) is a free man, Harriet can no longer tolerate the injustice that is being perpetrated not only on her, but especially on other family members. When the slave owner dies and his son, Gideon (Joe Alwyn) takes over, he plans on selling Harriet, separating her from her family and husband because he heard her pray for his father’s death. While the father betrayed the law, the son’s betrayal is personal, because he grew up with Harriet. She decides to run away, but is cornered on a bridge. She tells Gideon, “I’m gonna be free or die,” and jumps off the bridge into the swiftly moving river below. 

She is presumed to have died, but her amazing drive carries her to the Underground Railroad and she makes it by herself all the way to Philadelphia and William Still (Leslie Odom, Jr.) of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. He helps her adapt to the freedom in the city and she becomes friends with Marie Buchanan (Janelle Monae) who runs a house for runaway slaves. In this sense, Harriet is becoming part of a new family which is dedicated to a just cause.

After a year she has not heard from her family and decides heroically to return to the South to get her husband. After another arduous journey she finds John, but he has remarried rather quickly and is about to be a father. Harriet feels betrayed since family is what is most important to her. She learns that her brothers are being sold, so she realizes that she must free them and leads her brothers and others away from the plantations. The film shows that there were some black men who betrayed their African American family by working to retrieve escaped slaves. One is a brutal man, Abraham (Willie Raysor), and another is Walter (Henry Hunter Hall). Walter is later won over by Harriet’s strength, and it seems her visions, which can predict some future events. In a way, he also becomes part of her new family.

Harriet’s father and mother stay behind because Harriet’s sister was too afraid to leave. But, Harriet made numerous trips back and forth to the South to free them and others. She disguised herself to look like a man, and she was called Moses. This ruse protected her from being found out, but the biblical symbolism suggested another person who led the enslaved to freedom. In this case, it was a woman who had the strength of character to get the job done. Despite the betrayals of others, she persevered to help her extended African American family. In a rousing speech to black soldiers during the Civil War, she compares slavery to a poisonous snake (a reference to Satan as well?) that keeps biting. She tells the troops, “Now is our time! Are you ready to kill the snake?”

Knives Out

This entertaining twisty murder mystery has an Agatha Christie feel about it, and it is quite humorous as it satirizes the unproductive heirs of a self-made wealthy person and their attitudes toward immigrants. In this case the rich man is successful crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). He is old and sick, but mentally very alert. Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) is his Latino health caretaker who Harlan sees more as his child than his actual worthless offspring. It appears that she may have accidentally given him a lethal dose of medication. Before he dies, he tries to make it look like a suicide by cutting his own throat so that Ana will not have to deal with immigration authorities regarding her undocumented mother. Of course, there is much more to the plot. Harlan’s children and their spouses say that Ana is part of the family while they treat her like a maid. They don’t even know what country she is from, listing numerous South American nations when speaking about her. Ana turns out to be the sole inheritor in Harlan’s will, which brings up the possibility that numerous people had motives involving Harlan’s death and framing Ana for his demise.

There are many stars in the cast, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, and Chris Evans. And then there is the character of renowned private eye Benoit Blanch, (Daniel Craig, with, as one character notes, a Foghorn Leghorn Southern accent), who figures it all out in the end. It would be great to have more Benoit Blanc mysteries, hopefully with Craig reprising the role.

I don’t want to say much more, but pay attention to the first and last shots of Anna in the movie, and what is written on Harlan’s coffee mug. As was noted on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, “a pleasant time is guaranteed for all.”

The Report

This movie had a limited theatrical release and can now be seen on Amazon’s streaming service. The full title has the word “Torture” redacted before “Report,” referencing how there was so much deleted from an official investigation account of extreme measures of interrogation by the CIA of Islamic suspects during President George W. Bush’s administration. 

The story, based on real events, focuses on Daniel Jones (Adam Driver, giving another strong performance), who wanted to make a difference in the world when he seeks employment with Democratic political leaders in Washington. He is urged to get some experience doing investigative intelligence work and he starts a career with the FBI. He later joins the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The head of that committee, Senator Diane Feinstein (Annette Bening, in another excellent portrayal) tasks Jones with investigating possible abuses in the aftermath of 9/11 under the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. What follows is an exhaustive undertaking by Jones and his dwindling staff as they review millions of pages of evidence, some of which was initially undisclosed. 

The film is most upsetting as it provides flashes of torture and humiliation of prisoners, including sleep deprival, exposure to unrelenting, extremely loud sounds, bodily harm, suffocating and waterboarding. In addition, the architects of these practices, James Mitchell (Douglas Hodge) and Bruce Jessen (T. Ryder Smith) had no knowledge of the customs and language of the detainees, and no interrogation experience. The results of their techniques were assessed by themselves, not independent sources, which was a conflict of interest. The report concluded that pertinent information acquired from suspects came from rapport building using FBI techniques and not through torture, as the CIA claimed. (Even the movie Zero Dark Thirty showed important intelligence revealed while a detainee was eating, not being tortured). The Obama Administration., although it did put an end to such activity, is held to blame for not prosecuting those responsible, basically wanting to build rapport with the Republicans instead of placing blame on the prior incumbent. The film notes at the end that nobody was convicted for acts of torture. The stands of both sides of the debate over such interrogation practices can be seen in one exchange between characters. An intelligence employee, Gretchen (Joanne Tucker) tells Jones, “You may not realize this, but we were trying to protect this country from people who wanna destroy everything we believe in.” To which Jones replies, “You may not realize this, but we are trying to do the exact same thing.” The enemy can come from without and from within.

This movie does not build suspense the way All the President’s Men does, because it establishes more a sense of frustration as compared to a feeling of danger. The film is at its strongest when it shows Feinstein trying to balance political contingencies with the desire to do the right thing, and when it follows Jones’s character arc. He initially is calm and idealistic, but becomes more angry, vocal, and disillusioned as he is thwarted by those in the CIA who want to keep the truth hidden. The movie argues that determined and virtuous people can succeed in exposing those who let their own personal agendas compromise the principles of an ethical and honest democracy.

The Irishman

The title of this lengthy film directed by Martin Scorsese refers to hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) who we first encounter in a nursing home as an old man talking directly to us about his life. After the initial scene in the nursing home, the movie is framed by a driving trip involving the older versions of Sheeran, and gangster Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci, in an uncharacteristically underplayed performance), and their chain-smoking wives. Sheeran’s voice-over introduces the multiple flashbacks that comprise the story. (By the way the expensive de-aging technology used here appears very authentic as we see the main characters at younger stages in their lives). In the dramatization of his story Sheeran does little speaking and even in his narrative he does not reveal much of what he is feeling until we get toward the end of the movie. Even gangster boss Bufalino says Sheeran is a difficult man to read. In a way this objectivity allows the audience to have Sheeran be the camera lens through which to view events and judge for themselves the dangerous and sad life he has led. His speaking to the audience acts as his confession of what he had done.

This movie is similar to Scorsese’s Goodfellas in its use of voice-over provided by the main character telling how he became a gangster. But that film shows the attraction of Ray Liotta’s character to a life free of the burdens of the average working man. In The Irishman there is no glamorizing of the mobster life. We don’t even see the benefits of acquiring large sums of money. Instead the emphasis is on how this type of life eventually ruins people, filling them with dread. Scorsese introduces characters and then inserts frozen stills that look like visual obituaries showing how most of them died violently. (On a chilling personal note, I parked in the exact same spot the day before Mafia boss Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel) was shot in that parking space in front of his house in South Philadelphia. What a difference a day makes). 

Sheeran is a Teamsters Union truck driver and he decides to make money by providing mobster Skinny Razor (Bobby Cannavale) with stolen beef. He eventually has a chance meeting with Bufalino and is represented by union lawyer Bill Bufalino (Ray Romano), the gangster’s relative, concerning the stolen goods. (The lawyer basically shows that even stealing can’t get a Teamsters man fired, so powerful had the union become). Eventually, Sheeran works for Russell Bufalino. Sheeran was a soldier and he continues that role of following orders which brings purpose to his life. He becomes someone “who paints houses,” code for a hit man, as we see the blood of one of his victims splattered on the wall of a house.

But this film, unlike Goodfellas, has a broader scope as it depicts the interaction between the crime world, the Teamsters headed by Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino, in the flamboyant role in the film), and politicians. Hoffa was associated with Bufalino who eventually brought Sheeran and Hoffa together. Sheeran becomes Hoffa’s bodyguard and friend. Hoffa even gets him to be the president of a local chapter of the union. Hoffa can’t stand the Kennedy family. There is a belief noted in the movie that father Joe Kennedy with the help of Mayor Daley of Chicago, rigged election results that helped John Kennedy win in that city. But Hoffa particularly despises John and his brother Robert Kennedy. Hoffa says, “If there’s one person you can’t trust in this life, it’s millionaire’s kids.” The Italian mob however wanted the Catholic John Kennedy in the White House. They hoped he would get rid of Castro in Cuba so they could resume their casino gambling domination of the island. This wish was not granted. The mob wasn’t happy that Hoffa donated to Richard Nixon’s campaign.

In addition, Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert, as Attorney General and he started to prosecute Hoffa because of his ties to the Mafia. Hoffa eventually did time in prison. When John Kennedy was assassinated, Hoffa demonstrated no displays of public mourning. Quite the contrary as he ordered that the American flag not be lowered to half-mast at the union building, and said in response to how he felt about Kennedy’s death, that Robert Kennedy will not be able to be Attorney General anymore. His public contempt was not liked by the mob leaders. In addition, Hoffa was disrespectful of the Italians, at one point complaining to Sheeran that too many men in the mob were named Tony: “I mean what’s the matter with Italians that they can only think of one name.” Hoffa was also very demeaning toward his staff and at one point Sheeran tells him he is ready to quit when Hoffa has him present during one of his angry outbursts. 

But Hoffa knows how to work a crowd and can display a pleasant personality that wins others over. Sheeran’s daughter, Peggy, from when she is young to when she is an adult (Anna Paquin) is comfortable with him, but is distrustful of Bufalino and even her own father, as their stiff facades mask suspicious secrets. Hoffa is an example of how the acquisition of immense power is addictive and blinding. He says, “nobody threatens Hoffa.” He gets into nasty confrontations with mob bosses, and it eventually comes to Bufalino’s attention that Hoffa, once he takes back leadership of the Teamsters after his prison term, plans to not cooperate with the gangsters anymore. 

So, the road excursion involving Sheeran and Bufalino introduced at the beginning has that ironic gangster love of family versus the desire to destroy others combination seen in The Godfather. Here the gangsters are heading for a wedding but there is a side trip to whack Hoffa. Bufalino places Sheeran in an impossible situation. He must kill his friend, Hoffa, because that way he can’t appear to be an enemy of the mob by siding with the Teamsters. Bufalino says he can protect Sheeran despite his association with Hoffa. If he doesn’t do the job, there is the unspoken but palpable threat to himself and his family. Even though there has not been an official verification of Sheeran shooting Hoffa, Sheeran revealed in a deathbed confession that he killed Hoffa, and that is what is presented in this film.

Both Bufalino and Sheeran wind up in prison for other crimes. The movie shows Bufalino eventually is the victim of a stroke and Sheeran becomes confined to a wheelchair. Sheeran’s wife died of lung cancer from all that smoking, and he finally is tearful because his daughter, Peggy, will have nothing to do with him. The assumption that everyone involved with these criminal activities will meet a horrible end is seen when Sheeran is told his attorney died and Sheeran’s response is, “Who did it?” The man died of cancer, but natural causes aren’t expected in the bleak criminal world shown in this story.

The next film is Flight.

Goodfellas

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I grew up in an Italian neighborhood that had its share of gangsters, and there was a period of violence when some killings occurred. But, it was kindergarten compared to what happens in this 1990 film directed by Martin Scorsese. Here, we have a depiction of men who defy society’s rules by establishing their own subculture, with its own guidelines (which are also violated) so as to indulge their selfish urges. Even though on the surface this movie is anything but subtle, there are lines of dialogue and situations that carry meaning that can easily be missed amid the foul language and violence.

Scorsese decided to depart from the chronological order in Nicholas Pileggi’s book, on which the film is based, starting later in the story, backtracking, and then moving forward. This process grabs the interest of the audience by beginning with an action sequence and instilling the desire to know more of the tale that led up to the opening events. The credits at the start zip by, reflecting the racing car we are about to see, but also setting the stage for the lifestyles of these men, who live their life in the fast lane on their way to self-indulgence, not caring about the dangers of not obeying the rules, like a speed limit ignoring automobile.

The three men in the car in 1970 are Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), on whose life this motion picture is based, Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci, Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor). They hear thumping while driving and realize the sound comes from the trunk of the car. They pull over into the woods, open up the trunk, and inside is a bloody man, who the others thought was dead. Tommy precedes to repeatedly stab the guy, and Jimmy shoots him. It is significant that Henry is not participating in this lethal activity. We then here a voice-over provided by Henry, and he is our primary narrator for the rest of the movie. Filmmakers usually considered using a narrator to be a crutch to tell instead of to show the story, and in films, the primary emphasis is on imagery. But here, Scorsese uses this device well because it links episodic scenes, introduces the visual, and builds on it. Mainly, it puts the audience into the head of Henry. He is our gateway into this world of gangsters, and we see him seduced by it and grow into it. We are made to be complicit in this seduction, the way Alfred Hitchcock draws us into the story by making us voyeurs and identifying with transgressors, realizing we also have the potential to be lawbreakers. But out of this trio of mobsters, we eventually see that he is the only one who has some remnants of compassion for others.

The first words he says are, “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.” We hear these words right after the brutal violence in the opening sequence, when he actually shys away from gangster activity. What we eventually learn is that Henry loves the outlaw lifestyle, but not necessarily some of the horror that comes with it. As a teenager in 1955 he observed the gangsters from his family’s apartment window in a neighborhood filled with “nobodies.” Henry says that the gangsters could do whatever they wanted as they came and went at the cab stand across the street. While he is narrating, we hear song lyrics about going “from rags to riches,” which is how young Henry envisioned his life if he could become one of these wiseguys. He gets a job at the cab stand, and his father, a man of Irish descent, who was a legit working man, thought at first it was a good idea. But Henry, thrilled about being able to park Cadillacs at his age, took on more tasks, including helping out in the numbers racket (something that has disappeared since gambling lotteries have become legal). His association with the mobsters brought him recognition, which is especially attractive when one is young. He says the hoods treated him like a grown-up, and, like most kids, he wanted to escape the restrictions that parents and school imposed.

When his father received a letter in the mail that Henry hadn’t been in school for two months, he calls his son a “bum,” and beats Henry, who figures it was worth getting hit once in a while, because everyone has to go through beatings in life sometime, a cynical notion at that young age. Henry says that his dad was always angry because he made lousy wages to feed seven children (a result of the Catholic ban on birth control which facilitated the “propagation of the faith”), including one boy in a wheelchair. Henry sees being a gangster as the way to escape his father’s fate. When he tells his boss at the cab stand how he can’t work there full time anymore, the hoods rough up the mailman saying that any mail for Henry goes to them. For Henry, problem solved, the mobster way, breaking society’s rules by exerting force over others who are weaklings. Henry doesn’t care about getting a formal education, which he sees as just part of the road to a drawn out, loser life.

The gangster boss is Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino). Henry says that Paulie moved slowly, because “he didn’t have to move for anybody.” The action, that is the money and the power, flowed to him. But, to keep control, Paulie had to constantly watch his back, so all incoming and outgoing calls were made at a phone booth, and he only communicated one-on-one to limit what people heard he said or was told to him. We see later in the story how this paranoia can spread and escalate. Paulie’s influence infiltrated the unions and the law enforcement system. Henry says that other gangsters paid Paulie money, called a tribute (a Roman empire term) for protection in their illegal activities. As Henry puts it, Paulie was “the police department for wiseguys.” This short sentence, which combines legality and illegality, sums up how there is a corrupt world existing just below the surface of the appearance of a legitimate one.

We see young Henry becoming more and more a part of this illegitimate life as he blows up cars as a part of this gangster enforcement. However, for his actions, he no longer has to wait in lines at the bakery, nobody parks in his family’s driveway (even though they didn’t even have a car), he started to make more money than most of the adults in his area, and his mother was escorted home when she went outside to shop. He says that all these actions came out of earned “respect,” but they are really out of fear. To gangsters, that is the only way to ensure respect. Good deeds don’t pay off. For Henry, there is no reason why he should lead the straight life which brings economic frustration.

We now see some of that compassion mentioned before that lives deep in Henry. He relates the first time he saw someone who had been shot. He is outside the cab stand when a man, his arm bleeding, stumbles by, asking for help. He knows that Paulie would not want someone wounded going into the shop, drawing attention, and linking violence to one of his establishments. But, he still feels sorry for the guy, and grabs a bunch of aprons to wrap around the wound. His boss yells at him, saying that he wasted some good aprons. Caring about those outside of the gangster family and showing vulnerability are signs of weakness in a wiseguy. Henry is told that he needs to toughen up.

Henry meets Jimmy, who has a hardened reputation going back to age eleven, and who killed for the mob at age sixteen. He is now one of the most feared wiseguys. Again, a simple sentence reveals the upside-down world in which Henry has entered when he says that Jimmy would root “for the bad guys in movies.” Jimmy had no feelings about killing people, and saw it only as part of doing “business” (we heard this before in The Godfather). But, what excites Jimmy is stealing. The act of taking from others, depriving others for his own gratification, is what excites this man. Henry said Jimmy would hijack anything. He would spread money around everywhere, not to be generous, but to stimulate the greed gland as a means to upend the social contract of abiding by the laws. He would bribe truckers, policemen (supposed enforcers of legality), even crossing guards (guardians of children), subverting the social order in order to acquire his stolen goods.

The final line of this criminal triangle is drawn when Jimmy introduces Henry to Tommy, who, also as a youth, helps Henry sell stolen cigarettes. The police catch and arrest Henry for this illegal act. Henry thinks that Jimmy will be angry at him for getting pinched, but Jimmy says everybody gets arrested in their community. He is proud of Henry for not betraying him. Because their secret society operates within an outside world that at least espouses legality, Jimmy announces the two rules the gangsters must live by: “never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.” Of course these two rules are the same, which makes it sound funny. But it shows the emphasis crooks place on secrecy, and is a foreshadowing of what lies ahead for Henry. Instead of a Catholic confirmation, or a Jewish Bar Mitzvah, the gangsters see getting arrested for the first time as a rite of passage, and celebrate Henry’s initiation with a party. Here again is another example of this alternate criminal reality existing side-by-side with the legitimate one.

It is 1963, and Henry is an adult now and an established member of the gangster world. He says that their version of the legal Citibank, which ordinary people use to withdraw hard-earned money, is stealing goods and cash from the airport. They would either bribe their way into getting information or cooperation, or Paulie, who controlled unions, would threaten businesses with strikes if they didn’t play along. In one scene, Scorsese makes the audience a member of the crime family by having the camera wind through a club full of gangsters like an individual, as the various wiseguys address their greeting to the lens. Henry again heaps scorn on the civilians who were “suckers,” who rode the subways every day to their “shitty jobs” for “lousy paychecks,” worrying about paying their bills. Henry says these people “were dead,” like zombies, whereas the gangsters felt alive in their hedonism. What separates the “suckers” from the wiseguys, according to Henry? He says having the “balls” to risk breaking society’s burdensome and unfair restrictions. Perhaps that is why Americans, who always value Wild West individuality, have always had a romantic desire to vicariously live the life of the outlaw in the movies.

Tommy, now also an adult, reflects old western lawlessness. He likes to call people “varmints,” and says at one point, wielding his gun, that he is the Oklahoma Kid, the title of a movie western that has James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart in it, two actors, known for playing gangsters, portraying cowboys in that movie. Even Paulie calls Tommy a “cowboy.” There is the famous scene in which he tells a funny story at the restaurant, and then flips on Henry, going from congenial to seemingly menacing by questioning if Henry sees him as only a buffoon. It is only a pretend intimidation, and Henry finally catches on. Tommy, realizing he scared Henry for a while, jokingly says, “I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold under questioning.” This statement is another bit of foreshadowing. Tommy is always being funny, but his surface humor reveals his dangerous personality. His funny stories are full of violence, as the one he tells here, where he talks about getting beaten up during an interrogation (which also connects him to the violence he shares with cops, and which is part of the same culture). His violent, anti-social nature erupts when he bashes the eatery’s owner over the head with a bottle for having the audacity to ask Tommy to pay up on his escalating tab. He smashes other objects, and frightens the waiter, who was afraid to bring the bill, and calls the man a “moron.” Tommy erupts with anger and foul language often, insulting those who get in his sociopathic way. The others at his table just laugh, showing their scorn for those they can scare, and their disrespect for a rule which says they must pay for what they have ordered.

The owner of the restaurant wants Paulie to become a partner so as to curtail Tommy’s behavior. Henry uses this plea as a way for Paulie to make money. The boss makes no investment, and the owner must pay him a regular fee for his “protection.” Paulie controls Tommy and deals with the unions. But, Paulie demands his money no matter the number of paying customers at any given time. Paulie’s men just take the inventory which the owner pays for and then they resell it. It doesn’t matter at what price, it is all profit for Paulie. He and his friends can run up huge tabs for free. When the restaurant must go out of business, Henry and Tommy set it on fire so Paulie can collect the insurance. We have here a good example of how the criminals drain the economic life out of a hard-working, legitimate businessman.

While waiting for the restaurant to burn, Tommy pushes Henry into going on a double date because his girl’s Jewish parents won’t let her go out alone with an Italian. Tommy points out the prejudice in the situation (although he has no room to talk since he spouts bigoted statements often, as he does here about Jewish people always having money), and complains what “is the world coming to?” This statement is comical because anarchistic Tommy has no right to complain about the decayed state of society to which he has contributed. The Jewish girl on the double date is Karen (Lorraine Bracco, later Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist). Scorsese shifts the narration to Karen, and although Henry remains the predominant storyteller, his perspective now alternates with Karen. She is an outsider to the gangster world, and we now get an alternative to the male’s seduction into the outlaw world. Karen is an innocent woman of this time, and her reaction to the first encounter with Henry’s rude, gangster-selfish attitude is one of being hurt by his ignoring her for his criminal activities. When he fails to show for the second date, she makes Tommy drive her to confront Henry. Her anger, which she is not afraid to show in public, is attractive to Henry, because the gangster mentality respects someone with guts.

Another noteworthy scene follows when Henry takes Karen to a nightclub. He says they don’t have to wait in line to get in. They enter by way of a back door, and we follow the couple as they walk through the basement where the help works and the kitchen where employees prepare the meals. All along the way, Henry greases palms with cash, which opens the doors for him, which he learned from Jimmy. When they enter the nightclub, the staff treats Henry like a VIP, with a waiter immediately carrying a table and leading the two to a front row seat to enjoy the entertainment. Others seated close by greet Henry, and one man buys the couple drinks. Not only does this impress Karen, it is a symbolic journey showing how Henry has been able to bypass hard labor and rise from a humble beginning to a successful position rapidly.

This obtainment of illegal power and wealth, and the sexual conquests that accompany them, requires the use of violence. One of the colorful characters in the story is Morrie (Chuck Low), who has borrowed money from Jimmy to produce his hysterical wig commercial (he says his hairpieces are hurricane-proof). He hasn’t paid Jimmy the money plus interest, and Jimmy and Henry are there to collect. Henry always tries to negotiate, and is a regular go-between separating Jimmy and Tommy from their hothead natures and others. When Henry’s talking doesn’t work, Jimmy angrily grabs a telephone cord and wraps it around Morrie’s throat, choking him. The phone rings, and Morrie still manages to answer it while being assaulted, and hands it to Henry since the call is for him. Now this of course is funny, and Henry laughs, as we do. But, this scene implicates us as viewers, joining us with people like Tommy, who derive humor from violence. The phone call is from a traumatized Karen who was sexually attacked by her young neighbor. Henry drives Karen home, takes out his gun, and pistol whips the guy viciously. This beating is the first act of violence against another person that we witness Henry committing. If we are honest, we will admit to a bit of satisfaction at wanting Henry to beat up this privileged, elitist, sexual aggressor. But the savagery of the scene then revolts the civilized part of us. Henry’s face is a scary vision of revenge. He gives the bloody gun to Karen to hide. Her narration tells us that she should have nothing to do with Henry after this incident, but she says she couldn’t help being “turned on.” She has been seduced by the power and protection that Henry represents to her. Accepting the pistol and keeping it a secret shows us that she has taken a blood oath, and joined Henry in his life defying the laws of society.

Henry marries Karen, and through her voice, accompanied by sequences of get-togethers with the wives of the other gangsters, trips, and family celebrations, we are told how everything is done together. This extended criminal family tries to insulate itself from the world at large to ensure that no outsider can acquire information that will compromise their way of life. The symbolically incestuous nature of the situation is shown when Paulie introduces Karen to her new Italian family of hoods. It seems that all the men are either called Peter or Paul (ironically named after Catholic saints), and the women are named Marie (Mother Mary?), as are their daughters. This bunch, although declaring independence from society’s regulations, has its own rigid rules to bind all of its members together, making them identify themselves as part of their shared cult of illegality. Once immersed here, Karen says it all seems normal, with their husbands working hard, even taking risks, to make a living and acquiring extras to make life enjoyable. There is an almost throwaway line when Tommy’s girlfriend says that he will kill any man if she even looks at him. Her female friend says something like,”isn’t that great,” as if this violent jealousy (which goes along with selfishness) is perversely admired as the standard for affection.

Henry says if you got out of line, you would get whacked, and that, everybody knew the rules. But the contradiction inherent in trying to regulate men who relish selfish individuality causes problems. The story returns to the to the opening scene, and provides some backstory. Henry, Jimmy, and Tommy are at a bar, and the “made” gangster, Billy Batts (Frank Vincent, another hood on The Sopranos), tries to humiliate Tommy, bringing up his childhood shoeshining days. Tommy leaves, but returns when everyone but Billy and Tommy’s two friends remain. Tommy and Jimmy brutally beat Billy, believing him to be dead, and of course, they finish him off later. “Made” men can do whatever they want, and, at that high level nobody can mess with them, so they are almost exempt from any regulation. To get permission to kill one, the wiseguy has to have done something extreme, and then there has to be a “sit down” conference, and the bosses must grant permission. So what Jimmy and Tommy did was definitely against this special gangster rule. These guys pretend Billy just went missing, but Paulie is pressured later about what happened to Billy. Again Henry is not involved in the attacks, and he later is atypically quiet at Tommy’s mother’s house, where they stop for a shovel to bury Billy. Whereas Jimmy is the typical selfish, cold hood, complaining that the man he has beaten almost to death got blood all over his shoes. A similar extreme version of self-centered thinking is shown when Tommy shoots and kills the bartender Spider (Michael Imperioli, another future Soprano gangster), and all Jimmy and Tommy concern themselves with is the inconvenience of disposing of the body. (Tommy shot Spider once before in the foot over a misunderstanding, and, of course, makes jokes about it, while Henry, like he did when he was young, gets towels to stop the bleeding, again showing his somewhat less aggressive nature).

Also, despite the emphasis on allegiance to family, the men have girlfriends, and specific alternate days are designated to entertain wives and mistresses. When Karen becomes boisterous in her anger when learning about her husband’s infidelities, Paulie, not wanting to draw attention by way of her disturbing the peace, tells Henry he must keep up “appearances,” and go back to his wife. That is a significant word, since it says that what counts is how things look on the surface, a kind of pulling the wool over the eyes of the population at large. It implies that insincerity can be packaged and sold to the public. Paulie also, ironically, says that Henry has to return home, because, as he says translated from the Italian, they are not “animals.” No, animals are not as excessively cruel and selfish as these men.

The crooks pull off a big paying robbery at the airport. Morrie brought the job to Jimmy, along with Henry. But some of the guys involved are showy by spending money, and one of them is sloppy leaving behind a getaway van with fingerprints. Jimmy gets paranoid, which is one of the side effects of this stressful life of always worrying about getting caught. He gets Tommy to kill almost everybody involved, even though Henry tries unsuccessfully to prevent Morrie’s death, again showing his less lethal nature. Henry does get sent up for a stretch in prison when he leans on a guy whose sister happens to work for the FBI, and who testifies against him. In prison, Henry becomes involved secretly, and against Paulie’s permission (again breaking rules) in the illegal drug business. Meanwhile, while acting like they are going to turn Tommy into a “made” man, the gangster bosses actually set him up to be killed for having murdered the “made” Billy Batts. Here is an instance that even the rule-breakers have to enforce some rules.

Henry is also doing coke, and in a tense, frantic day, which mirrors what one feels like under the influence of that drug, Tommy makes up a “to do” list, like all normal people. But on a gangster’s version of this list, along with everyday things like picking up your brother, and preparing a meal, there are items such as selling guns, getting drugs ready for transport, and having the babysitter set up as a mule to carry the shipment. Henry keeps seeing helicopters as he drives, and his paranoia now matches Jimmy’s before, and he feels that he is being followed. He is right. The narcotics squad has been onto him for a while and make an arrest. He is released on bail, but Paulie disowns him, and he and Jimmy think that Henry may strike a deal. When he meets with Jimmy, who wants him to do a job, he knows he won’t come back from it alive. He is told about the job while a tricky camera shot allows the background to zoom in, visually telling us that things are not right here, that the world is out of whack. Henry says that “murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends … and they always seem to come when you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.” Gangsters are deadly fair-weather friends.

Henry makes a deal to expose his fellow gangsters in exchange for going into the Witness Protection Program. At this point we have Henry break the “fourth wall” and he speaks directly to the camera, and thus to us. He misses the old life, where all his selfish needs were met. His life has become what he wanted to escape. Now “there’s no action .. I have to wait around like everyone else … I’m an average nobody … get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”

At one point he says that the wise guys were were called “good fellas.” Despite the allure of obtaining immediate gratification of their wants and living a rebellious lifestyle, the harm that they inflicted on others in their immoral, reckless drive to satisfy their self-centered appetites would make it hard to say these “fellas” could be considered “good.”

The next film is Million Dollar Baby.