Media Studies A2 Have Scorsese's gangster films become too violent Essay

Media Studies A2 Have Scorsese's gangster films become too violent - Essay Example He has been producing films since the 1970's - his most recent one is The Departed (2006). His films are notorious for reflecting New York's life, which imply organized crime and violence. Violence has always been a part of the gangster film genre. Already films like Scar face from 1932 highly contained violence in the plot as well as The Maltese Falcon from 1941. This key issue has maintained over the last decades and I would like to analyze whether the genre has become too violent, regarding to Martin Scorsese film repertoire. I further try to examine if this is a natural progression, because of what is happening to the modern society and as a result to the Films or if this is attributable to Martin Scorsese only. I am going to start with analyzing three films of Scorsese spread over nearly 30 years, to pinpoint this trend. I am therefore going to analyze a couple of main scenes from the films The Departed (00's), Goodfellas (90's) and Mean Streets (70's), which reflect three decades of his work. All three films are considered to be great gangster films. The first scene to be analyzed is from Mean Streets from 1973. The whole film contains a couple of fighting scenes but only two in which you can actually see blood. Also, there are two shoot-outs and in total two people die. The USK for Mean Streets is 18. The iconography in the mean streets is overtly religious. Perhaps the only more religious movie Martin Scorsese has made is the last temptation of Christ. The search of Charlie for redemption perhaps shows a simpler time when good was good and bad was bad. Charlie had no doubt where he stood in this equation. The scene I am analyzing is the end of the film which suggests that it can be seen as the main scene of the film. One of the main character gets killed in this part of the film and the fact that this is likely to be the main scene of the whole film gives the impression that these 53 seconds of violence are the climax of the film and hence the climax of violence as well. There was certain clarity in this film on the morality which was again perhaps a reflection of the times In goodfellas, the ante on the violence is definitely raised. There is the Murder of the Innocent Spider and the brutal murder of Billy Batts. And the murder of Billy Batts is Jarring. First Billy Batts is beaten up, thrown in the trunk of the car, then stabbed later and then buried. And while it is graphically shocking it is done extremely nonchalantly as if it is commonplace. None of the actors were widely known yet for their acting of gangster roles in 1973 so there were no suggestions that the film may contain high violence as Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel or David Proval (main actors) were not associated with brutality in films at that time. It starts off with three main characters driving in a car. You can hear the sound of squealing tyres and another car appears in the dark. A man is holding a gun out of the window. One of the passengers gets shot and you can see the blood coming out of the victim. However the lighting is very low and you can barely see any details. The car th en crashes. The lighting plays a major role in this scene as it "censors" the whole villainy. The narrative of the film is mainly four men acting as loan sharks. The murders have a storical background which fit into the

Popular Culture-Villains Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Popular Culture-Villains - Essay Example The source asserts that the movies where Lecter is not presented significantly i.e. Lambs and Manhunter are better in the series because more attention is deflected from the main character. The author rates other movies lowly due to the fact that Lecter is predominantly represented in the movies. The source even goes to extent of predicting the nature of the next movie in reference to the past trends. It is predicted that Lecter will still feature predominantly, â€Å"†¦the next Lecter film gets made (I’m quite certain it will, and probably sooner than later), it’s going to have to feature Lecter predominantly† (Lev 4). This is an assumption that the preceding movies in the series might be of low quality, which is not always the case. The first impression that the article presents to the reader is that the â€Å"totally overrated† status that is used to define Hannibal Lecter is due to the cheap price attached to the book (Lev 1). However, the low price of the material might not be necessarily because the product is of low quality. Other factors such as the economic stability of the readers could be at play. The source may dismiss the actor as overrated but the admission that the AFI named him the leading movie villain of all times. This creates doubts on the sincerity of the overrated claims. One of the source’s ratings of the main character is related to his role, â€Å"...guy with his tics and theatrical preening and eating people ...† (Lev 3). This is a personal confession of the author on the unpleasant things that the he identified after watching the movies. Although some character behaviors might not be attractive, the source should not have blamed all the weaknesses on the Lecter alon e because he serves to advance the theme of the film. Therefore, the failure to entertain should also be blamed on the general failure of thematic organization of the movie. The roles of the characters should be the same as that of the directors as they all work