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Harry Watts - 'The Devolution of the Gangster'
Video Essay: Creator’s Statement: Investigating the Gangster film is crucial to understanding cinema past the silent era. From the 1930s “the western had been replaced by the Mob story as the central epic of America”[1]. During the decade the Mob movie had risen to unprecedented popularity due to its distinct working class mode of address. The Gangster film appealed to lower class…
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At a time when the normal condition of the citizen is a state of anxiety, euphoria spreads over our culture like the broad smile of an idiot.
Robert Warshow, The Gangster as Tragic Hero
What does the Westerner fight for? We know he is on the side of justice and order, and of course it can be said he fights for these things. But such broad aims never correspond exactly to his real motives; they only offer him his opportunity. The Westerner himself, when an explanation is asked of him (usually by a woman), is likely to say that he does what he 'has to do'. If justice and order did not continually demand his protection, he would be without a calling.
Robert Warshow ‘Movie Chronicle: The Westerner’ (1954)
The gangster is the man of the city, with the city's language and knowledge, with its queer and dishonest skills and its terrible daring, carrying his life in his hands like a placard, like a club.
Robert Warshow, Opening Lines of “Angelmaker” by Nick Harkaway
One of the well-known peculiarities of modern civilized opinion is its refusal to acknowledge the value of violence. This refusal is a virtue, but like many virtues it involves a certain willful blindness and it encourages hypocrisy.
Robert Warshow
One of the well-known peculiarities of modern civilized opinion is its refusal to acknowledge the value of violence. This refusal is a virtue, but like many virtues it involves a certain willful blindness and it encourages hypocrisy. We train ourselves to be shocked or bored by cultural images of violence, and our very concept of heroism tends to be a passive one: we are less drawn to the brave young men who kill large numbers of our enemies than to the heroic prisoners who endure torture without capitulating.
Robert Warshow, "Movie Chronicle: The Westerner" (1954)
Warshow Essay
When I think of the typical American gangster I think of Scarface of the all time favorite Godfather movies. I think of the old school guys with the fedoras and mini guns screaming the famous phrase, “say hello to my little friend,” as made popular by Scarface as there slaying enemies with an array of bullets. But as Warshow describes the American gangster he says there are a lot more drive, motive, and purpose behind what they do than seen in the movies. Warshow describes the gangster film as, “simply one example of the movies constant tendency to create fixed dramatic patterns that can be repeated indefinitely with a reasonable expectations of profit.” What that means is that the gangsters main motive behind what they do is for status and profitable gain.
In every typical American gangster movie, they are all the same ruthless, crazy, murdering a**hole who does whatever they want because they can. No body in the natural public dares to stand up to them because they don’t feel they have the same power and superiority that the gangsters do. That is the goal of the gangster to gain success. Success can have many different meanings behind it but in this text success refers to the profitable gain in society and changing society to better it for them selves. The typical gangster will betray and dismay any man to get what they want, but they don’t care because if that’s what it takes to be successful then they will do it. The problem Warshow points out is that the gangster is deemed to ruined one way or another. There is always someone who is more powerful and more aggressive and who will do whatever it takes to be at the top. Being the top gangster in these American films is like a cycle where you can only be at the top for so long before someone comes along and takes you out because everyone wants to be successful no matter what it takes.
A man goes to the movies. The critic must be honest enough to admit that he is that man.
Robert Warshow (as noted by Roger Ebert)
[Yes, substitute woman, transgenered, etc as need be]
