mafia

When it was released 50 years ago, The Godfather won a swag of Oscars and hailed director Francis Ford Coppola as the voice of a new auteur. But timing is, as they say, everything. The story of an ageing Mafia Don and his family in New York City from 1945 to 1955, The Godfather is a sweeping saga of the trials and tribulations of running a criminal organization. There are two timelines that need to be looked at when watching The Godfather: when it was set, and when it was made. They are inextricably linked, yet polar opposites of the moral, cultural and social fabric of the United States. Post-war optimism Coming out of the devastating destruction and loss of life of the second world war, Americans had a newfound sense of optimism that the worst was behind them. After years of uncertai...

For almost a century, American filmmakers have glamorized the Mafia, depicting their ranks as so charismatic and quick-witted that you might want to invite them over for dinner. Audiences saw this most recently in “The Irishman,” which reunites a star cast of the usual suspects – Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci – but also in “The Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire.” The Mafia’s glamorized sheen in America’s collective conscience might be due to the fact that the Mafia never attained much power in the U.S. Compared with Italy, fewer lives have been lost and fewer businesses destroyed by the organized crime syndicate. Today many see the Mafia as a relic of the past. Not so in Italy, where mafias remain as powerful and dangerous as ever. Their menace has been reflected in Italian film...

Tag: mafia

Happy 50th Birthday Godfather: Set Among The American Mafia Of The 40s, Coppola’s Film The Godfather Is Unmistakably A Film Of The Disillusioned 70s

Why Italian cinema is starting to glamorize the mafia