Welkom op Fragmenten uit het Schemerland, mijn persoonlijke website en content-verzameling. Je vindt hier veel artikelen over films en series in de FilmDungeon. Ook vind je op deze site mijn achtergrondverhaal, een selectie van mijn professionele werk, en een groeiende collectie blogs – fragmenten genaamd – over uiteenlopende onderwerpen. Veel leesplezier en bedankt voor het bezoeken van mijn blog!
— Jeppe Kleijngeld
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Director: Sergio Leone Writers: Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Franco Arcalli, Franco Ferrini, Sergio Leone, Harry Grey (novel ‘The Hoods’) Stars: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams
After making some of the greatest westerns ever in the sixties, Italian maestro Sergio Leone takes on another genre that features outlaws: the gangster film. The nearly four hour lasting epic – told non-chronologically in three segments – tells the story of four Jewish ghetto youths who grow up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and make it big during the prohibition era.
It is not a typical American gangster movie, but sits closer to a European art film. The crime and violence often take a backseat while Leone explores other themes, like masculine friendship, love, guilt, regret and betrayal.
The main character Noodles (De Niro) is also not the typical gangster protagonist. He’s not very successful in his trade for one thing. His best friend Max played by James Woods is more the business mind of the group. Noodles is more concerned with pursuing the woman of his dreams: Deborah. But when she’s about to leave New York to follow her dream to become an actress, he violently rapes her and destroys their long-lasting relationship.
Then, after betraying his own friends to save them, he goes into exile for 35 years only to discover he’s been duped by the people he loved the most. It’s an extremely melancholic story that lets you experience the passage of time like no other work of art.
This mood is helped greatly by one of Ennio Morricone’s most emotionally moving scores. Leone has a unique vision, and while some choices may put off viewers (what’s with this endlessly ringing phone and stirring in a coffee cup?), it is a stunning movie in terms of cinematography, rhythm and mise-en-scène.
The ambiguous ending in which Noodles visits an opium den to forget his misdeeds for a while, opens the door to a double reading of the story: did Noodles fabricate the entire sixties segment out of guilt?
Leone turned down the offer to direct The Godfather, in favor of working on this project. He devoted 10 years of his life to this movie, and sadly it was to be his final one. He died of a heart attack in 1989 at the age of 60.
Luckily, with Once Upon a Time in America, he did get to complete his Once Upon a Time Trilogy, which also includes Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and Duck, You Sucker!(1971), a series of movies about American and Mexican mythology taking place in different eras.
Originally, the film was heavily edited by the US distributors without Leone’s involvement, which caused him a lot of pain. But when the original version of the film was released on home video in the US, it received the major critical acclaim it deserved as this is obviously a masterclass in filmmaking.
Rififi – full title of the French release Du rififi chez les hommes – is an enormously influential heist film, inspiring classics like Reservoir Dogs, Ocean’s Eleven, The Usual Suspects, and Mission: Impossible.
The hard-boiled, hat-wearing criminal Tony le Stéphanois, played by Belgian actor Jean Servais, is released from prison after a five-year stint. He immediately scours the Paris underworld for his next lucrative score.
Along the way, he reconnects with his former lover, Mado (Marie Sabouret), who has since taken up with another dangerous criminal. In a brutal display of possessiveness, he beats her with a belt – a violent act that sows the seeds for later trouble once the loot is secured.
Tony soon finds his target: a diamond store. He plans to burglarize it at night with his protégé, Jo le Suédois (Jo the Swede), and two other accomplices.
Jules Dassin, a French-American director blacklisted in the U.S. for his communist sympathies, discovered the best-selling novel by Auguste le Breton, which he adapted for his first French film. Ironically, Dassin disliked the novel but needed the work.
With no budget for major stars, Dassin cast Servais in the lead and even took on a supporting role himself as César the Milanese (under the pseudonym Perlo Vita). Yet this proves no drawback: Servais is magnetic and unforgettable as Tony, and the supporting cast shines just as brightly.
The screenplay follows what is now a classic heist-movie structure: meticulous preparation, the heist itself, and a violent third act. The jewel store burglary stands as one of cinema’s most iconic sequences – a gripping, dialogue-free half-hour of pure tension.
The film earned widespread acclaim for its stunning cinematography by Philippe Agostini. The Daily Mirror called it “undoubtedly the best underworld story yet filmed”, while François Truffaut declared it “the best film noir I’ve ever seen.”
Dassin’s direction won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and for good reason. Few gangster films achieve such visual mastery – Rififi is truly spellbinding.
Director: Raoul Walsh Writer: Ivan Goff (screenplay), Ben Roberts (screenplay), Virginia Kellogg (Story) Stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Margaret Wycherly
White Heat is a gangster thriller unlike any other, anchored by James Cagney’s greatest gangster performance as Cody Jarrett, a volatile, psychopathic criminal plagued by seizures and an Oedipal fixation on his mother.
Jarrett leads a ruthless gang alongside his mother – Ma Jarrett – who could easily have been the inspiration for Tony Soprano’s terrible mother Livia in The Sopranos.
The film’s tension ignites early when Jarrett’s gang robs a train, stealing 300,000 dollars in Treasury Bonds and leaving two railroad men dead. With the police closing in, Jarrett orchestrates his own arrest for a lesser crime, shielding himself from prosecution for the heist.
Meanwhile, his gang fractures as gang member Big Ed grows dangerously close to Jarrett’s wife, Verna (Virginia Mayo). Ma Jarrett, ever the strategist, warns her son of the betrayal brewing. Unbeknownst to Jarrett, the police have planted an undercover operative in his prison cell, determined to gather enough evidence to send him to the gas chamber.
Cagney is absolutely magnetic in his role, and he cemented his reputation as one of the great gangster performers right here. The film crackles with relentless energy, its atmosphere thick with suspense, double-crosses, and the ever-present threat of explosion – whether from Jarrett’s next violent outburst, a literal bomb, or his own unraveling psyche.
Mayo shines as the duplicitous yet oddly sympathetic Verna, while Margaret Wycherly delivers an indelible turn as Ma Jarrett, a matriarch whose toxic influence would echo through decades of cinema.
White Heat is more than a classic; it’s a cornerstone of the gangster genre. In 2003, the U.S. Library of Congress enshrined it in the National Film Registry for its cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance and for good reason. Its DNA is woven into the fabric of modern crime epics like GoodFellas and The Sopranos. Without White Heat, would those hallmarks of crime cinema even exist? Unlikely.
Director: Kátia Lund, Fernando Meirelles Writers: Bráulio Mantovani, Paulo Lins Stars: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino Da Hora, Jonathan Haagensen
City of God follows the coming of age of Rocket, an aspiring photographer who grows up in the favelas – the Brazilian slums of Rio de Janeiro, where gangsters rule.
The film starts in the early 1960s, where he, his brother, and their friends grow up and play football. He explains his life story, and that of his (former) friends, in voice-over.
One of them is Li’l Dice, who is already a psychopath as a child. When Rocket’s brother and his gang hold up a hotel, Li’l Dice singlehandedly executes most of its staff and clients.
Years later, Li’l Dice, aided by his accomplice Benny, has become king of the favela – the City of God – running a lucrative drug business. Li’l Dice and Benny are the happiest gangster duo ever, although Li’l Dice can change moods at the flip of a switch. They take out most of the competition, but later get involved in an all-out gang war with rival Carrot and Knockout Ned, a bus driver out for revenge.
Rocket, in the meantime, gets a job as a photographer at the city newspaper, as he has unique access to the gangster types and the places they frequent. He also falls in love with a girl who is unavailable.
City of God attacks the senses with dazzling camerawork and kinetic editing. The colourful settings are bristling with life and energy. The story is based on true events and is extremely poignant – taken straight from life. Especially heartbreaking is the way these really young kids are dragged into a life of crime they can never escape.
The convincing cast of youths – most of them from the actual slums – really helps to tell this fascinating story. The screenplay is great, with everything coming full circle at the end. Cidade de Deus – international title City of God – is a true triumph of Brazilian cinema.
Welkom op Fragmenten uit het Schemerland, mijn persoonlijke website en content-verzameling. Je vindt hier veel artikelen over films en series in de FilmDungeon. Ook vind je op deze site mijn achtergrondverhaal, een selectie van mijn professionele werk, en een groeiende collectie blogs – fragmenten genaamd – over uiteenlopende onderwerpen. Veel leesplezier en bedankt voor het bezoeken van mijn blog!
