Guns in Gangster Films
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The auteur theory developed by French film critics beginning in the 1950s is partly a convenient way of categorizing and analyzing films, collecting titles as the body of work of the director. More than this, though, the theory holds that it is the director more than anyone else who is responsible for the finished film, since he or she is the one who determines visual style and other matters in the course of production. The theory finds that the director expresses meaning through visual style and that analyzing the visual style of a given director reveals consistent thematic concerns, similarities in character development, and other repeated and recognizable signs of a single intelligence at work. At the same time, though, film remains a collaborative medium, and it would seem that directors would be influenced by their collaborators so that there should be some distinctions that can be made between different works according to other members of the production team. How applicable the theory is depends on how it is defined. As a means of arranging and rationalizing film criticism, the theory connects a body of work so that it can be analyzed. As a flat-out statement of actual responsibility for every facet of a film, though, it is certainly too limiting. In analyzing the development of a genre, the way the genre develops is guided first by historical change acting on genre expectations and traditions, though the director with a strong point of view will find ways to ma
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me and society even as each also reflects different ideas of how the criminal is formed by his psychology. The two Scarfaces are motivated largely by a desire to get ahead in the American context. Each is also an immigrant. Each in some way reflects attitudes toward the America dream, immigration, and feeding public dependencies, in the first instance on alcohol, in the second on drugs. Analysis shows that while societal attitudes toward crime have changed in some degree, underlying both films is a similar dynamic and a similar belief that the criminal will ultimately fail and lose his battle for success in the process. Each therefore follows what Elsaesser calls the "curve of rise and fall -- a wholly stylistic and external pattern which takes on a moral significance" (Elsaesser 178).
The gangster film is a staple in the American cinema and has developed a number of icons, characters, and images that recur from one film to the next and that not only identify the genre but help the viewer know how to react to the presentation. Thomas Schatz notes that film genres can be viewed as systems developed within the confines of commercial filmmaking to sell films as specific types for those who would consume those types. The genr
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Warshow Guns, , Scarface Camonte, Chronicle Westerner, Thomas Schatz, Scorsese GoodFellas, Tony Carmonte, American Dream, Montana Violence, Cuban Italian, gangster genre, gangster film, warshow 654, auteur theory, visual style, versions scarface, tony montana, berkeley university california, importance guns, classical form, methods volume, university california press, bill nochils ed, california press 1976, movie chronicle westerner,
Approximate Word count = 1671
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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