The Gangster as Tragic Hero
Welcome to Culture Club, a feature where my editor David Swanson and I talk about what we’ve been reading, playing, artistically admiring, and—this week—watching. This is a feature for paid subscribers only, but enjoy this free preview and consider upgrading to paid!
For the past few weeks I’ve been dipping my toes into the massive cinematic universe that is the gangster movie, one that dates back to the earliest days of American film—pre-Hayes code, and even pre-sound. I feasted on “The Departed” and its Boston-Irish slant on murder, honor, and infiltration; took a detour to Paris for a young Alain Delon in the terse and gorgeous “Le Cercle Rouge”; fondly recalled previous forays into the oeuvre of Scorsese; being a Jersey girl at heart, I’ve watched and loved both “The Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire.” So, this week, in a culmination of all that gangster exploration, I finally settled on watching, for the first time from start to finish, the great ‘70s landmark that is the “Godfather” duology—Parts I and II.