A companion to the study of the gangster film’s international appeal spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia
A Companion to the Gangster Film presents a comprehensive overview of the newest scholarship on the contemporary gangster film genre as a global phenomenon. While gangster films are one of America’s most popular genres, gangster movies appear in every film industry across the world. With contributions from an international panel of experts, A Companion to the Gangster Film explores the popularity of gangster films across three major continents, the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The authors acknowledge the gangster genre’s popularity and examine the reasons supporting its appeal to twenty-first century audiences across the globe.
The book examines common themes across all three continents such as production histories and reception, gender race and sexuality, mafia mythologies, and politics. In addition, the companion clearly shows that no national cinema develops in isolation and that cinema is a truly global popular art form. This important guide to the gangster film genre:
- Reveals how the gangster film engages in complex and contradictory themes
- Examines the changing face of the gangster film in America
- Explores the ideas of gangsterism and migration in the Hispanic USA, Latin America and the Caribbean
- Discusses the wide variety of gangster types to appear in European cinema
- Contains a review of a wide-range of gangster films from the Americans, Europe, and Asia
Written for academics and students of film, A Companion to the Gangster Film offers a scholarly and authoritative guide exploring the various aspects and international appeal of the gangster film genre.
Table of Contents
Notes on Contributors viii
Acknowledgments xvi
Introduction 1
George S. Larke‐Walsh
Part I The Americas 21
1 Mary Pickford Meets the Mafia 23
Amy E. Borden
2 Tough Talk: Early Sound and the Development of American Gangster Film Vernacular, 1928-1930 41
Ron Wilson
3 How Good Boys Go Bad: The Changing Face of the Gangster Film in America 58
John E. Petty
4 Making of a Mobster: From Myth to the Crystallization of the Mafia Archetype in 1950s and 1960s Italian and Italian American Film 76
Ryan Calabretta‐Sajder
5 Moral Ambiguities: The Frenchness of New Hollywood Gangster Families 97
Isolde Vanhee
6 The Assassin’s Economics of Killing: Money, Honor, and the Market of Murder 113
Fran Mason
7 The 1990s Hollywood Gangster: Generic Reflections and Deflections 129
Karine Hildenbrand
8 “Based On A True Story”: Public Enemies and the Biographical Gangster Film 146
Stephen Gaunson
9 The Gangster in Hispanic American Cinema 166
Philip Swanson
10 The Jamaican Gangster Film: Badman, Rude Bwoys, and Dons 182
Imruh Bakari
Part II Europe 209
11 When Criticism Meets Gangster Films: The Spiv Cycle as Oppositional Aesthetics in Postwar Britain 211
Ana Rodríguez Granell
12 The Patriarchal Figure in the 1950s French Gangster Film: Legendary Men from a Recent Past 228
Thomas Pillard and Translated by Myriam Chihab
13 Mafia, Mobility, and Capitalism in Italy Circa 1960 244
Luca Peretti
14 Gangsters in Turkish Cinema 262
Hülya Önal
15 Sun‐Drenched Corruption: Organized Crime, Global Capitalism, and the Mediterranean Coast in Recent Spanish Cinema 283
Vicente Rodríguez Ortega
16 The Russia They Have Lost: The Russian Gangster as Nostalgic Hero 302
Lioudmila Fedorova
17 A Hint of Lavender: The Gay Gangster in British Crime Cinema 319
Paul Elliott
18 The Modern British Gangster Film 334
Tom Ryall
Part III Asia 353
19 Death and Duty: The On‐Screen Yakuza 355
Elayne Chaplin
20 Yakuza no Onnatachi: Women in Japanese Gangster Cinema 377
Laura Treglia
21 Futile Liberation: Post‐Martial‐Law Taiwanese Gangster Films 395
Dominique Liao
22 Ruling the Men’s Den: Crime, Outrage, and Indian Women Gang Leaders 413
Sony Jalarajan Raj, Rohini Sreekumar, and Nithin Kalorth
23 Tsui Hark’s Film Workshop: Political Cues in the Gangster Film 1986-1989 430
James Fenwick
24 The Godfather Legacy: Homage and Allusion in Transnational Cinema 446
George S. Larke‐Walsh
25 Gangsta Gangsta: Hong Kong Triad Films, 1986-2015 463
Valerie Soe
26 Politics, Social Order, and Hierarchies in Post‐Millennium Hong Kong Cinema 480
Kelvin Ke Jinde
27 Jung Doo‐hong and the Gangster Body: Kkangpae in Contemporary South Korean Cinema 497
Se Young Kim
Index 518
