3 Gangster Films That Explore The American Immigrant Experience
As beautifully printed by Clarens, when pictures started to talk and sing and make noises, they altered forever the way we perceive reality (1997, p. 40). The immigrant experience in the gangster films above offer a dimension unfound in ones prior to New Hollywood. With the influences of Italian Neo-Realism, these films can also be considered as documentaries due to their truthful environments and societies. Films like The Public Enemy, Four Walls, and Little Caesar (1931) may be classics in the gangster genre because of the heritage that they initiated through the talkies; Scorsese, Leone, and Coppola only perfected it. Scorsese focuses on the tensions between the natives and the Irish Catholics; Leone focuses on the astonishing age in which crime swayed the Jewish underworld during the Prohibition; Coppola focuses on Vitos arrival to America as a child, and the care for his fellow immigrants as an adult. As printed in Newburns book, the Irish came first, [] (then) were succeeded by Jews, and the Italians came last [] on the rungs of time (2007, p. 413). No other quote could be more appropriate. Bibliography
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