Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema

Carl Freedman

Description

No society is without crime, prompting Nathaniel Hawthorne’s narrator to make his famous statement in The Scarlet Letter that, however high its hopes are, no civilization can fail to allot a portion of its soil as the site of a prison. Crime has also been a prevailing, common theme in films that call us to consider its construction: How do we determine what is lawful and what is criminal? And how, in turn, does this often hypocritical distinction determine society?



Film, argues Carl Freedman, is an especially fruitful medium for considering questions like these. With Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema, he offers a series of critical readings spanning several genres. From among the mob movies, Freedman focuses on Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy—arguably the foremost work of crime cinema—crafting a convincing argument that the plot’s action is principally driven by the shift from Sicily to America, which marks the shift to a capitalist society. Turning his attention to other genres, Freedman also looks at film noir and Westerns, in addition to films for which crime is significant but not central, from horror movies like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining to science fiction and social realist films like The Grapes of Wrath. In recent years, television has welcomed innovative works like Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, and The Sopranos, and Freedman discusses how television’s increasingly congenial creative environment has allowed it to turn out productions whose ability to engage with these larger social questions rivals that of films from the height of cinema’s Golden Age.

Introduction 

SECTION I: Gangsterism and Capitalism: The Mob Movie and After 

The supplement of Coppola: Primitive accumulation and the Godfather trilogy

Hobbes after Marx, Scorsese after Coppola: On GoodFellas

Tony Soprano and the end(s) of the mob movie

SECTION II: Noir and its Discontents

Marxism, cinema, and some dialectics of fi lm noir and science fiction

Noir, neo-noir, and the end of work: From Double Indemnity to Body Heat

SECTION III: Empire and Gender in the John Wayne Western

Versions of the American imperium in three Westerns by John Ford

Post-heterosexuality: John Wayne and the construction of American masculinity

Sujets

• Energie & environnement
• Hollywood
• Film
• General
• Engineering
• Technology
• General officer
• Sciences et techniques
• Power Resources

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783201334
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in the UK in 2013 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2013 by
Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2013 Carl Freedman
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover designer: Ellen Thomas
Copy-editor: MPS Technologies
Production manager: Jelena Stanovnik
Typesetting: Planman Technologies
ISBN 978-1-84150-724-8
eISBN 978-1-78320-133-4
Printed and bound by Hobbs, UK
For Annette, always
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
SECTION I: Gangsterism and Capitalism: The Mob Movie and After
The supplement of Coppola: Primitive accumulation and the Godfather trilogy
Hobbes after Marx, Scorsese after Coppola: On GoodFellas
Tony Soprano and the end(s) of the mob movie
SECTION II: Noir and its Discontents
Marxism, cinema, and some dialectics of film noir and science fiction
Noir, neo-noir, and the end of work: From Double Indemnity to Body Heat
SECTION III: Empire and Gender in the John Wayne Western
Versions of the American imperium in three Westerns by John Ford
Post-heterosexuality: John Wayne and the construction of American masculinity
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
Because I have been watching and discussing movies for quite a long time—specifically, ever since I went to see Westward Ho, the Wagons! (William Beaudine, 1956) at the age of five—I cannot possibly hope to list all, or even most, of the people who have made a significant contribution to my understanding of cinema or to my work as a film critic. But I will try to particularize the most important debts of which I am consciously aware.
First, there are several editors to whom I am especially grateful. Most of the chapters of this volume were originally published, in earlier form, in the splendid journal Film International . Its editor, Daniel Lindvall, has done more than any other single individual to nurture and support my work in film criticism, and my debt to him is immense—truly a case of "without whom this book could never have been written". Two other chapters were first published, also in somewhat different form, in two anthologies: Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction (Pluto Press, 2009), edited by Mark Bould and China Miéville, and Neo-Noir (Wallflower Press, 2009), edited by Mark Bould, Kathrina Glitre, and Greg Tuck. Mark Bould and Greg Tuck were the editors who worked specifically with me on my contributions, which are clearly superior to what they would have been without editorial assistance. Finally, I must name my editor at Intellect, Jelena Stanovnik, whose help, enthusiasm, and support have been indispensable; not the least of her valuable services was the recruiting of two anonymous readers, who themselves made many large and small suggestions that helped to improve the book.
Another (and somewhat overlapping) group of individuals from whom I have learned much is composed of the friends with whom I have discussed film over the years and decades—in person, by correspondence, and, especially during recent years, in a great many discussion-threads on Facebook. With apologies to the many whom I will inevitably neglect to name, I must list Andrew Banecker, Brad Bankston, Zachary Bellino, Rick Blackwood, Keith Booker, Mark Bould, Sonia Brand-Fisher, Joseph Brown, Andrew M. Butler, Rich Cooper, Corey Creekmur, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Chip Delany, Jason Dupuy, Jean Freedman, Jonathan Freedman, Rosa Freedman, Carl Gardner, Martin Gosserand, Dan Hassler-Forest, Jonathan Haynes, Jerod Ra'Del Hollyfield, Chris Kendrick, Mari Kornhauser, Rob Latham, Daniel Lindvall, Paul March-Russell, John Margeson, Katharine Mason, Pat McGee, Kristopher Mecholsky, Solimar Otero, Peter Y. Paik, Jerome Peltier, Stephen Peltier, Sarah Pierce, John Rieder, Blake Robinson, Umberto Rossi, Barry Schwabsky, Steve Shaviro, Zoran Samardzija, Greg Tuck, Maxie Wells, Deborah Wilson, and Beth Younger.
Still another group of people from whom I have learned are the students at Louisiana State University with whom I have watched and discussed movies in my various film courses in the English Department and in the Honors College. These students are among the most lively and capable whom I have encountered in a teaching career that has lasted nearly 35 years so far; and I can only hope that the courses have been as valuable for them as for me. The list that follows is even further from being comprehensive than the one in the paragraph immediately above; but among the most important names to be mentioned are those of Christian Alch, Rachel Berard, James Buckley, Cole Connelly, Linda Cross, Cal Gunasingha, Alex Hotard, Jared Hromadka, Mikelle Humble, Rian Johnson, Mary-Claire Kanya, Lori King, Erica Laroux, Alexander Leder, Chris Lockwood, Sarah Masson, Liz Neuner, Garrett Ordner, Kittu Pannu, Stephen Peltier, Sarah Platt, and Anson Trahan.
My greatest debt in all things is to my wife Annette. She watched these movies with me, in some cases multiple times, even though many are by no means among her own personal favorites. In fact, I rather despair of ever convincing her of the merits of John Wayne's acting, of Martin Scorsese's directing, or of the entire genre of film noir. Nonetheless, her invariably intelligent and witty comments about these films have been quite important to me even (or perhaps especially) when I disagreed with them. Still more important to me is her absolute and imperishable love.
Introduction
This book is intended as a kind of sequel to the one that I published in 2002 titled The Incomplete Projects: Marxism, Modernity, and the Politics of Culture. 1 I do not mean that a familiarity with the earlier book is the least bit necessary in order to understand and appreciate this one. The current volume is designed to be completely free-standing and fully intelligible on its own. But the two books are closely connected in my own mind, and to give some account of the earlier volume may be a good way to begin explaining what I am trying to do in this one.
Marxism, the “middle realm,” and film
The Incomplete Projects is divided into two parts: a theoretical exposition and defense titled “Marxism Today” and a series of applications called “Case Studies in the Politics and Ideology of Culture”. I consider “Marxism Today” to be the essential statement of the theoretical assumptions and principles that underlie not only the volume in which it appears but also the current volume and, indeed, all of my books and articles. 2 In it, I offer a synoptic outline of the Marxist critique of political economy found in the work of Marx himself and his successors; and I offer a defense of this critique as still necessarily forming what Sartre called the “untranscendable horizon” of all serious analysis in the human sciences. Marxism, I maintain, remains the privileged method for the understanding of capitalism and capitalist civilization: its obsolescence will begin only when the fundamental capitalist processes—primitive accumulation; the wage-relation; the production, extraction, and realization of surplus-value—are themselves transcended and begin to figure in human consciousness as bad historical memories, like slaveholding and feudalism. In addition to the exposition of Marxist economic theory, I also provide, in “Marxism Today,” some reflections on the application of the Marxist method to the understanding of politics and, especially, of culture.
In the current volume, my continuing exploration of Marxist theory is at some points explicit. Examples include the discussion of primitive accumulation in the chapter on the Godfather films; the thesis that Marxism must be understood as both inflationary and deflationary that is expounded in the first chapter of the section on film noir; and the argument about imperialism in the penultimate chapter of the book. In addition, in the second of the two chapters about the John Wayne Western, I propose some theoretical reflections in a field—gender studies—that lies slightly outside Marxism proper but is congruent with it and must, I would argue, ultimately be integrated with it. On the whole, however, this volume is more concerned with detailed film criticism than with general theorizing. One cannot always be explaining and defending one’s fundamental presuppositions, and the Marxism of this volume is most often mainly implicit. The reader who desires a more comprehensive and systematic justification of my methodological viewpoint than can be found in this volume is referred to “Marxism Today”.
In the concluding pages of “Marxism Today,” in the course of a discussion of Marxism and cultural analysis, I propose a generally unrecognized sector of cultural production as particularly interesting and fruitful for Marxist (and other) attention: namely, what I call the “middle” realm of modern culture. I construct this concept by way of de constructing what seems to me a relatively shallow binary opposition often assumed in the (Marxist and other) study of cultural production since about the First World War. The increasingly conventional assumption seems to be that culture bifurcates around the time that the guns of August 1914 bring to a close the “long” nineteenth century inaugurated by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. Culture, it is held, splits into high modernism (and later “postmodernism”), on the one hand, and mass culture on the other. The former—typified by Joyce, say, in literature, or by Schoenberg in music—is generally accounted as representing the most valuable aesthetic achievements of the modern age: but achievements attained at the cost of leaving behind mu