Film Genre (English Class) Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

snap Genre (English Class) - Research Paper ExampleThe victory of the mobster film with audiences later influenced filmmakers like Francis traverse Coppola, whose 1972 epic The Godfather casts its criminal characters as appealing archetypes of good family men, doing whatever is necessary to survive and thrive in a dangerous world. The growing popularity of gangster films in the first three decades of the twentieth century owes a great deal to the American publics fascination with notorious real-life gangsters such as Al Capone. The gangster cut a dashing figurehis sharp dressing style, marked by pinstripe suits, fedoras, and conjuration neckties, created a whole new image for the American gangster, serving to legitimize their status as businessmen and allowing them to represent themselves as a model of the new American ideal for the urban working air division (Beshears 197). Of course, his carefully-crafted outward appearance served to disguise the fact that Capone was, for all intents and purposes, little more than a common criminal. alike numerous of his criminal contemporaries, Capone made a fortune bootlegging liquor after Prohibition was enacted in 1920. Yet Capone and his cronies were not roundly vilified for their criminal activity. Instead, the public became enamored with the heady tales of the ongoing struggle in the midst of gangsters and the police who sought to shut them down. The old moral order (199) had broken downin its place, many Americans had begun to embrace a nihilistic outlook on life (198) driven by disillusion in the wake of World War I. The resulting lack of optimism and distrust of authority created an environment in which gangsters were painted close as folk heroes. They were perceived by many to be Robin Hood-type figures fighting the establishment on behalf of the downtrodden. In reality, however, the gangsters were solely in it for themselves, eager to make a profit even through the close to nefarious of means. Based in l arge part on the infamous persona of criminals like Capone, the gangster film became a popular genre, exploding into succeeder in the early 1930s. The gangster film is a sub-category of offensive activity films in which the main characters are part of a gang or are otherwise interact with a crime organization or mob. The film typically depicts the rise and fall of the main character, a man whose ruthlessness, cunning, and unrepentant narcissism take him to the top and cause his subsequent downfall. The movies are set in large cities so as to provide a view of the secret world of the criminal bleak nightclubs or streets with lurid neon signs, fast cars, piles of cash, sleazy bars, contraband, seedy living quarters or rooming houses (filmsite.org). The movies are generally bloodbathsmultiple characters die as a result of their association with the gangster. Though in the earliest gangster films, much of the vehemence occurred off-screen, later films almost gleefully depicted the random violence associated with the gangster way of life. Additionally, these films are crafted as morality tales Horatio Alger or pursuit of the American Dream success stories turned upside down in which criminals live in an inverted dream world of success and wealth