And
now I know why that is so. The last three times that I watched Casino, I couldn't help but also watch Goodfellas either before or after, as
if it were an extension of the same film, not even a prequel or sequel.
And
so, the gap in the number of viewings persists.
I
mean, how am I not supposed to do it?
The
transition from one film to the other is almost indiscernible. So one minute
you're out there in Vegas, watching Joe
Pesci's Nikki Santoro beat the crap out of anybody who he wants to beat the
crap out of as Robert De Niro's Sam
'Ace' Rothstein tries to control him, even as his own life as the manager of a
mob-owned casino is spiralling out of control; then another minute you're
standing in Brooklyn, watching Pesci's Tommy DeVito and De Niro's Jimmy Conway
beat the crap out of anybody they want to beat the crap out of as Ray Liotta's Henry Hill tries to
control them, even as his own life as a gangster cum drug dealer is spiralling
out of control.
Aside
from both being outstanding in terms of the research put in, Nicholas Pileggi's approach to writing
the screenplays of Casino and Goodfellas is near identical. There's a
lot of information that gets passed unto the audience across the length of both
films, in the form of sub-text.
The
music from one film is as effective as from the other, with most songs getting
seared into your head such that it is impossible to imagine a scene from either
film without also hearing the background score. I seem to have written about
this before but I will still repeat it, the colour that Scorsese is able to
bring to the scenes using songs is just mind-boggling.
The
camera moves, and it fucking moves like only Scorsese can fucking move it. You
could fill a book with the techniques he's used in just these two films (and
I'm sure they already have).
The
characters from both films are brutal but also clumsy, which makes them
anything but one-noted and stereotyped. They're made of flesh and blood and
display the same kind of idiosyncrasies that men of flesh and blood display
outside reel-life.
For
instance, if you take Pesci's characters from both films, DeVito and Santoro
are men who are equally deranged.
Both are powerful criminals who make up for
their lack of physique with an excess of insanity and balls. And yet their
dialogues make you laugh, sometimes with them but most of the times at them, as
if they're average schmucks.
Sharon Stone
plays the erratic female lead in Casino and while not surpassing Lorraine Bracco's intense performance
as Karen Hill from the earlier film, she does do a competent job of it.
Like
in Goodfellas, Casino uses voice-over narration and effectively too, such that it
is only thirty minutes into either film that you start to feel like you've
known these characters and their circumstances all along.
The
one difference that I have been able to spot between the two films though is
that Casino- probably on account of
it being made after Goodfellas- is
better structured and more fleshed out as a story. Scorsese spends more time
here than in his previous film in giving a background, which in this case is
the inner workings of a mob-run casino from the 70s and the 80s.
Agreed,
the violence is shocking but it is so without being gory and is instead
attributable to an excellent combination of sound design, lighting and
quick-cut editing- all marks of a talented director.
All
in all, a remarkable film I would recommend to any cinephile, that is if you
haven't watched it already.
The
more films I watch the more I realise that the 90s was one of the best decades
for old-school celluloid of the kind I love the most.
Casino
is the best example of this.
4
out of 5.
Catch
trailer here:
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