The Independent Moviemaker - Understanding Genre: the Gangster Film

Every genre has an archetypical storyline specific to the particular genre. This is particularly true of the Gangster genre. Popularized in the 1930s, this genre is all about impatience. The 'hero' is a man who wants it all, but doesn't want to go through the normal channels to get it. A typical gangster in these stories doesn't have time to advance slowly through the ranks - he wants it all, and he wants it now.

The strength of this genre is watching the rise and fall of a person who breaks society's rules. Like Icarus reaching for the sun, the gangster must pay the price for wanting everything. The roots of this genre are steeped in Greek mythology, where hubris was always punished swiftly by the gods.

Motifs of The Gangster Genre

1. The hero is an immigrant who dislikes his low status in life and wants more.

2. Unlike the Western, this story takes place in the big city. The wide open plains have been traded in for the seedy alleyways and wharves of the urban jungle.

3. The gangster can only gain power by taking it. It is survival of the fittest, and the only law is the law of the jungle.

4. The only loyalty the gangster feels is for his own immigrant roots.

5. Success is measured in material goods - flashy cars, expensive clothes, and mansions. Women are measures of success as well.

6. The hero's antagonist is society, and the enforcers of the law. The police, the FBI, the CIA represent the enforcers of societal status quo.

7. The end justifies the means.

The classic gangster film has been around since Jimmy Cagney learned to eat grapefruit. It is a powerful representation of the underbelly of the American Dream. The inability of the gangster to fit into society ultimately causes his downfall in the classic form. More modern gangster films have added a new twist to the genre. The gangster is undone, not by society, but by betrayal from within. This twist represents a shift in American culture away from looking at 'decent' society as a unified whole, to a society so fragmented that it doesn't supply the unified front necessary to make the genre work in a contemporary setting.

Classics of the Gangster Genre