Iconography Collage

(Adam)This collage shows a selection of photos that tie in with our research, essentially this displays what gangster films mean to us. Many of the images contain money or related items, this shows that we believe the main focus of this genre of film is, indeed, that of money and trying to make it by any means neccessary. Another theme displayed is that of violence, another important convention of the genre, violence is often seen as the defining factor in gangster films because of the iconic scenes of violence films of the genre have shown in the past.

Research into iconic directors

(Jake)Throughout the gangster and crime thriller genre there are few names that are as iconic and instantly associated with the genre as Quentin Tarantino. Quentin first shot to fame with Reservoir dogs in 1992 an independent film that has since become one of the genres most iconic films, making particularly good use of the "men in suits" convention seen in plenty of other gangster movies. Tarantino also went on to make other critically acclaimed gangster/crime thriller movies such as Jackie Brown and the now legendary Pulp Fiction.

(Adam)He often leaves a very recognisable personal touch to all of his movies, his constant use of popular culture references always works in his favour when appealing to fans. He has also become legendary for the level of violence often introduced into his films, typical of the gangster/crime genre, famous scenes include the interrogation by Mr Blonde of a police officer in Reservoir dogs and the battle between The Bride and the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill. and finally the most obvious of his personal conventions is the"Mexican standoff" which features in all but one of Tarantino's movies.
Like many other directors he tends to use the same actors for a lot of his films, these actors include: Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Uma Thurman, Michael Madsen and Samuel L Jackson.

Audience profile

(Adam & Jake)
Being a gangster film our film is likely to attract a certain target audience, after analysing data for the audiences of films in the same genre we can very easily see that our target demographic will be young males. The gangster genre is usually associated with drugs, money and guns which are not aimed at the younger audiences. However, these conventions of gangster films are often admired by the younger audience.
The action aspect of these types of films is also what often attracts this audience as that tends to be the theme that the younger male is engaged in most thoroughly, effectively, if it has guns and stereotypical male characters then they will watch it.
Due to the violence and bad language and various other content within, these films will almost all the time be a 15 certificate or above. Our film will be specifically aimed at this demographic because that is how it will be the most effective, however it is also important that we try to add at least some degree of mass appeal.

analysis for a gangster film opening

The title sequence reflects the genre very effectively as it shows many of the conventions of gangster films, the most notable being money, we frequently see money and jewellery change hand through what we can expect is illegal methods. We see a scene of murder at the hands of the gang boss Brick Top, the typical "don" character, we also see the psychopath character Bullet Tooth Tony played by Vinnie Jones (who many see as the prototypical gangster film psychopath), the idiot Tommy and the "good guy" Turkish. The titles also reflect the genre by being very typical of the style of director Guy Ritchie, i.e. the freeze frame style that is almost reminiscent of western films from which many gangster film conventions originated, many of Guy Ritchie's gangster films (the genre he is most well known for) use this same style of introducing characters.

The use of the text/font design in the opening sequence is very significant as it uses large, capital text with stars either side of the font which are reminiscent of old boxing posters, boxing being a theme in the film.

conventions of gangster films.

Conventions of gangster films include:
As shown above there are many recurring themes and conventions in the gangster genre in relation to story and mise en scene. The conventions of the gangster genre can also be seen in the movie posters of films of the genre, these most frequently include a black and white image of one of the main characters, often wearing a suit and holding a gun (both conventions of the genre), examples of this include the posters for Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" and Brian DePalma's "Scarface".

In many gangster films the central characters are of a particular origin, the most common tend to be Italian Americans (see Godfather, Goodfellas etc.) and people from the East End Of London (see Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch etc.), this is likely due to stereotypical views of these types of people. There also tends to be a consistent format to the characters personalities and role within the gang, the typically include the leader (or Don depending on whether it is a mafia movie), the sensitive one (often the good guy at heart), the psychopath and the unintelligent one.

The stories are normally based around a mishap in the system of organised crime, whether it be a drug deal, bank robbery or anything that organised crime deals with. A good example of this would be Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" in which the robbery of a jewellers goes wrong and leaves the remaining members of the heist left to determine who the rat is.

Because of their visual conventions, classic gangster films such as scarface were accused of glamourising violence and thus presenting the criminal as the hero. Although on the face of it this appears to be the case as i said before the main protagonist always tends to be the good guy at heart even if their actions do not reflect it.

The history of gangster films

Gangster film date back to near the beginning of cinema during the silent era, one of the earliest examples of a film in this genre is "The musketeers of Pig Alley", made in 1912 it is a film based on the organised crime which is a convention of the genre. Earlier films of the genre had been produced as early as 1904, however these films were single reel and had not survived. Probably the most significant moment in history for the gangster film genre was the 1920's prohibition era in which alcohol was outlawed, along with an influx of immigrants into the United states organised crime flourished and led to the significance of real life figures such as Al Capone being publicise to a great degree. Since the prohibition era there have been many film adaptations of the events surrounding that time period, many of them including the roles of historical figures like Al Capone.
Fast forward to the 1970's and 80's and the crime/gangster genre is at its peak releasing such classic films as The Godfather, The French Connection and Scarface. These years saw classic directors of the genre brought to the top of the filmmaking industry such as Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola.
The 1990's also had their fair share of memorable gangster films, this was the decade that saw Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie rise to the top of the gangster film genre with films like Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Snatch. In terms of critical acclaim the gangster genre remains one of the most successful genres there is with films like The Godfather and Goodfellas, among many others, achieving academy recognition earning them oscars.