The Subtle Toughness of 70s Gangster Films

If anything, masculinity in the 70s film can be characterized as an open display of silent toughness. If that last sentence seems contradictory it's because it is. Certainly, violence occurs in these films, yet it is more the sense of unuttered menace in them that is suggestive. They have an atmosphere. So much so, that a film like, say, for example, Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets or Peter Yates' The Friends of Eddie Coyle seem to pulse, to vibrate with energy; the viewer can almost smell the desperate sweat of the characters or their cologne. Both of these films hint at violence. The occasional violence that does occur throughout is accented and made more intense by the threat of it, which seems to be in the air at all times.

These two films can be categorized as gangster films. They portray connected life in New York
and Boston respectively and were made in the same year (1973). Perhaps it is the shared release year that makes them feel similar. In no way am I inferring that the content is similar. It's not. It is simply that the energy is the same. The similarity lies, I think, in the sort of grasping quality these films have. Charlie (Harvey Keitel) and (Johnny Boy) Robert DeNiro desperately want something. Charlie wishes to own a restaurant but also to quell a sense of questioning anxiety that he has concerning his place in New York, the world, the universe, whereas Johnny Boy wants to avoid responsibility but still live a kind of glamourous existence. Robert Mitchum's Eddie Coyle is an older man so his desires are smaller- to preserve his way of life, rather than stake a new claim. But the same feeling is present in these two films- the sense of uncontrolled desire. This is in keeping with a theme of all gangster films. The gangster is an outsider; but one that desperately wants to be an insider and will resort to crime to gain an approximation of an inside life.

Barry Keith Green writes about the history of the gangster film in his book Shadows of Doubt. To him, the "gangster films [of the 20s and 30s were] a cultural response to the closing of the frontier...its protagonists embraced a pioneer individualism placed in a contemporary setting." Moreover, he perceives that gangsters in film are "remarkably American in spirit for they were, at the same time, unethical businessman, a newer breed of Robber Barons seeking the American Dream amid the dangers and opportunities of the new urban wilderness." The same could be said of the 70s film gangster. They are business minded at the same time that they are criminal minded- they simply marry the two impulses to achieve a kind of imagined American ideal. A later Scorsese undertaking, the 1990 film Goodfellas explores this idea at greater length. It is a film that is primarily about materialism and consumerism. It celebrates all the gaudy accoutrements of the gangster life.

Yet in all these gangster films there is the sense of being trapped by the life or the things acquired by the life. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu quotes Karl Marx in his book Masculine Domination when he states that men are "dominated by their domination." These films seem to showcase that idea if it is taken that these three characters are acting on an ingrained ideal of manhood-- and all evidence suggests that they are. From Coyle's insistence that his wife remain a homemaker and that she also be forced out of the room to other quarters of the house when he handles business, to Charley's need to figure out a way to be a success, to Johnny Boy's endless accrual of debt and general freewheeling chaotic lifestyle which includes fancy clothes and girls. They're all men that see no other way, or rather, they can't imagine another way to be men. The treatment of homosexuals, women and blacks in Mean Streets and in The Friends of Eddie Coyle by these characters shows that they are very subconsciously aware of their status as men-- that what gender theorist Todd Reeser calls, "masculinity [as]...invisibility...as [a kind of] 'unmarked'...norm" which is in "opposition" to all these Others has occurred to and is cherished by them because they don't have anything else to fall back on.

Reeser, Todd W. Masculinities in Theory
Grant, Barry Keith. Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films
Bourdrieu, Pierre. Masculine Domination

Take Shelter

My intention was to focus on the way in which masculinity and manhood is presented in the films of the 70s and 80s (particularly crime and action films). However, I just watched a movie that was so good it forced me to examine a 21^st century film. That movie is the 2011 Jeff Nichols’ film, Take Shelter.  In it, Michael Shannon plays Curtis LaForche, a small-town Ohio man who is beset by apocalyptic nightmares. This film is expertly directed and acted. Nichols is able to create a sense of dread through lingering shots of threatening skies and also, most importantly, through images of everyday places.  Never has a country kitchen or an impossibly bright blue and cloudless mid-western sky seemed so claustrophobic and inexplicably terrifying.

Yet what compels me to write about this film is Michael Shannon’s stoic, powerhouse performance. Here is a very specific type of man--white, blue-collar who is trying to support his family and survive during an economic crisis.  Once the bad dreams start, Shannon’s LaForche must navigate what he first perceives to be a mental breakdown that later deteriorates into a crushing, all encompassing fear. It is the way in which the character handles this terror that makes the film. First, he attempts to hide it, then he tries to deal with it by doing something constructive, literally using his construction worker skills to add on to the tornado shelter in the backyard. Still, this is not enough and his terror becomes so great that he begins having panic attacks and seizures.

So many aspects of this film stand out. Yet, what struck me most was an interesting scene with LaForche’s older brother, Kyle (Ray McKinnon). Kyle is concerned that Curtis is losing his mind and visits to try to find out what is happening. When Curtis is vague and dismissive, Kyle threatens to beat him up. Then, after a rather strained discussion, Kyle and Curtis begin to say goodbye. Curtis, in a behavior that is clearly out of character, reaches out and hugs Kyle. It is a very awkward hug and afterwards Kyle, who is stunned by the action, shakes it off.  These are men who are uncomfortable with emotion and affection, they deal with things by building and fixing and when something occurs that can’t be handled in that way, they are bewildered and uncomfortable.

Later, when the stress becomes so great that Curtis breaks down in front of his friends and family, yelling about the coming apocalypse and finally dissolving into tears, his shame and embarrassment over becoming emotional is palpable.  His wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) seems shocked over the display as well, but is quick to comfort him. There is is so much going on in this film that it can’t be addressed in one post. Not only is about masculinity in a world where the ideas of maleness are changing rapidly, it also deals with issues such as the economy, health care and mental illness.

More importantly, the aesthetic of this film is clearly drawn from another era. It appears to take place in the late 70s or early 80s if one judges the furniture and clothing of the characters. The kitchenware and accessories are definitely vintage.  One wonders what motivated Nichols' to make this choice. Was it an unconscious homage to the appearance of the films of some of his favorite directors, which include Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese?

Echoing Kubrick's The Shining, Nichols' film is a series of mirror images-each scene is followed by its double in later frames-only it is presented on a larger and more dramatic scale. Like The Shining, the scenes that contain LaForche's daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart) are promptly followed by a scene containing LaForche in which he repeats her behavior, just as Danny (Danny Lloyd) and Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) were mimicking each other's actions in different scenes.  It would seem that Nichols is revisiting a type of 70s masculinity (at the same time he is revisiting the kind of psychological horror present in this era also) in this film. The tormented Curtis does everything he can to hide his torment. He deals with his problems internally and is unable to share them with his wife. He is the provider while his wife sews and sells her work at fairs. Their roles are clearly delineated and his is specifically and stereotypically masculine as hers is feminine.