The advent of these crime dramas, especially organized crime dramas seemed to parallel the descent of morality in US culture, the rise of rap music, gun violence ... all of these movies are sick, and if you think you like them you should ask yourself what's wrong with you.
It's the nihilism... The sense that people don't have a moral compass and that life is meaningless... There is a lot of it in movies these days...
The thing is, most critics and audiences seem to see its portrayal as an endorsement, rather than as a warning or as just a representation... That's how I see movies lile Goodfellas and Casino... You're not meant to take these films in uncritically... I enjoy them, the thrill ride, but I also recognise what's horrible about such behaviour...
The thing is, the nihilism tends to appeal to an adolescent sensibility, as we start to question the world around us and notice that our parents aren't gods, that the world isn't full of moral order and such... we become cynical in our teen years, we "have it figured out"..
But...
... it's supposed to be a phase, as we mature, enter early adulthood and recognise that it is possible to be good and fair, to do good for others as well as ourselves, to have empathy and to have harmony in life... There used to be more humanist films and art, but it is not the fashion nowadays and is not commercial enough as mostly kids and teens go to movies, adults have mostly lost the habit apart from film enthusiasts...
Look at a movie like Downsizing for example... It is a humanist movie... That not to meant that it hides the dark and bad parts of human behaviour, it doesn't, rather it shows how we havd the hope of transcending them... We need more art like this... more adult... more nuanced... more humanist movies...
Also, some of them are just fragments... incomplete thoughts... and sometimes I use... three... periods... for emphasis... π
I use proper punctuation most of the day, for work emails and documents... I'm used to the formalism, but I think that the three periods thing is a good compromise for texting and these message boards...
Yes. I've watched a few documentaries and read some books on the mob. These Scorcesse movies are fairly accurate to what these people were like. They don't need to exaggerate the amount of violence and brutality in their lives.
Are you sure it "paralleled" the descent of morality? In what way? Organised crime dramas were made way before your "descent of morality" started, and it's not like they weren't inspired by real-life events that peaked in the 30's. That's my first point - the fact that it doesn't quite match up chronologically.
Second, are you implying there's any sort of correlation between these movies and real life other than movies being inspired by real life? Which leads me to my third point, which is that pretty much all these organised crime movies carry the same old message that crime doesn't pay, they almost all potray the eventual downfall of their respective protagonist(s). In a way, most crime movies are actually morality tales.
In my opinion, this only proves that moral freaks are intellectually very shallow people. They never seem to get past the facade, they see crime, violence and drugs potrayed on film -that obviously means the film promotes crime, violence and drugs, right? It reminds me of people who criticise Bible as a horrible, violent book because it happens to feature some violent scenes, never mind the actual message of course.
You're an unpleasant chap. You cannot let someone have an opinion. If it disagrees with your opinion you waste a bunch of time trying to argue about, finally to get to the point that you need to call me a moral freak. Why would I waste time with someone who is so insecure with their own broken down POV that they cannot examine it and must explode with rage, and the try to hide it. You're a waste and you go on ignore.