Abstract
Organized crime is a subject of enormous fascination in popular culture and has been a major criminal justice concern for more than a century. Books and films about this phenomenon are abundant. The names of infamous gangsters with their colorful aliases and street names are as well known to the public as they are to law enforcement authorities. Although organized crime takes many different forms and exists in many different cultures and societies, it has certain basic features widely shared across the globe. While the real Mafia is being systematically dismantled and disrupted by federal law enforcement, American popular culture has breathed life into its fading image. The enduring popularity of the mob is best illustrated by the number of organized crime films, from The Musketeers of Pig Alley to The Departed, American Gangster, and the legendary Godfather trilogy. Actors like James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and others reflected the costs of the nation’s grim realities: the lack of work, the crime waves, violence, and the unsettling political unrest that blanketed the country. The films of the movie stars were gritty and tough but also exuded a roguish charm. They were hard-hitting, realistic social dramas that were readily understood by most movie-goers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abadinsky, H. (1997). Organized crime (5th edn. pp. 501–502). Chicago: Nelson-Hall, Inc.
Adorno, T. W. (1978). Minima moralia. New York: Verso Press.
Albini, J. (1971). The American mafia: Genesis of a legend. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts.
Alessandro, C. (2000). The godfather and the mythology of the mafia. In N. Browne (Ed.), Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘the godfather trilogy’ (pp. 57–75). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Althusser, L. (1994). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In S. Zizek (Ed.), Mapping Ideology. London: Verso Press.
Ana, O. S. (2002). Brown Tide rising: Metaphors of Latinos in contemporary American public Discourse. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Arana, A. (2005). How the street gangs took central America. Foreign Affairs, 84(3), 98.
Arian Campos-Flores. (2005). The most dangerous gang in America: They’re a violent force in 33 states and counting: Inside the Battle to Police Mara Salvatrucha. Newsweek p. 22.
Baxter, J. (1970). The gangster film. London: C. Tinling & Co.
Bergreen, L. (1994). Capone: The man and the era. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Bonanno, J. (with Sergio Lalli) (1983). A man of honor: The autobiography of Joseph Bonanno. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Brown, M. (2002). Gang nation: Delinquent citizens in Puerto Rico Chicano and Chincana Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Buse, R. (1965). The deadly silence. Garden city, New York: Doubleday.
Capeci, J. (2002). The complete Idiot’s Guide to the mafia. New York: Alpha.
Capeci, J., & Mustain, G. (1996). Gotti: Rise and fall. New York: Penguin.
Cavell, S. (1979). The world viewed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Christensen, T. (2006). Projecting politics: political messages in American films. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Cogan, B. (2008). Film and television portrayals of organized crime. In F. Shranty & P. Miskra (eds.) Organized crime: From trafficking to terrorism CA: ABC-CLIO, (pp. 25–29). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Critchley, D. (2008). The origin of organised crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931. London: Routledge.
Dash, M. (2009). The first family: Terror, extortion, and the birth of the American mafia. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Davis, M. (2006). City of quartz: excavating the future in Los Angeles (Revised edn.). New York: Verso.
Davis, M. (2006b). Planet of slums. New York: Verso Books.
De Stefano, G. (2006). An offer we can’t refuse: The mafia in the mind of America. New York: Faber & Faber.
DeBord, G. (1993). The society of the spectacle. New York: Zone books.
Dickie, J. (2004). Cosa nostra: A history of the sicilian mafia. New York.
Donatelli, C., & Alward, S. (2006). I drear you: married to the mob in the godfather, Goodfellas and the sopranos. In D. Cavey (ed). This thing of ours. New York: Columbia University Press.
Faris, J. (1992). Anthropological transparency: film, representation and politics. In P. Crawford & D. Turton (Eds.), Film as ethnography. Manchester: University of Manchester Press.
Gabler, N. (1994). Winchell: Gossip, Power and the cult of celebrity. New York: Knopf.
Gunckel, C. (2007). Gangs gone wild: low-budget gang documentaries and the Aesthetics of exploitation. The Velvet Light Trap (Fall) 6, 37–46.
Hark, I. R. (2007). America cinema of the 1930s. New Jersey: Rutgers University.
Hayward, J., & Presdee, M. (2010). Cultural criminology and the image. London: Routledge.
Iglesias, N. (2003). Border representations: cinema and independent video (p. 194). Postborder City: Cultural Spaces of Bajalta California New York: Routledge.
Jacobs, J. B. et al. (1999). Gotham unbound. New York: New York University Press.
Jameson, F. (2003). PostModernism or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Jennings, D. (1967). We only kill each other. Englewood cliffs, NY: Prentice-Hall.
Kael, P. (1991). The Current Cinema. The New Yorker (Jan. 14), 76–79.
Kefauver, E. (1951). Crime in America. New York: Doubleday.
Kehr, D. (2011). How crimes have changed. The New York Times (Aug.14), 9/13.
Kellner, D., & Ryan, M. (1988). Camera Politica: The Politics and ideology of contemporary hollywood film. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press.
Kelly, R. J. (1994). Introduction. In R. J. Kelly (Ed.), Handbook of organized crime in the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Co.
Kelly, R. J. (1996). African-American organized crime: A social history. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Kelly, R. J. (2007). Heartbreakers and bonebreakers: Women in the underworld. Journal of Social Distress and The Homeless, 15(2).
Kelly, R. J. (2007b). Sopranoland: Looking down on society from below in TV soaps. Journal of Social Distress and The Homeless, 16(1), 49–65.
Kelly, R. J. (2010). A new horizon on organised crime: Re-locating organised crime in America. Global Crime, 11(1), 58–66.
Klockars, C. (1974). The professional fence. New York: Free Press.
Leitch, T. (2002). Crime films. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lopez, R., Connell, R., & Kraul, C. (2005). Gang uses deportation yo its advantage to flourish in the U. S. Los Angeles Times 30 October, A1.
Maas, P. (1968). The valachi papers. New York: Putnams.
Maas, P. (1997). Underboss: The life of Sammy (The Bull) Gravano. New York: Harper/Collins. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Macek, S. (2006). Urban nightmares: The media, the right, and the moral panic over the city. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Manning, P. (1998). Media Loops. In Bailey & Hale, (Eds.) Popular culture, crime, and justice. Belmont, CA: West/Wadsworth.
Manning, P. (1999). Semiotics and social justice. In B. A. Arrigo (Ed.), Social justice/criminal justice. West/Wadsworth. Palgrave/Macmillan: Belmont, CA.
Mara Salvatrucha MS-13 knowgangs. Com/gang_resources/profiles/ms13.
Merry, S. (1981). Urban danger: Life in a neighborhood of strangers.
Meyer, R. E. (1980). The outlaw: A distinctive American Folktype. Journal of Folklore Institute, 17, 94–124.
Munby, J. (1999). Public enemies, public heroes: screening the gangster from “Little Caesar” to touch of evil. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Neff, J. (1989). Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser’s High Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia and the FBI. New York: Dell.
Nochimson, M. P. (2006). Tony’s options: The sopranos and the tele visuality of the gangster genre. www. Sensesofcinema. Com/contents/03/29 sopranos-televisuality. Html.
Noriega, C. (2001). The end of Chicano cinema. In J. Lewis (Ed.), The end of cinema as we know it: American film in the nineties. New York: New York University Press.
Okrent, D. (2010). Last call: the rise and fall of prohibition. New York: Scribner.
Parenti, M. (1992). Make-Believe Media. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Pistone, J. (2004). The way of the wiseguy. Philadelphia: Running Press.
Potter, C. B. (1998). War on crime: Bandits, G-men and the Politics of mass culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Potter, T., & Marshall, C. W. (Eds.). (2010). The wire: Decay and American television. New York: Continuum Press.
Powers, R. G. (1983). G-Men: Hoover’s FBI in Popular Culture.
President’s Commission on Law enforcement and the Administration of Justice. (1967). The challenge of crime in a free society (pp. 187–209). Washington, Dc: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Raab, S. (2005). Five families. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Reisman, L. (2006). Breaking the vicious cycle: Responding to central American youth gang violence. SAIS Review 26(2), 47–152.
Reith, D. E. (1996). Inventing the public enemy: The gangster in American culture, 1918–1934. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rodriquez, J. (1998). East side stories: Gang life in eastern L. New York: Cultural Entertainment, Inc.
Rogovin, C., & Martens, F. (1994). The role of crime commissions in organized crime control. In R. J. Kelly (Ed.), Handbook of organized crime in the United States (pp. 389–400). Westport: Greenwood Publishing Co.
Rucker, A. (2003). The sopranos: A family history. New York: New American Library.
Saviano, R. (2007). Gomorrah. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.
Schaefer, E. (1999). Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A history of exploitation films, 1919–1959. Durham: Duke University Press.
Schlesinger, A. M. (1979). Robert Kennedy and his times. London: Futura.
Smith, D. (1975). The mafia mystique. New York: Basic Books.
Talese, G. (1971). Honor thy father. New York: World Publishing.
U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. (1981). Waterfront corruption (P. 37). Washington, DC. U.S. Government Printing Office.
Vidal, G. (1992). Screening history. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Websdale, A. (1998). Forensic journalism as patriarchal Ideology: The newspaper construction of homicides-suicides. In Bailey & Hale (eds.) Popular justice. Crime and Justice Belmont, CA: West/Wadsworth.
White, R. (1981). Outlaw gangs of the middle border: American social bandits. Western Historical Quarterly, 12(October), 387–408.
Woodiwiss, M. (2005). Gangster capitalism: The United States and the global rise of organized crime. New York: Carroll & Graff.
The Wire, a TV Series (HBO).
Yar, M. (2010). Screening crime: Cultural criminology goes to the movies. In J. Hayward & J. Presdee (eds.) pp. 68–82.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rieber, R.W., Kelly, R.J. (2014). Life Imitating Art: Organized Crime on Screen. In: Film, Television and the Psychology of the Social Dream. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7175-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7175-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7174-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7175-2
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)