Book Reviews
Mafia Movies: A Reader.
Edited by Dana Renga.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.
368 pages.
This collection of essays is a most welcome addition to the study of Mafia mythology in
American culture; it focuses on examples from popular film and television in an engaging
and accessible manner. The stated purpose of the collection is to discuss Mafia films “in
terms of stereotyping, gender roles and representations of violence” (6). In consequence,
it is best described as a cultural study from a mainly Italian-American perspective rather
than analyses within the theoretical framework of film studies, although some of the
chapters are more contextualized than others. In short, it offers multiple discussions that
state how “the myth of the Mafia is still alive and well in the American imaginary” (3),
and it does so from a specifically Italian-American viewpoint. The voices in the first half
of this collection interrogate Italian ethnicity as it has appeared in the gangster genre
throughout American cinema and television history, from the presentation of immigrants in films such as The Black Hand (1906), D.W. Griffith’s In Little Italy (1909), as well
as Little Caesar (1931) and Scarface (1932), through to second- or third-generation Italian
Americans in The Departed (2006) and, of course, The Sopranos (1999–2007).
Certainly one of the great strengths of this book is its breadth. It not only focuses
on early cinema but it also gives a chapter to just about every popular Italian-American
Mafia film since The Godfather. The fact that the focus is only on Italian ethnicity means
that some major films, such as Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) or Sergio Leone’s Once
Upon a Time in America (1983) are absent. This is an issue only because of the strength
of Renga’s argument about the intertextual discourse of mise en abîme. She states
that “mise en abîme is key to the gangster genre; films cite one another ad nauseam,
and real life Mafiosi mimic what they watch on screen” (8). This is clearly one of the
richest qualities of the genre and is not confined to those films that feature ItalianAmerican characters. Having said that, there are obviously enough examples in this
book to prove the rule, and it would have been wonderful to see Renga’s introduction expanded throughout the book to remind us of these connections. However, that
is only a personal view: One of the values of an edited collection is the inclusion of
multiple voices and the freedom to read and re-read sections regardless of order.
The book not only focuses on American media, it also gives an equal amount of
space to Italian cinema. Both sections are full of rich information about the appeal
of Mafia mythology in modern culture. Specifically enjoyable are the discussions of
modern Italian cinema and its focus on the Naples-based Camorra. The chapters on
Gomorrah (2008) and Certi bambini (A Children’s Story) (2004) and especially the chapter
devoted to Francesco Rosi’s Hands Over the City (1963) really capture the ability of
genre films to not only interrogate but also anticipate many cultural debates about
organized crime and its effects on the wider society. The two discussions of the Italian
documentaries Excellent Cadavers (2005) and The Mafia Is White (2005) are intriguing in
the ways they reveal “the relations between the Cosa Nostra and politics” (365), and
©2014 John D. Calandra Italian American Institute
54 • Italian American Review 4.1 • Winter 2014
such informative studies make one wonder why American cinema cannot interrogate
the Mafia in as direct a way.
Renga, in her introduction, suggests that “at first glance, it might appear that
American directors are mainly interested in making films that romanticize and idealize
mob life, while Italian filmmakers are concerned with socially conscious filmmaking”
(6). She states that her book’s intention is to encourage “the reader to think beyond
these paradigms” (6), especially about how American cinema critiques the Mafia, how
Italian cinema branches out from politics to more generic entertainment, and how later
films are influenced by Hollywood. This is certainly evident in Gomorrah, which reached
worldwide acclaim, not only for its political resonances but also for its cinematic
allusions. However, in general, the differences between American and Italian attitudes
toward the Mafia cannot be breached in a collection of individual essays because the
individual chapters do not refer to one another. The book is best situated to show
the ever-present connections between Mafia mythology and a general distrust or frustration concerning capitalist societies, their political systems, and the attendant social
need for individual success. Most of the essays assert that the gangster genre at its core
always includes some aspect of sociopolitical critique.
The second introductory chapter, by Peter Schneider and Jane Schneider, focuses
on Mafia wives. The book has three other chapters devoted to women in the Mafia films
Prizzi’s Honor (1985), The Funeral (1995), and Angela (2002). This introductory chapter
is an informative historical study of the role of Mafia wives in providing extended
family connections for the Mafia in Italy and America. The focus on self-sacrifice and
stoicism is not surprising in this context and provides a sobering reflection on women’s
suffering. However, as the individual chapters focus on fiction film rather than real-life
events, they provide a more optimistic view and discuss examples of strong women
characters as questioning or usurping their male partners’ authority. Abel Ferrara’s The
Funeral, one of the most interesting gangster films of the last twenty years, is shown
to blur the boundary between the dichotomy of virgin/whore that has often been
associated with specifically Catholic women on screen. Both wives, through conscious
displays of passivity or rebellion, negotiate the authority of their spouses in ways that
question the very honor and loyalty upon which Mafia gender roles are fixed. The
film’s violent ending is not simple tragedy, but as Lara Santoro notes “the old regime of
male power is destroyed and a new order is created, where the women are now free to
choose their own paths” (161). While this may be a fairytale narrative for Mafia women
in real life, it is important to remember as the introductory chapter does that most
Mafia wives, just like the men, have grown up in that world. Mafia has informed every
aspect of their being, and one feels that this recognition simply creates an intertextual
notion of mise en abîme as a continuous reflection of life imitating art imitating life.
In summary, this collection of essays is engaging and thought-provoking from
a cultural standpoint. There are not enough serious studies of the gangster genre,
especially in contemporary cinema. While this collection is specifically dedicated to
Italian-American culture, the breadth of films does justice to the genre as a whole. This
collection is a very welcome contribution to the topic of organized crime in cinema.
—GEORGE S. LARKE-WALSH
University of North Texas