Curmudgeon Gamer
04 November 2007
Maybe Ebert's Right
I enjoy the movie reviews in The New Yorker. This week, I read David Denby's review of "American Gangster", a movie about 1970s drug kingpin Frank Lucas, and this passage stuck with me. It's all worthwhile, so I can't really boldface any specific line:
Our loyalties are split between the hero of virtue and the hero of vice. We don't have to choose, which is fine -- irresponsibility is one of the pleasures of narrative movies. But can we accept the movie's glorification of Frank Lucas in the terms in which it's offered? It's true that movie audiences have always relished gangsters. They act out our fantasies of unlimited aggression, and when they are punished with death we are purged of the guilt we've felt from enjoying their rampages. The greatest gangster movies, however, deepen this transaction, taking us closer to the gangster's hopes and illusions, and then turning them inside out. In "The Godfather: Part II," Michael Corleone grows in power and then ravages his family -- the thing he most wanted to protect -- and we can see him rotting like a dead oak.Things that came to mind after I read this:
- There are no heroes of virtue in GTA. It really is a one-sided portrayal.
- We don't have to choose in GTA either, except not to play or just play driving/stunt games with its cars. Movies have an excuse for lack of choice (linear media) while games don't.
- Unlimited aggression is rewarded handsomely in GTA but death is never a real, serious punishment. It's a minor setback, nothing more.
- There is nothing even close to a character like Michael Corleone in GTA, or really any game. The GTA games are all scenery (to mimic specific movies) and no character.
Labels: characters, movies, story, violence
--jvm at 22:27
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