BLACK MASS - L'ULTIMO GANGSTER: JOHNNY DEPP INDOSSA I PANNI DEL BOSS DELLA MALAVITA BOSTONIANA DI ORIGINE IRLANDESE JAMES 'WHITEY' BULGER PER SCOTT COOPER ('CRAZY HEART', 'OUT OF FURNACE')
Dalla 72. Mostra del Cinema di Venezia - RECENSIONE ITALIANA in ANTEPRIMA e PREVIEW in ENGLISH by SCOTT FOUNDAS (www.variety.com) - Dall'8 OTTOBRE
"John Connolly conosceva Whitey e suo fratello Billy Bulger, fin da quando erano bambini: sono cresciuti insieme nella piccola enclave di South Boston, chiamata 'Southie'. Questa storia mi interessava proprio per il legame tra questi due fratelli, cosĂŹ diversi tra loro, e John Connolly, che ha capito il potere del clan di Bulger che aveva da sempre riverito. Connolly alla fine non ha ostacolato la frenesia omicida di Bulger nella cittĂ , per entrare nelle grazie di Whitey, e per riconoscenza nei confronti dello stesso Whitey che lo ha salvato durante una rissa in un parco giochi quando erano bambini".
Il regista e produttore Scott Cooper
(Black Mass; USA 2015; Noir; 120'; Produz.: Cross Creek Pictures/Grisbi Productions/Le Infinitum Nihil/Free State Pictures in associazione con Head Gear Films Metrol Technology/RatPac-Dune Entertainment/Ridgerock Entertainment Group/Vendian Entertainment; Distribuz.: Warner bros. Pictures Italia)
Brad Carter (John McIntyre) Jeremy Strong (Josh Bond) Mark Mahoney (Mickey Maloney) Jamie Donnelly (Mrs. Cody) Erica McDermott (Mary Bulger) Danae Nason (Segretaria di McGuire) Bill Camp (John Callahan) Scott Anderson (Tommy King) Bretton Manley (Ragazzino) Owen Burke (Buddy Leonard) Tom Kemp (Padre Mackey) Mary Klug (Ma Bulger)
Musica: Junkie XL
Costumi: Kasia Walicka-Maimone
Scenografia: Stefania Cella
Fotografia: Masanobu Takayanagi
Montaggio: David Rosenbloom
Effetti Speciali: Gregory J. Corcoran e Jeremy Dominick
Makeup: Marleen Alter, Jennifer Traub e L. Sher Williams (trucco); Gloria Pasqua Casny (capo dipartimento acconciature)
Casting: Francine Maisler
Scheda film aggiornata al:
02 Novembre 2015
Sinossi:
IN BREVE:
Boston (1970), l'agente dell'FBI John Connolly (Edgerton) persuade il gangster irlandese James "Whitey" Bulger (Depp) a collaborare con l'FBI per eliminare un nemico in comune: la mafia italiana. Il dramma racconta la vera storia di questa alleanza che permise a "Whitey" di eludere l'applicazione della legge, consolidare il potere, e diventare uno dei gangster piĂš spietati e potenti nella storia Boston.
SYNOPSIS:
The true story of Whitey Bulger, the brother of a state senator and the most infamous violent criminal in the history of South Boston, who became an FBI informant to take down a Mafia family invading his turf.
John Connolly and James "Whitey" Bulger grew up together on the streets of South Boston. Decades later, in the late 1970s, they would meet again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI's Boston office and Whitey had become godfather of the Irish Mob. What happened between them - a dirty deal to trade secrets and take down Boston's Italian Mafia in the process - would spiral out of control, leading to murders, drug dealing, racketeering indictments, and, ultimately, to Bulger making the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.
Commento critico (a cura di ERMINIO FISCHETTI)
Ă la terza regia per Scott Cooper - dopo aver fatto vincere un Oscar a Jeff Bridges con Crazy Heart, sul declino di una star della musica country, ed essere passato piĂš inosservato con Out of Furnace (omaggio troppo gigione al mito de Il cacciatore di Michael Cimino), con Christian Bale e Casey Affleck - regista dallâanimo perfettamente incline ai generi piĂš tradizionalmente legati al cinema americano. Stavolta a trovare spazio di manovra è il gangster movie con la canonica storia (vera) di ascesa e caduta di un boss della malavita bostoniana di origine irlandese, James âWhiteyâ Bulger, che tra gli anni Settanta e Ottanta fece da informatore per lâFBI, grazie anche allâaiuto dellâinterno John Connolly, suo amico dâinfanzia, per ottenere informazioni per sconfiggere Cosa Nostra. Questo in realtĂ servĂŹ a Bulger per riuscire a non essere disturbato dalla giustizia e poter ampliare i propri traffici e il proprio
potere - mentre la mafia italo-americana cominciava il suo declino - prevalentemente basati sulla droga nellâarea del Massachusetts. Come ogni storia di mala che si rispetti, è strettamente legata alla politica: Whitey (classe 1929, tuttora in vita) è fratello del politico William Michael Bulger, ex presidente â per diciotto anni â del Senato del suo Stato, nonchĂŠ rettore dellâUniversitĂ del Massachusetts (fu costretto a dimettersi nel 2003 perchĂŠ lo si credeva in contatto con il fratello allâepoca latitante).
Presentato allo scorso Festival di Venezia, Black Mass, con il consueto sottotitolo Lâultimo gangster, si rivela pellicola di fluida narrazione, che racconta circa una ventina dâanni della vita del suo protagonista attraverso lunghi flashback narrati dai suoi collaboratori, interrogati dalla polizia e implicati nei reati da lui commessi. Cooper realizza di fatto una buona pellicola, forse la piĂš completa delle tre (la sceneggiatura di Crazy Heart non aveva troppe pretese, mentre quella
di Out of Furnace è piena di buchi), quantomeno sulla carta, mettendo in scena la classica parabola del gangster movie Ă la James Cagney, ma ricostruendo una realtĂ piĂš contemporanea e piĂš complessa del male connivente con lo Stato, la politica. Gli anni Settanta e Ottanta sono pertanto ben descritti, anche se forse qualcosina di piĂš poteva essere dato allo spettatore. Il film si concentra prevalentemente sul personaggio chiaroscurale di Connolly (grazie anche alla prova dellâottimo Joel Edgerton), mentre lascia del tutto indietro, per un problema di tempo narrativo e scrittura, gli altri personaggi, che restano delle vere e proprie macchiette (colpa dellâeccessiva coralitĂ ?), con grandi attori spesso relegati a pochissime scene, a volte con al massimo una o due pose. Per quanto compaia abbastanza, sarebbe stato piĂš interessante approfondire il rapporto fra Bulger e il fratello senatore (interpretato da Benedict Cumberbatch) che però resta quasi del tutto anonimo (la
casa di produzione voleva evitare le eventuali implicazioni non comprovate nel rapporto fra i due?). A dare vita e immagine del noto boss, che nel 1995 divenne uno dei criminali piĂš ricercati dâAmerica (fino a quando non fu scovato in un appartamento a Santa Monica in California nel 2011), è un Johnny Depp rigorosamente concentrato sul 'physique du role', al quale non mancano neppure lenti a contatto di colore azzurro, per rispecchiare il reale colore delle iridi del personaggio. Ed è piĂš una prova di mimesi la sua che di sostanza.
Oltre ai nomi citati sfilano Dakota Johnson (che pur dopo âle sfumature di grigioâ nel suo poco spazio concessole in questâopera dimostra una certa sua dignitĂ , sperando che assistere al deturpamento per colpa della chirurgia estetica della madre Melanie Griffith le sia servito da lezione per non commettere gli stessi errori in futuro), Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Adam Scott,
Secondo commento critico (a cura di SCOTT FOUNDAS, www.variety.com)
JOHNNY DEPP DOES CAREER-BEST WORK AS NOTORIOUS BOSTON GANGSTER JAMES 'WHITEY' BULGER IN SCOTT COOPER'S TAUT, ELEGANTLY UNDERSTATED CRIME DRAMA.
The icy blue eyes of notorious Boston crime boss James âWhiteyâ Bulger stare out from the screen in Scott Cooperâs âBlack Massâ like the gaze of some confident jungle predator calmly lying in wait, holding his ground until the moment he moves in for the kill. And that same coolly calculated composure extends to every aspect of how the actor playing Bulger embodies the role, or rather disappears into it. But if Johnny Deppâs mesmerizing performance â a bracing return to form for the star after a series of critical and commercial misfires â is the chief selling point of âBlack Mass,â there is much else to recommend this sober, sprawling, deeply engrossing evocation of Bulgerâs South Boston fiefdom and his complex relationship with the FBI agent John Connolly, played
with equally impressive skill by Joel Edgerton. Something of an anti-âThe Departedâ (which was partly inspired by the Bulger case), the movie has an intentionally muted, â70s-style look and feel that may limit its appeal to the date-night multiplex crowd, but quality-starved adult moviegoers should flock to one of the fallâs first serious, awards-caliber attractions.
Based on the exhaustively researched book of the same name by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard OâNeill (who make cameo appearances in the film), âBlack Massâ passed through the hands of several directors (including Jim Sheridan and Barry Levinson) on its way to the screen, and nearly fell apart entirely in 2013 when Depp briefly quit the picture over a reported salary dispute. But the project found the right steward in Cooper, who showed a sure hand with actors on his prior âCrazy Heartâ and âOut of the Furnace,â and who here challenges Depp
to give the kind of less-is-more performance the actor has scarcely been asked to deliver in the post-âPirates of the Caribbeanâ era. And Depp more than rises to the occasion, doing career-best work as a man who might easily have been played for ghoulish caricature (a la Jack Nicholson in âThe Departedâ), but instead emerges as a complex, undeniably charismatic figure who draws other criminals and lawmen alike into his cult of sociopathic personality.
Indeed, it takes a few moments to fully recognize Depp â transformed by latex, contacts and dramatically receding whitish-blond hair â in the filmâs opening scenes, set in 1975, just as Bulger was beginning his ascent as the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, a loose confederacy of Irish- and Italian-American hoods vying for control of the South Boston streets against the mob-connected Angiulo brothers. Bulgerâs turf war coincides with the homecoming of Connolly, who has established
himself as a rising Bureau star on assignment in San Francisco and New York, and who has returned to Boston with the explicit task of taking down the Angiulos and their associates. To do this, he conceives of the plan that will ultimately lead to his undoing: recruiting his childhood friend, Bulger, to supply the Bureau with intel about his rivals in exchange for de facto immunity for his own dirty dealings. In Connollyâs logic, Bulger wonât be a âratâ per se, but rather will enter into an âalliance,â a quid pro quo of sorts that will also help him to rid himself of the competition. (Bulger, for his part, would later deny ever having served as an informant, claiming he paid the FBI for information and not the other way around.)
âBlack Massâ hinges on this increasingly compromising pas de deux, and Edgerton (sporting a flawless Boston accent) is superb
at showing how the ambitious but straight-laced Connolly is ever more seduced by the decadent gangster lifestyle, his professional ethics muddied by the clan loyalty and street justice that, in some corners of Boston, are more sacred than the Constitution. But working from a script credited to Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth (other hands are also said to have been involved), Cooper enlarges the frame to give us a full-bodied portrait of both menâs worlds â in some ways diametrically opposed, in others oddly similar. Each has his own crew â the fellow thugs Bulger keeps close, and sometimes turns against in hair-trigger fashion (including the very good Jesse Plemons and Rory Cochrane as right-hand men Kevin Weeks and Steve Flemmi); the fellow agents (played by the likes of Kevin Bacon and Adam Scott) whom Connolly manipulates in an elaborate shell game designed to deflect attention from Bulger and himself.
And though Connolly is the ostensible family man, with a concerned wife (Julianne Nicholson) who sees him changing in ways he doesnât realize, we also experience an oddly tender side of Bulger himself â a devoted son to his elderly mother, loving sibling to his state-senator brother, Billy (an excellent Benedict Cumberbatch), and a protective father who indoctrinates his young son in the ways of the streets (âIf nobody sees it, it didnât happenâ).
The script compresses the potentially unwieldy narrative into three major acts, the second set in 1981 (when Bulger makes an ultimately ill-fated play to corner the Jai Alai gambling market in Florida), and the third in 1985, when the Bulger-Connolly alliance has so successfully eliminated Whiteyâs competitors that the agent can no longer shield the Winter Hill Gang from the wrath of a dogged federal prosecutor (Corey Stoll). And at each step, Cooper stages taut, riveting setpieces
that feel destined for the genre canon, including an unforgettable dinner scene (already revealed at some length in the filmâs first trailer) in which Bulger turns a seemingly innocuous discussion of a âsecretâ family recipe into a blistering attack on the loyalty of Connollyâs supervisor, John Morris (David Harbour). The insidious cackle Bulger unleashes at the end of that rant is about the closest âBlack Massâ ever comes to the grisly gallows humor that has become the lingua franca of the gangster movie in the post-âGoodFellasâ era, but mostly Depp and Cooper play things in a more understated key.
Depp hasnât been this tamped down in a movie since he played second fiddle to Al Pacino in âDonnie Brascoâ; even his Oscar-nominated J.M. Barrie in âFinding Neverlandâ seems a whirl of outsized tics and mannerisms by comparison. Even great actors (Nicholson and Pacino being among the perfect test cases) can fall
back on indulgences and bad habits when they feel theyâre giving the audience what it wants to see. But Depp is fully restored here to the daring, inspired performer of his early Tim Burton collaborations and âDead Man,â knowing he is so deep inside the role that, whatever he does, we will come to him. The violence in âBlack Mass,â when it comes, is swift and brutal, but nothing here is more startling than a single, sudden dart of Bulgerâs eyes across a room.
Working with a top-flight craft team that includes production designer Stefania Cella (âThe Great Beautyâ) and costume designer Kasia Walicka Maimone (âFoxcatcherâ), Cooper bathes the film in a look that feels unfailingly true to the period without ever verging on kitsch; itâs a movie that isnât just taking place in the late â70s and early â80s, but seems to have been made then. That feeling is further
enhanced by the hard-edged elegance of cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagiâs 35mm widescreen lensing (which strongly recalls Gordon Willisâ work on âKluteâ and the âGodfatherâ movies). In a complete about-face from his adrenaline-pumping âMad Max: Fury Roadâ soundtrack, Dutch composer/producer Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL) supplies an elegiac orchestral score that perfectly complements the filmâs desperate, wintry mood.
Perle di sceneggiatura
WHITEY (Johnny Depp): "Sai cosa faccio alle spie, John?"
CONNOLLY (Joel Edgerton): "Non è fare la spia, Jimmy. Si tratta di un'alleanza".
WHITEY (Johnny Depp): "Un'alleanza? Tra me e lâFBI"
CONNOLLY (Joel Edgerton): "No no. Tra me e te⌠... Un'alleanza come questa non ti indebolisce, Jimmy. Ti rende piÚ forte".
Bibliografia:
Nota: Si ringraziano Warner Bros. Pictures Italia e Silvia Saba (SwService)