Martin Scorsese's Casino

Last night, Michal and I watched the movie Casino on the Hulu app on television. For Michal, this is the first time seeing it and he said he liked it. He said that, unlike most mainstream American movies, this movie had a tragic ending. Two of the three characters were dead before the credits rolled and the third almost died. Even many of the minor characters were either dead or headed to prison by the time the movie ended.

I originally saw it on the big screen back when it came out and have seen it once or twice since then. I think it is a remarkable movie for several reasons.

First, and this is probably the most impressive thing about the movie, at least in my opinion. The main characters are deeply flawed people. Joe Pesci's Nicky Santoro is an unrepetentant thief and murderer; Robert DeNiro's Ace Rothstein cares more about money and his own ego than people; Sharon Stone's Ginger is ultimately more interested in drugs, alcohol, and money than her own family and children. And yet, Scorsese manages to make these characters deeply sympathetic; I rooted for all of them to succeed knowing, at the same time, many of the things they were doing were deeply wrong.

Second, the casting, including of minor characters, is spot on. Don Rickles, Alan King, and Dick Smothers all did stand-up in Las Vegas years before doing this picture. Rickles, in particular, seems to bring a sort of gravitas to the movie. His main role seems to be to stand next to the boss and look serious. The still image below is an example.

The third thing I like about this movie is the lighting. Much of the movie was filmed inside with what would have been difficult lighting. Yet, there are so often reflectors and lights hidden somewhere to create almost a stage spotlight. One of my favorite images can be seen below. Here there seems to be a light coming up from the table so that the viewers eyes are drawn to Pasquale Cajano's face.

So, that's the lighting, let us move on to the acting. Pretty much anyone with a speaking part in this movie gave a great performance. But let me point out one acting job in particular. Sharon Stone's acting. Amazing. That's all there is to say. Amazing. Just click on the image below and take a close look at Stone's face.

Once a person learns how to make a movie, even a journeyman director can, with effort, create a decent story. But one important difference between that journeyman and a master director like Martin Scorsese is that Scorsese really knows how to coax a great performance that fits the scene so that, at the end one has a powerful story. And, bear in mind, that much of the dialogue in this movie was semi-improvised; the director would often tell the actors this is where I want you to start, this is where I want you to finish, you decide what to say in between.

Let me also say that the beginning of the movie explains how a casino works very well. If you were to start the movie immediately after the opening credit sequence and stop after about forty minutes, it would be the most amazing documentary that answers the question, how, exactly, does a casino work.

I would like to end by pointing to the title sequence done by the legendary Saul and Elaine Bass.

In the words of Nicholas Pileggi:

You write a book of 300 to 400 pages and then you boil it down to a script of maybe 100 to 150 pages. Eventually you have the pleasure of seeing that the Basses have knocked you right out of the ballpark. They have boiled it down to four minutes flat.