Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The Casino and The Film Industry

Casino (1995)
Casinos have been a fixture within the film industry since the gilded age of Hollywood. The glamor and glits emanating from these manufacturers of dreams and decadence can be found in some of Hollywood's best movies.

Casino Royale (2006)
The world of the casino is a compilation of the cosmopolitan; ordinary people, gangsters and spies, winners and losers, dealers and punters. Nobody is out of place. This may support the reason why the film industry retains a fascination with the ideals of the casino. It is the junction between riches, bankruptcy, and self-determinism. Any man can walk into its throngs and depart rich. It is  symbolic of a dollar and a dream. Ultimately, the casino has the propensity to pry away both.

The film industry shares a similar structure. People flock to this profession with deluded fantasies of fame, fortune, and recognition. Often, they are unapologetically thrust into the reality of our predicament as filmmakers. Nothing is guaranteed. Everything you've strove towards can be taken away in mere moments.

Many popular casino movie feed into this notion. The American Dream and its ultimate downfall. The original Ocean's Eleven and its 2001 remake by Steven Soderbergh cast a lighter play on this theme.  More brutal films such as Casino (1995) by Martin Scorsese which included some overtly violent scenes represent the darker side.

21 (2008)
James Bond films also tend to heavily dable in the juxtaposition between the lavish stylings of casino, and its underbelly. None more so than 2006's Casino Royale. Several enthralling casino movies are based on true life. Casino, mentioned above, is based on casino games all over the world.

Owning Mahowny (2003)

Real characters and events in the early days of the Las Vegas casinos and 21 (2008), a movie that received mixed acclaim when it was first released telling the true story of a group of students from MIT who used card counting to win small fortunes.

It has some particularly memorable casino scenes especially those depicting their card counting techniques. Owning Mahowny (2003) is another gambling movie based on fact. It tells the true story of a bank manager who embezzled the bank’s money to bankroll his gambling activities at Atlantic City.


What has Hollywood and its portrayal of casinos given to us? A mixture of hope and despair, trial and tribulation. It is a game of winners and losers, much like the film industry itself.





1 comment:

  1. Yes you are absolutely right Mr. Writer that these days people are filming many films in the casinos and I think this is because people like to see these kind of elite class stuff in the movies like bond.

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