Casino (1995) directed by Martin Scorsese • Reviews, film + cast
THE MGM GRAND HOTEL AND CASINO - NIGHTThe brand-new 5,000-room hotel with its entrance shaped like the MGM lion's head.
But then, if you view the film as the study of the consequences of an arranged marriage and life, you might miss the best element of the film: Joe Pesci's creation of Nicky; something that's indeed better than his work in "Goodfellas".
Ultimately, you may choose to take "Casino" as the story of a long-time friendship and the betrayals that come with the years because people change and want different things from life.
We see Ginger (a monumental Sharon Stone) at first as Sam sees her, a light in the middle of the room (there's one scene where this translates literally in images, with Robert Richardson's cinematography-that contains a wonderful use of light-putting the rest of the room in a mild darkness, while De Niro stands in awe as Stone walks and works the room accompanied by a constant light), but she is actually the most complex character of the film.
If you approach "Casino" as a movie to see the inside movement of the casino business and its ups and downs (a subject the film manages perfectly), you may not notice the complexity of Stone's character and her performance.
Casino movie review & film summary (1995)
There's some promising sequences with him forcing De Niro to come down in the middle of the night to get him fifty million-dollar chips for a gambling rage, but, once again, once the story leaves the casino and starts getting involved with all the other stuff, it goes downhill.
But to the filmmakers' credit, having Pesci narrate part of the story does make his denouement all the more surprising.
Even Joe Pesci, essentially repeating his performance from "GoodFellas," seems to have little purpose outside the casino.
Don Rickles, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese share behind-the-scenes moments from filming Casino, talk about Don’s friendship with the real Ace Rothstein, Lefty Rosenthal, and how Don was able to get away with teasing people like Frank Sinatra and Johnny Carson.
“That was a much more sprawling film, and meant to be, so that was much more difficult to get down. You know, it is almost three hours long as well. Yeah, that was harder. It was a more complicated story, so that was harder and the re-writing of the voice over was hard. But we re-wrote the Goodfellas voiceover a lot too. You do when you’re using voice over in a movie. We re-wrote the voice over on Wolf a lot. But in Casino particularly we re-wrote it a lot and restructured a bit. It was harder to wrestle to the ground than Goodfellas, which man it just knew where it was going. When Casino came out it was panned. Everybody said, ‘Oh, it’s not Goodfellas.’ That’s right, it’s not Goodfellas, it’s Las Vegas. It’s a whole different thing. Now it has this huge cult following, which happens so much with Marty’s movies. It takes sometimes ten years—it took ten years for Raging Bull to be recognized. It was not a success when it came out, it took ten years and now look how it’s looked at. It’s looked at like a benchmark film. That happens a lot with Marty’s movies. Maybe that’s because they’re unusual, they’re out on the edge a bit and people don’t know what to make of them, and then with time they just are relished. Bringing out the Dead is the one we’re waiting to be recognized. I hear all these rumblings from all kinds of people who tell me how much they love Bringing out the Dead, but it’s never gotten its due.” —
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Depicting the final days of the Chicago mob in Vegas, the film was the culmination of Scorsese’s gangster trilogy, which started with Mean Streets and Goodfellas, then progressed to the Vegas wiseguys at the height of their power, before they self-immolated from greed. Casino involved a much larger canvas, with more than 289 scenes and six weeks of filming inside a working casino. Taking the classic crime movies shot by John Alton as their inspiration, the team updated that noir look with flashy saturated colors, swish pans, fast dolly moves, and bravura camerawork worthy of the story’s 1970s and ’80s world of excess. After their scout, Scorsese vanished to finish the script. Richardson made use of his time by drawing up a shot list. But upon presenting some pages to Scorsese, he learned he was dealing with a different type of director. Scorsese designed the shots, period. Richardson would stick to lighting and operating. “Marty doesn’t really want to hear your version of the shot, because it may unduly alter or influence the storyboarding of the sequence created in his imagination,” explains Legato, a veteran of eight Scorsese projects. But about halfway through Casino’s production—and increasingly as the years rolled by—Scorsese became more open to Richardson’s refining his shots and adjusting their choreography. “They had a pretty great relationship,” Legato observes. “Marty got used to coming up with the bones of the shot, then had Bob fill in the blanks and turn it into art. On the Bob and Marty movies, the combo artistry is at a very high level.” —
It gives the film some of its best lines
In Goodfellas and again in Casino the music becomes another way to direct the viewer, like the voiceover. Each piece of music brings its own associations.
That’s right. There’s Brenda Lee singing “Hurt”; the Velvetones doing “The Glory of Love”—there’s a lot, over fifty-five pieces I think. Then there’s the break-down of style in “Satisfaction,” from the Stones to Devo. I was very lucky to be able to choose from over forty years of music and in most cases to be able to get it into the film.
Casino | Reelviews Movie Reviews
The music for Casino uses the same general approach as Goodfellas, but the range is broader—like starting with the St Matthew Passion.
I guess for me it’s the sense of something grand that’s been lost. Whether we agree with the morality of it is another matter—I’m not asking you to agree with the morality—but there was the sense of an empire that had been lost, and it needed music worthy of that. The destruction of that city has to have the grandeur of Lucifer being expelled from heaven for being too proud. Those are all pretty obvious biblical references. But the viewer of the film should be moved by the music. Even though you may not like the people and what they did, they’re still human beings and it’s a tragedy as far as I’m concerned.
· In Vegas, everybodys gotta watch everybody else
There are plenty of flaws here, and I'm going to spend some time pointing them out, particularly since the film receives so many 10's.
Casino is based on the story of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal and the Stardust casino in Las Vegas.
Cinemark Century South Point 16 Movie Theater in Las Vegas
It’s like one’s whole life passing before you in an extended moment. But you show the explosion three times.
That’s right. I show it three times, in different ways. Finally, the third time, we see it the real way. That is how he remembered it. The actual fellow this is based on told me he saw the flames coming out of the air conditioning unit first, and he didn’t know what it could be. Then he looked down and saw his arm on fire and he thought of his kids. The door wasn’t properly locked, so he rolled out and was grabbed by two Secret Service men who happened to be casing the joint because of Ronald Reagan’s visit the following week. They pulled him aside and it was only when the car went up that he realized it was intentional—at first he’d thought it was an accident. That’s why I did all the details. Once you realize you could have been killed, then you never forget those moments.