Casino craziness
May 15th 2006 04:10
I'm not much of a true-crime fan but I picked up this book because I had nothing else to read at the time and I was a big fan of the movie (who isn't?) 'Casino' is Nicholes Pileggi's follow-up to his much-acclaimed 'Wiseguys' (the story of Mafia-informer Henry Hill, which was made into the film 'Goodfellas' by Martin Scorcese). 'Casino' follows the story of three gangster-types who came to Las Vegas in search of a fortune and brought it all crashing down around them via their own weaknesses.
From the book's back cover...
* Lefty Rosenthal, gambling genius, the brains behind the mob's control of the casinos.
* Tony Spilotro, Lefty's friend and partner, the muscle of the mob in Las Vegas.
* Geri, Lefty's beautiful blonde show-girl wife, whose affair with Tony ultimately drove the mob out of the 'paradise' they had built for themselves in the desert.
We follow the story from Lefty's rise within the mob. Lefty isn't actually Italian, he's Jewish, so he wasn't a part of the mob itself, more an 'advisor' and ally. The book itself is quite candid and shocking in it's retelling of real-life mob hits and attempted assassinations. What's more shocking is that Lefty comes out of it all relatively unscathed. Of the three protagonists featured in the book he is the only one left alive today (and, indeed, at the time of the book's writing). He's still about, doing what he does best - gambling. He runs his own website (www.frankleftyrosenthal.com) and had his own television show for a while.
Nicholas Pileggi obviously did a lot of intensive research putting this book together, it shows in every hard-won sentence of fact that screams out of the page at you. Have you seen the film 'Casino'? Remember when the main guy gets blown up in the car at the beginning? Or when that dude has his head crushed in a vice? Or the phenomenal amounts of cash that were pilfered from the casinos? It's all true... some of the more gruesome and unbelievable details didn't even make it to the film! What is equally amazing is that some of the little things in the film, like when Rothstein (the film's version of Rosenthal) fires the guy for saying his wife was hot or when he demands that every muffin from the kitchen has an equal amount of blueberry put into them, are also things that happened in real life. The level of detail across both the book and film are something to truely marvel at... I doubt any other film adaptation of a book has managed to transfer so well without corrupting the text, let alone from a book that is based on real events (except maybe 'Wiseguys'/'Goodfellas').
Anyway, this is real life successfully restructured into a readabale and entertaining narrative. A perfect example of narrative itself.
Check out the aforementioned Rosenthal website for some interesting Q&A sessions with him about the film.
Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal
* Tony Spilotro, Lefty's friend and partner, the muscle of the mob in Las Vegas.
* Geri, Lefty's beautiful blonde show-girl wife, whose affair with Tony ultimately drove the mob out of the 'paradise' they had built for themselves in the desert.
We follow the story from Lefty's rise within the mob. Lefty isn't actually Italian, he's Jewish, so he wasn't a part of the mob itself, more an 'advisor' and ally. The book itself is quite candid and shocking in it's retelling of real-life mob hits and attempted assassinations. What's more shocking is that Lefty comes out of it all relatively unscathed. Of the three protagonists featured in the book he is the only one left alive today (and, indeed, at the time of the book's writing). He's still about, doing what he does best - gambling. He runs his own website (www.frankleftyrosenthal.com) and had his own television show for a while.
Robert De Niro's interpretation of Rosenthal
Anyway, this is real life successfully restructured into a readabale and entertaining narrative. A perfect example of narrative itself.
Check out the aforementioned Rosenthal website for some interesting Q&A sessions with him about the film.
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