Mobsters: on and off screen ~ Malinda Words

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 209th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

I am not much of a movie buff. I tend to re-watch movies I’ve enjoyed; classics, rom coms, and historical dramas, in the main. I’m not interested in horror movies. Mob movies didn’t interest me either. In fact I watched Godfather III only because some friends dragged me to the theatre. It was twenty years later that I watched the first two Godfather movies.

My friend Dhammika Amarakoon was the one who got me interested in that genre. In fact it was after he got me to see ‘Analyze This’ and its sequel ‘Analyze That,’ both starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal, that I decided to watch the Godfather trilogy. ‘Donny Brasco,’ which he made me watch a few days ago, punctuated by pause and commentary, was fascinating. Indeed, of all the mafia movies mentioned above, this to me was the most moving.

The film is based on the nonfiction book ‘Donnie Brasco: My undercover life in the mafia’ written by Joseph D Pistone and Richard Woodley. Donnie Brasco is the alias that Pistone (played by Johnny Depp), an FBI undercover agent who infiltrates the Bonanno crime family in New York City during the 1970s after cultivating a friendship with an ageing mafia hitman, Lefty Ruggiero (played by Al Pacino).

The film delves into the relationship between the two and in particular Bronco’s multiple dilemmas where the line differentiating federal agent and criminal getting fudged while feigned loyalty is compromised by true friendship.Through it all, the character Lefty is fleshed out more fully than any hitman featured in the mob movies I’ve watched.

Lefty dishes out some priceless philosophical observations and political commentary. Al Pacino of course, as the deliverer of all of that, is at his characteristic best. It can’t be too difficult to script philosophy into dialogue and there’s no way of knowing how much of it was actually said in the off-screen story. People are philosophical, even if they don’t always express it or write it down in biographies. Mobsters are no exception.

It’s all laid out thick: the mafia code and within it a certain trace of righteousness and the unapologetic choices, but most of all the refreshing (yes!) absence of pretence. It was all confirmed yesterday when I read about some 2,000 historical artifacts, dating from the 15th century BC to the 1800s, worth tens of millions of pounds being stolen from the British Museum’s vaults.

George Osborne, the chair of the institution’s board of trustees, has stated that the stolen objects were ‘small items of jewelry, gems and bits of gold,’ rather than ‘the incredible items that we have on display in public.’ He has also said ‘the museum has taken steps to improve security, while staff focus on ‘cleaning up the mess' and cataloguing the missing artefacts.

In the aftermath of the theft being announced, Greece’s Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, has stated that the related security questions ‘reinforces the permanent and just demand of [Greece] for the definitive return of the Parthenon Marbles,’ removed from the Acropolis of Athens in the early 19th century by British nobleman (sic) Lord Elgin. Britain has steadfastly denied Greece’s requests for the relics to be repatriated.

So what do we have here if not British officials being upset about the theft of antiquities that constitute just a tiny fraction of all that has been looted from territories invaded over several centuries and held in the British Museum. The artefacts themselves constitute a fraction of all the wealth extracted in the long centuries of plunder.

‘The incredible items on public display,’ then, are all stolen goods. Britain and other countries that have looted lands in Africa, Asia and Latin America AND who offer tuition classes on good governance, law and order, justice, humanity etc etc have either claimed that present day citizenry cannot be held accountable for the crimes of their ancestors. They have also raised questions over the ability of former colonies to safeguard artifacts in the event holdings are decolonized.

Well, we can forget about holding current citizens responsible, but this doesn’t mean stolen goods should not be returned to those who have the strongest claim to ownership, i.e. the relevant countries, surely? As for security, the British Museum theft puts that particular baby to sleep doesn’t it?

The evidence collected by Joseph Pistone led to over 200 indictments and over 100 convictions of Mafia members including Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero. Lefty was all about ‘what you see is what you get.’ Unapologetic. Most mobsters don’t bother to dress themselves as saints. There’s something redeeming there.

Here’s some food for thought:

‘A catalogue of antiquities and other cultural objects from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) abroad,’ by P.H.D.H. De Silva, published in 1974, lists a considerable set of known artifacts stolen from this island. There are over 15,000 items listed. The loot it seems has ended up in 23 countries and 140 holding facilities. The vast majority are in Britain. Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berkshire, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Sheffield, and Windsor all have ‘Little pieces of Ceylon’ so to speak. All stolen goods. For antique and historical value, each and every amulet, the tiniest statuette, the most fragile manuscript with hardly legible lettering, is priceless.

So there’s nothing redeeming about people like George Osborne trying to assure people that ‘incredible items are still on display,’ without uttering a word about theft, thieves and their present day apologists. Mobsters off the screen. That’s what they are.

29 August 2023

Mobsters: on and off screen

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