My Favorite Scene: Casino, Part II

The common movie maxim dictates that if we watch criminals rise to power, we’re almost certainly going to witness their downfall. Casino is no exception. Late in the film, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion BMV blasts over the soundtrack as a series of well-placed shots of contemporary Vegas flash on the screen. With these images, Martin Scorsese is ushering in the end of an era. By this point in the film, we’ve witnessed the fate of almost every character involved. But there’s still one left. Sin City itself. From birth, it lived a rather unique life, but now, like the gangsters who once owned it, the city itself must fall.

This sequence reminds me of similar scenes from two other films, Spike Lee’s Malcolm X and Oliver Stone’s Nixon – masterful epics that chose to conclude their narratives with compelling documentary footage. Thing is, Casino’s finale isn’t real life. Sure, Scorsese uses archive material to reach his point, but he mixes it in with his own. Like the ingenious transition of an old school Vegas hotel being demolished as the MGM Grand’s massive Golden Lion slowly fades in to swallow it.

Or how about the scene’s most telling shot (which is featured at the beginning of this post), in which a crowd of senior citizens slowly stroll into a casino lobby, lit harshly and brilliantly by Robert Richardson’s overexposed white light. No amount of dialogue can speak as profoundly as that image does. With it, Scorsese is making it clear that the real players have gone, and the tourists have arrived for good.

Part of the allure of Casino is that it depicts one of the world’s most famous cities in a way few people have seen. I believe much of what is in Casino actually happened. Probably not word for word or crime for crime, but variations of Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro’s actions are inarguably accurate.

Here’s my point: I was 14 years old the first time I went to Vegas. I loved it. All of it. The next time I visited Sin City was on my 21^st birthday. I loved it equally, but for entirely different reasons. Two weeks ago, I spent two insanely fun, somewhat hazy days in Vegas. And guess what? I loved it still, again, for very different reasons.

I’ll always love Vegas, because it will always offer something for me, no matter my age. But do I wonder what it was like back then? Back when dealers knew your name, what you drank, and what you played? Back when, if you ordered room service, it got there before Thursday? Back when the thugs owned the town and The Strip didn’t look like Disneyland?

You’re goddamn right I do.

Click here for my other favorite scene from Casino