The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, February 8, 2019 — 5

“Those goody-good people 
who worked shitty jobs for bum 
paychecks and took the subway 
to work every day and worried 
about their bills were dead. If we 
wanted something, we just took 
it. If anyone complained twice 
they got hit so bad, believe me, 
they never complained again.”
These 
are 
the 
words 
of 
none other than Henry Hill, 
one of the most fascinating 
gangsters to ever live. He is 
both a very real person and the 
quietly ironic, flawed antihero 
of 
Martin 
Scorsese’s 
biopic 
“Goodfellas.” 
The 
film 
was 
adapted, often verbatim, from 
“Wiseguy,” Nicholas Pileggi’s 
nonfictional chronicle of Hill’s 
life, remaining largely true to 
the 
man’s 
experiences. 
I’ve 
always 
loved 
crime 
stories, 
especially 
those 
about 
the 
intricate inner workings of a 
sprawling organization or with 

the charming wit of a film like 
“Goodfellas.” But it wasn’t until 
I read the film’s source material 
that I started to question the 
relationship between organized 
crime and the importance of its 
filmic parallels.
Surely, 
the 
two 
are 
not 
mirrors of each other. But in the 
case of “Goodfellas,” much of 
the heart, shaky morality and 
general tone remained identical 
from the nonfiction book to the 
dramatized movie. The thing 
about organized crime in film, 
however, is that there isn’t 
simply one brand of it. For as 
long as I’ve been watching crime 
stories, I’ve noticed just how 
eclectic they can be, a range of 
different stories based on the 
different 
locales, 
ideologies, 
backgrounds and values. I want 
to take a deeper look into the 
differences among these stories 
to more completely understand 
what they say about our daring 
and our flaws. This is the first 
installment in a series where I’ll 
examine several of the varieties 

through which organized crime 
manifests onto film.
The first lens I’ll glance 
into is a cultural one. How 
exactly 
does 
ethnicity 
and 
region 
affect 
the 
structure, 
process, and idiosyncrasies of 
a criminal organization? It’s no 
easy question to answer, so for 
simplicity’s sake, we can narrow 
our focus to three films.
To start with, “The Departed” 
is probably the most iconic 
Boston crime story, showcasing 
a largely Irish mob. It is distinct 
from its genre siblings in its 
small town feel, ruminations 
about identity in crime and 
detachment from the narratives 
that 
govern 
similar 
stories. 
Next, I’ll examine the pinnacle 
of Italian crime sagas and the 
modern standard for American 
cinema, “The Godfather” series. 
What these films do best in the 
light of cultural meaning is to 
construct a living, breathing 
world where the complex and 
hierarchical structure of the 
mafia 
exists 
naturally 
and 

understandably to any audience. 
Both “The Godfather” and “The 
Departed” won the Academy 
Award 
for 
Best 
Picture 
in 
1973 
and 
2003 
respectively, 
but the equally iconic film 
that 
completes 
this 
unholy 
triumvirate of modern American 
crime stories was infamously 
snubbed for the Oscar in 1991.
There’s no better example of 
a film that combines these two 
culturally disparate depictions 
of 
organized 
crime 
than 
“Goodfellas,” with Hill himself 
being half-Sicilian and half-
Irish. From there, the options 
to explore are as numerous as 
the term “organized crime” is 
amorphous. There’s not just 
one kind of crime, and there’s 
certainly not just one kind of 
crime story.
***

“The Departed,” at its essence, 
is an exceptionally smart movie 
about cops and criminals saying 
incredibly inane things to each 
other. Saturated with more than 
its fair share of quotable one-
liners and snarky moments, the 
movie is an equally intellectual 
story of the police and the 
mob sending traitors into each 
other’s 
organizations. 
While 
identity in “The Departed” can 
play a crucial role in accruing 
authority or hiding motivation, 
a conflict of identity is also the 
downfall of many of the film’s 
characters. The result is a tense 
and often muddled relationship 
between the perpetrators and 
the persecutors of crime.

Key to this dichotomy, as 
stated throughout the film, is 
the concept of being Irish. Vera 
Farmiga plays a psychiatrist at 
the Massachusetts State Police 
Department and delves into this 
cultural contradiction. At one 
point, Matt Damon’s character, 
Collin Sullivan, realizes the 
struggle she faces, admitting to 
her, “You’re up shit’s creek with a 
client list full of Mick cops.” The 
film continually reinforces the 
Irish as having a tendency to veil 
their emotions, tying this theme 
to the conciliatory nature of the 
criminal and police enterprises. 
Not only do the Irish in the film 
value reservation and stoicism 
as a part of who they are, but 
they 
find 
that 
these 
traits 
become necessary for survival 
in a underworld of shadows, 
calculation and betrayal.
Another distinctly fascinating 
feature of the film’s Irish mob is 
that criminals are not singularly 
concerned 
with 
power 
or 
hierarchy. 
Of 
course, 
there 
is a head to the organization, 
Frank Costello, played by an 
entertainingly overacting Jack 
Nicholson. But other than him, 
none of the other gangsters 
care much about the control 
they wield. They seem more 
concerned with the money and 
the sheer joy of recklessness. 
During one conversation, Leo 
DiCaprio’s Billy Costigan says 
to Costello, “I probably could 
be you. I know that much. But I 
don’t wanna be you, Frank.”
On the other hand, the police 
force is more akin to other 

criminal organizations in film, 
with a cutthroat structure and 
a web of secrets. “Work hard 
and you’ll rise fast with the 
best possible position in the 
department,” announces Alec 
Baldwin’s Captain Ellerby, near 
the film’s start. Those who 
succeed 
in 
the 
department, 
such as Sullivan (the mole), 
do so through deception and 
less-than-legal 
practices. 
For 
example, Sullivan impersonates 
a convict’s lawyer to extract 
information 
from 
him. 
In 
the 
ambition 
to 
associate 
cops with criminals, Martin 
Scorsese actually portrays the 
Massachusetts 
State 
Police 
Department 
to 
a 
mob-like 
organization, 
perhaps 
even 
more so than the mob itself. The 
director’s fascination with moral 
ambiguity is not unique to this 
film, but might just display itself 
most brazenly and effectively 
here. The result is a brilliant 
twist on the typical dynamics 
of crime stories and a mockery 
of 
the 
prescribed 
identities 
we 
assign 
to 
government 
institutions.
“The Departed” is all about 
paradoxes. 
The 
paradox 
of 
Irish reservation and sculpting 
identity, 
the 
paradox 
of 
committing 
and 
preventing 
crimes, the paradox of deep 
narrative complexity and the 
curt dialogue of wise guys. It’s 
an ordeal of oxymorons, but one 
that manages to hold distinct 
place in the canon of organized 
crime films. 

Undercover in film: A look 
at crime in ‘The Departed’

ANISH TAMHANEY
Daily Arts Writer

FILM SERIES

WARNER BROS

WARNER BROS

Until now, each new Girlpool 
album has signalled a momentous 
stylistic change for the duo — the 
strikingly sparse shouting-and-
strumming of their self-titled 
EP gave way to an elegant and 
idiosyncratic indie in 2015’s Before 
The World Was Big, and rather 
than settling into this style in the 
manner of Frankie Cosmos and 
Snail Mail, they toughened 
and saturated their sound 
in 
2017’s 
Powerplant. 
Each 
evolution 
of 
their 
sound has felt deliberate, 
their music retaining its 
essential characteristics as 
the duo gained confidence 
and 
explored 
new 
sonic 
horizons. While this stylistic 
restlessness 
continues 
— 
Cleo Tucker recently said in 
an interview for Document 
Journal that he is “so over 
rock music” — their newest 
album What Chaos Is Imaginary is 
less an upending than a synthesis 
of the styles the band has surveyed 
so far and a careful glance in a 
new direction.
The new material is subtle, 
like a filter on a photograph. 
There are several songs on the 
new album that would fit in on 
Powerplant, and the newness is 
mostly layered atop this solid 
foundation. A few songs are 
adorned with the incandescent 
glow of an electric organ, there 

are occasional experiments with 
drum machines, the recording 
and production style is generally 
thicker and dreamier, a few 
songs remind the less submerged 
moments 
in 
Beach 
House’s 
discography. Possibly the most 
striking moment on the album is 
the title track, on which Harmony 
Tividad’s voice hovers over a 
sparse arrangement that is later 
unexpectedly (but seamlessly) 
joined by a string quartet. It 
almost brings to mind Lana Del 

Rey in its expansive sweep; it 
made me feel as though Girlpool 
were always destined for this 
scale. That the following track, 
“Hoax And The Shrine,” opens 
with 
an 
unadorned 
acoustic 
guitar is a reminder of the band’s 
scope — the album hangs together 
improbably well considering the 
eclecticism of its materials.
Between 
the 
recording 
of 
Powerplant and What Chaos Is 
Imaginary, Cleo Tucker began 
his 
gender 
transition, 
which 

included testosterone injections 
that lowered his voice by about an 
octave. Girlpool’s earliest music 
was defined by the close proximity 
of Tucker and Tividad’s voices, 
which sang in close harmony 
when not in unison to the point 
of 
sonic 
indistinguishability. 
While neither of them take the 
role of “fronting” the group now, 
they take turns taking the lead 
instead of singing in unison. This 
separateness mirrors the creative 
process that the duo approached 
for the album — Tividad 
and Tucker were known to 
have a tightly collaborative 
creative process, but for this 
album they lived separately 
and wrote songs on their 
own. Many of the songs on 
this album can be found in 
demo form on Tividad and 
Tucker’s separate bandcamp 
and soundcloud pages, but on 
the album, the other member 
of the duo usually joins in on 
background vocals in a role 
gently supportive rather than 
enmeshed.
If Girlpool’s music is “about” 
anything when considered as 
a whole, it’s about navigating 
a 
burgeoning 
adulthood 
— 
ambition, anxiety, love and its 
nearby feelings, the constant 
shifting of overlapping comfort 
zones. 
While 
Girlpool 
have 
thoroughly matured as musicians, 
the album still lives in the 
yearning mental spaces of their 
first releases, thoroughly elevated 
and expanded.

Girlpool’s latest is stunning

ANTI- RECORDS

EMILY YANG
Daily Arts Wrtier

What Chaos is 
Imaginary

Girlpool

ANTI- Records

ALBUM REVIEW

I was nearing the end of a 
long overnight shift working 
as an emergency department 
scribe just outside of Ann 
Arbor. It was a slow night, 
having 
only 
seen 
around 
ten patients by halftime at 4 
a.m., so I indulged myself by 
studying for my upcoming 
organic chemistry exam. My 
eyes and I began the end-of-
shift descent into lethargy; I 
began to move more slowly, 
my computer screen seemed 
fuzzier than before and I 
started to inadvertently tune 
out my periphery. I had a few 
hours yet in my shift to get 
through, but I had certainly 
hit the wall. I meandered 
over to the coffee machine 
tucked in the corner of the 
department and grabbed a 
Styrofoam cup. The coffee 
machine looked like it was 
out of the ’90s, with all of its 
once-white 
now 
yellowed, 
and a red Folgers label that 
had faded to burnt pink.
But one should never judge 
a book by its cover, and in 
that vein, one should not 
predict the quality of coffee 
based on the appearance of 
its maker. I crunched the 
“regular” button on the side 
of the machine and watched 
the dark liquid quickly fill 
the cup. After staying my 
hand for a few seconds to 
allow it to cool, I took a sip of 
the hospital coffee.
This 
hospital 
coffee 
was rich. It was rich like 
a Van Boven regular who 
purchases items that aren’t 
on clearance. It was rich like 
someone who can buy a venti 
and only drink a tall’s worth 
of coffee. It was rich like a 

new textbook, even though 
the used copy was drastically 
less expensive.
I am not certain if it was, 
but this hospital coffee sure 
tasted fresh. It was fresh 
like syllabus week or an 
untouched copy of The Daily. 
It was fresh like seeing tour 
groups at the University of 
Michigan for the Class of 

2023. It was fresh like a new 
lab coat, instead of one that 
had just been poorly washed 
from last semester. These 
are all things I’ve seen and/
or done before, like the 
coffee I’ve consumed before, 
but 
there 
is 
undoubtedly 
something 
about 
the 
re-experiences thereof that 
act as catalysts for dusty, 

motivational bursts waiting 
in my pituitary.
This hospital coffee was 
rejuvenating. It was as if I 
had spent a summer abroad, 
in Paris or Rome or Madrid, 
to find myself and finish my 
language requirement. All of 
my curiosities about the world 
refreshed, with an entirely 
new 
set 
of 
experiences 
under my belt. And though I 
enjoyed said time abroad, I 
told everyone that asked that 
I was happy to return home 
and get back into the regular 
swing of things. But even 
after returning home, I kept 
wondering if maybe I didn’t 
utilize 
the 
study 
abroad 
opportunity as well as I 
should have. I mean, study 
abroad is a great opportunity 
that looks great on a resume, 
but maybe I should have 
chosen somewhere different? 
Somewhere more applicable 
for my major? Maybe it didn’t 
matter anyway. I’ve only got 
a couple of years left before 
graduate school. I only had 
a few hours before that shift 
was up. This hospital coffee 
had the same effect as a 
study abroad program, only 
without the debt.
This hospital coffee was 
reassuring. It told me to 
close my organic textbook 
and reassured me that my 
exam would turn out alright. 
It reminded me that I could 
sleep the following day. It 
reminded me that no matter 
when the next patient comes 
in and no matter what they 
present with, during that 
shift or in the distant future, 
the hospital coffee would 
be there. I can’t be certain 
as to whether it will mimic 
this particular episode, but 
I do know that that was one 
phenomenal cup of coffee.

On not judging a coffee by
its cover: How I found the 
best cup ever in a hospital

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

ZACHARY M.S. WAARALA
Daily Arts Wrtier

This hospital 
coffee was rich. 
It was rich like 
a Van Boven 
regular who 
purchases items 
that aren’t on 
clearance.

