Abel Ferrara’s King of New York (1990) has just been released in the United Kingdom via Arrow on 4K UHD and 2K Blu Ray.
Released during the same year as director Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas The movie was written off in many critical circles as a piece of exploitation cinema or of ‘low culture’ when compared to Scorsese’s picture. Ferrara’s movie was also described on promotional materials for the movie as ‘this year’s Scarface’ referring to Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1984).
King of New York represents the largesse of everything great about the gangster movie, it also deserves to be thought of in the same league as anything by Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola whose Godfather Trilogy defined how the gangster movie would be thought of by mainstream audiences around the world.
Michael Mann's Thief (1981)
Ferrara had previously worked with Michael Mann on the television show Miami Vice (I try not to argue that most of my favourite movies can be traced back to a love of Michael Mann but that’s my prejudice).
Like Mann’s seminal movie Thief (1981) Ferrara envelopes his movie with the skyline and stylistic majesty of the city in which the main character inhabits.
The movie opens with lead character Frank White (Christopher Walken) leaving prison as he is picked up in a black limousine by two female gang members and lovers Raye (Theresa Randle) and Melanie (Carrie Nygren).
Dialogue is scarce during this opening sequence as we are placed directly into events that have began weeks and years before we meet our main characters.
Frank sits in the limousine with Raye and Melanie and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli lets the camera linger on Walken’s handsome face as Melanie lights a cigarette and hands it to him. This is an incredibly erotic moment shared between the characters as the limousine travails the New York streets. Yet the friendship between these characters is also apparent.
Walken looks out over the city like a Lion looking out over the pride.
We then meet Laurence Fishburne (know at the time as Larry Fishburn) and his character Jimmy Jump in a Travel Lodge of all places with Steve Buscemi who then proceed to murder some members of the Columbian cartel, taking their stash of cocaine with them.
Prior to this we witness another cartel member leaving a brothel, he is then shot dead by other members of Frank’s gang as they leave a calling card newspaper which announces Frank White’s release from prison.
From here Ferrara brings the the eroticism and stylistic sexuality which dominates the movie to the fore as we see Raye and Melanie clad in expensive lingerie. White walks past Melanie as she places a small handgun into her leather jacket whilst dressed only in her underwear.
The camera them moves upward and we see Frank looking out from his hotel window wearing black on black clothing as he moodily stares at the blues and yellows of the city.
Ferrara uses the first ten minutes of the movie to build new forms of iconography, from the sexuality of Frank, the women and their clothing, to the city, to the use of hip hop on the streets they pass in their vehicle.
This opening portrays the style and sensuality which precedes the events of the movie. This is made even more virulent by the lack of dialogue within this opening scene.
Also within these opening moments Ferrara conveys the ethnic diversity of New York, interracial romance, polyamory and manages to convey all of this using style without a character monologue in sight.
This is one of the greatest openings to any movie.
What is incredibly significant in many gangster movies is the sense of moralistic code shared between the gangsters. From The Godfather to Goodfellas to Casino, all of these movies suggest to the audience that the protagonists follow some kind of morality within their subcultural group.
This morality is then illustrated on screen by Machiavellian business deals and men sitting in rooms deciding what their next move will be.
Yet in King of New York Frank White wants to help the poorer communities within the city via the outreach of building a new hospital. His only recourse isn’t one in which he decides to work together with other gangsters to achieve this. His only recourse is to move straight toward the use of violence to achieve his aims.
The same violent paradigm happens in Goodfellas, Casino and The Godfather movies in which all disputes are eventually resolved by using fire arms or knives but because those movies envelope themselves with the hypocritical fallacy of the business like manoeuvres of the main characters; audiences assume that there are deeper levels of meaning to those movies.
King of New York avoids those pretences with ease and places the machinations of the plot within more simple confines. Here violence is the predetermined outcome for these characters, whether female, male, black, Asian or Columbian.
Ferrara illustrates this idea at movie’s end as the only way the small segment of Frank White’s life we as the audience have witnessed is ultimately resolved not by complex plot machinations but by the simplicity of gunshots.
It is to Ferrara’s credit that the ending of King of New York still feels profound, it may just take many more viewings of the movie to understand why.
The Godfather, Goodfellas and Casino focus primarily on Italian American gangsters, Scarface focuses on Cuban gangsters and later movies like The Departed (2006) or Black Mass (2015) would focus on Bostonian white working class gangsters.
In the year after King of New York was released Mario Van Peeble’s New Jack City was released, whilst Ferrara’s movie struggled at the box office upon the release. New Jack City opened to more favourable box office. New Jack City focused on African American gangsters and is still one of few movies to do so. New Jack City also featured Wesley Snipes in a starring role (he also plays a cop in King of New York).
Unlike the Italian American movies which came before and after King of New York in which the stylistic caveats those movies defined for generations in terms of popular culture are not open to question. You can buy a Goodfellas cookbook and The Godfather had such an effect on popular culture that real gangsters began to adopt some of the cultural elements from those stories into their own lives.
King of New York also created its own iconography. One based around the music videos of the time and he also used hip hop and some aspects of black popular culture and music to frame his story. The rapper Notorious BIG was so taken with Ferrara’s movie he went on to mention it in many of his early songs.
The warm hedonistic sexual subtext of Ferrara’s movie would be mirrored decades later by The Weeknd where the singer is surrounded by the drugs, sex and expensive underwear audiences had already witnessed in King of New York.
Watch Abel Tesfaye’s (The Weeknd) 2015 music video for his song Often and compare it to the opening scenes of King of New York (It is also ironic that The Weeknd was just ignored in the nominations for the Grammys last month).
Images from the Often music video and Carrie Nygren as Melanie
Ferrara’s movie’s influence on popular culture maybe one we only understand far later.
All gangster movies define the stories of criminals, that is nothing new. It is ironic though that when Ferrara depicted female beauty, female sexuality, black bodies and black people his movie was considered to be a piece of exploitation cinema by some critics at the time.
Because the character of Frank White is a white man who enjoys sharing his life with black people, sexually liberated women and is out to help working class communities he lived in. Perhaps at the time this meant critics had been affected by the subconscious travails of racism, classism and sexism which exists to this day on our political and social lives. That may be an interesting aside to consider why Ferrara’s movie was received the way it was in 1990 whilst Scorsese’s movie opened to critical praise.
Whilst King of New York feels progressive with the way story is constructed, Goodfellas follows the script structure Scorsese loves.
The first act is when the criminal rises, the second act provides the endorphin like thrills in which we enjoy seeing how the events from the first act play out, then in the third and final act the world of crime come crashing down around the characters.
King of New York adheres to some of that storytelling structure but unlike Goodfellas it subverts and contracts the traditional three act structure. So essentially the movie skilfully changes the traditional storytelling structure and then just as we expect the third act to come.
Instead Ferrara moves past all of that and moves straight toward the finale of the movie. We don’t learn how Frank feels about losing his lovers and friends, instead we movie straight toward the violent conclusion of the movie.
It would also take Scorsese decades later to understand the emotionality behind the type of characters he depicts in Goodfellas and Casino. Until last year’s The Irishman I never had any emotional response to his most popular gangster movies. All three of which follow the same story structure. Mean Streets (1973) is an incredibly antithetical movie in terms of how Scorsese presents organised crime on screen. I would also argue his best movies are not his traditional gangster movies but that is a conversation for another day!
Ferrara doesn't map out the emotional wires of his movie it is left up to the style of the movie to project the weight of the events onto the audience.
King of New York also features early career appearances from the aforementioned Wesley Snipes, David Caruso and a wonderfully understated performance from Victor Argo as a cop who has been destroyed by the same city as White. Janet Julian is also good in this movie in spite of the nonsensical hatred she receives from critical luminaries and movie makers like Quentin Tarantino.
For a movie released in the same year as Goodfellas. King of New York is a better movie. I respect Goodfellas but I have never loved it.
I do adore King of New York, from the sexuality, Christopher Walken’s towering performance to the style and melodramatic pizazz of the movie.
If you haven’t seen this classic movie then this new print in 4K is awe inspiringly beautiful to look at.
King of New York arrives on 4K UHD from Arrow home video.
The 4KUHD Disc is region free
Special Features include: An incredibly forthright and enthusiastic commentary from the director
A more focused commentary from the composer, casting director and editor
An interview with the producer Augusto Caminito
A documentary on Ferrara
Trailer and teaser with TV Spots in 1080p
Reversible sleeve and a booklet featuring an incredibly pompous review from Sight and Sound (limited to first pressing)