Reflection on Erich Kuersten’s Self-Sabotage for Success – CASINO (1995)

Erich Kuersten’s article on Martin Scorsese’s 1995 movie, Casino, was posted on Academic in 2013. The critic begins his piece by introducing the genre of the film, then he goes on to analyse the picture itself briefly, after which he says a few words about the performances of the lead actors and concludes the writing by returning to the starting idea. The main point he makes in the article is that Casino, its cast, and its director are overrated. It is a well constructed essay, which states its arguments clearly. However, some of these arguments are quite weakly supported.

Kuersten has given much ground to his criticism of Sharon Stone’s character, acting, and Scorsese’s direction of her part. He sates: “But everyone knows romance and strong female characters (ALICE aside) aren’t Scorsese’s strong point.” Contrary to this statement, it was Sharon Stone who got the most recognition after the film. She was nominated for an Oscar, a Chicago Film Critics Association Award, an MTV Movie Award, and won a Golden Globe Award, and placed third on the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards. Since the article’s writer did not support his argument other than stating his opinion, this counterargument should not be disregarded.

Another point he makes is that all movies about gambling are sure to become successful. This note, however, is only supported by the author’s opinion and logic: “rolling the dice on a film about rolling the dice is so meta it can’t fail.” In spite of this, one paragraph later Kuersten mentions another picture with the same topic as Casino, namely California Split (1974), which he calls “underseen”. Moreover, it is not difficult to come by a number of failed films about gambling one only has to browse the Internet Movie Database. There are many examples of unsuccessful casino movies, for instance The Gambler (1997) with its 6.3/10 score, which was voted by the low number of 285 people.

Finally, the critic discusses how Martin Scorsese directed Casino badly, as the title of the article suggests. He argues that the renown director “is just imitating himself”, but interrupts this line of thought by moving on to the performance of Joe Pesci, thus making the point unclear. Besides, much like Sharon Stone, Martin Scorsese was widely recognized for this movie. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Chicago Film Critics Association Award, and an Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists’ Silver Ribbon for his work. All these prestigious award considerations and the fact that Casino is still among the best rated movies in film history make Kuersten’s unsupported argument unconvincing.

All in all, this piece of criticism has an organised structure, interesting points and observations. On the other hand, some arguments are poorly supported, there are barely any examples, and no quotations or references. These deficiencies make the essay weak, especially in the points above.

References:

1. Casino (1995). Internet Movie Database. Retrieved from:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/?ref_=ttawd_awd_tt

2. Kuersten, Erich, (2013, June 19). Self-Sabotage for Success – CASINO (1995), Academic. Retrieved from:

http://acidemic.blogspot.hu/2013/06/self-sabotage-for-success-casino-1995.html

3. The Gambler (1997). Internet Movie Database. Retrieved from:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129111/?ref_=tt_rec_tt