The 21st most populous city in the USA, Boston has had a outsized influence on the history of the country. From being a key location in the fight against the British, to an industrial powerhouse, to the home-place of John F. Kennedy, The Cradle of Liberty has been a part of it all.
Now it boasts one of the best start-up cultures in the USA outside of the Bay Area as well as one of the most liveable cities. It’s influence has extended to the world of cinema too; especially when it comes to tales of brash masculinity.
This makes sense. People of Irish descent form the largest ethnic group in the city, making up 15% of all inhabitants. As a result, many Boston-set films explore the meaning of Irish American identity in a similar way to New York and Italian-Americans. With Irish people historically facing oppression before rising to the highest positions of power, these films often posit the Irish-American as an unloved underdog, ready to fight against the odds. As an English person from an Irish background myself, Boston-films can often feel like some of the most relatable; especially the need for second-generation people to somewhat overcompensate in order to assert their identity.
From straight-up gangster stories to historical dramas to neo-noir thrillers, cinematic portrayals of Boston are filled with moral complexities and spirited performances. We have created a list of our five favourite ones below. Read on to see what we picked.
The Departed
Part of the reason The Departed is so great is that, like many of Martin Scorsese’s gangster films, it’s also rip-roaringly funny. A strong Italian-American Catholic, Scorsese manages to locate the essentials of the Irish Catholic Boston character and exaggerate them to the nth degree. Mark Wahlberg in particular, who would later lean heavily into negative Boston stereotypes in the Ted films, has a great time playing with the accent.
Wahlberg is just one of an all-time cast, which also includes professional swearers Alec Baldwin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Ray Winstone. Together they play both sides of a war between the Irish mob and the Boston police force. Based on the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, it has one member of the police infiltrate the mafia and vice versa, making for a deadly game of cat-and-mouse that is equal parts exhilarating as it is terrifying.
Good Will Hunting
You can’t talk about Boston without mentioning Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. These fast friends were both born within the wider city area and have several credits between them either writing, directing or starring in Boston-set movies. Good Will Hunting was the film that put them on the map. Directed by Gus Van Sant, it is a tale of an unrecognised mathematic genius who works at MIT as a janitor and spends his free time getting blotted with his friends.
When he gets into a drunken fight, he is put into therapy, opposite a career-best Robin Williams. It is through these conversations that the film really sings; exploring the contours of masculinity and what it means to live a meaningful life. It is an essential movie of the Irish diaspora: academics have pointed out that Good Will Hunting carries on the sectarian unease rife throughout UK and Ireland with the Catholic Will’s distrust of the mostly protestant professors at MIT.
Gone Baby Gone
It’s no surprise that Ben Affleck’s directorial debut would take place in his hometown. Gone Baby Gone, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, is set around the neighbourhood of Dorchester, and stars his brother Casey Affleck as Patrick Kenzie, a private investigator tasked with finding a missing girl.
Boston is seen here as a dark and forbidding city, where grudges seemingly have no end and probably stretch back all the way to Letterkenny. Here Affleck is really interested in exploring all the nooks and crannies of the city, giving us a full portrayal of what this disappearance means to its inhabitants. While Casey Affleck is easily the better actor of the two brothers, as evidenced by his devastating performance in Manchester by the Sea, Gone Baby Gone allowed him to really stretch himself, turning in one of best performances.
Affleck returned to Boston twice; with straight-up thriller The Town and historical gangster film Live By Night. He’ll be back again. After all, its his home.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Most gangsters never really rise to the top. They just continue their two-bit jobs for their entire career. There’s never really been a better understanding of that than in Peter Yates’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle, starring Robert Mitchum as a wizened crook facing prison time.
The joy of the film lies upon Mitchum’s performance, which is all-knowing, quiet, and takes the story into his own hands. We follow him as he faces a strong moral decision between snitching on his friends and keeping to his own moral code. The film is a true product of the 70s in its willingness to explore the darker side of mob life.
Spotlight
A large part of Irish identity is bound up in the Catholic Church. They took their Church with them when they came to Boston, making most of the Irish-Americans in the city Catholics too. Spotlight, based on the true story of how The Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team unearthed widespread and systemic child sex abuse within the city’s Catholic Church, shows the darker side of such unwavering trust in institutions.
A large part of Irish masculinity is never talking about your problems, reflected in the tight-lipped nature of residents with regards to giving anything away to reporters. Spotlight slowly chips away at these and other barriers facing reporters through good old-fashioned detective work; displaying how powerful holding truth to power can be. Possibly the most self-reflective Boston film on this list, Spotlight was a huge success, winning Best Picture in 2016.
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