LOS ANGELES – The Black Lives Matter movement has targeted superstar white Italian-American movie director Martin Scorsese for what the group said was Scorsese’s role in fomenting racial violence through the gunning down of African-American actor Samuel Jackson’s character Stacks Edwards in the Academy-award winning 1990 movie Goodfellas.
The movie, which starred Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci in the lead roles of New York goombah Mafiosi engaged in various mobster hijinx including murder, mayhem, racketeering, extortion and money laundering, purportedly told the true story of the rise and fall of Mob associate Henry Hill, as played by Liotta.
One of the scenes in the movie depicted the casual execution of Edwards by Pesci’s character, Tommy DeVito, after Edwards failed to complete a simple task for the gang. It was also the 14th time a character depicted by Jackson had died violently in a movie, mostly under the direction of white directors like Scorsese.
BLM said in a statement that although the filmmaker may have had the artistic license to whack Jackson’s character in the movie because it reflected the real-life killing, the wanton depiction of the death of yet another unarmed African-American movie character was emblematic of the rampant slaughter of minority archetypes in the cinematic world.
Jackson said in a separate statement, “I have had it with these motherfucking white directors in these motherfucking racist movies!”
“I will strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers through the narrow depiction of black characters via vile stereotypes and obvious racist tropes,” Jackson said.
“And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee, motherfucker!” he added.
Scorsese could not be reached for comment because he was filming his new comedy “Guido Cruises Harlem,” which is based on the real-life story of Guido Valducci, a low-level New York mobster who in 1997 began buying up property in Harlem in an attempt to turn it into an Italian-American amusement park called GuidoLand. Valducci eventually abandoned the plan and instead became a professor of Italian-American history at Whatssamatta University in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
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