The first time Martin Scorsese called Henry Hill after reading Hill’s gangster memoir Wiseguy, he told Hill: I’ve been waiting for this book for ten years. To which Hill replied: I’ve been waiting for this call for ten years.
Scorsese had wanted to tell a tale of mobsters that didn’t revolve around Vito Corleone-esque bosses and power players. He wanted the audience to know about the gangster-next-door, the types he grew up with around Manhattan’s Little Italy. He found the story he was looking for in Hill’s writing.
Despite his reputation as a director of gangster movies, Scorsese had only done one that solely featured mobsters: Mean Streets. They existed on the periphery in Raging Bull and he also touched on criminal outlaws in Boxcar Bertha. So the reputation was a bit undeserved.
But using Hill’s memoir, he made Goodfellas, maybe the best pure mob movie ever.
I’m not a movie maker but I’ve been waiting for this book for decades. And if I was a movie maker, I’d make a movie out of this one.
Saigo, the yakuza that Jake Adelstein focuses on, never becomes a boss. He does rise to a high and respected position within one of the top yakuza families. But he has an incredible story to tell, less a rise-and-fall (though there’s plenty of that) and more of Henry Hill: how his one strand of fabric wove through the world of the yakuza for over twenty years, watching their image and reputation change over time.
What I liked about using Saigo to tell the larger story of the history of the yakuza and how they work is that Saigo did not come up Always wanting to be a gangster as Goodfellas famously begins. He bounces around the fringes of society before being recruited to it. And while he does, he finds a degree of competence that allows him to rise in the ranks. Ambition is a part of it but Saigo found real purpose in living the life, learning and respecting the traditions, following some code of honor.
Adelstein writes a compelling narrative, weaving in fascinating yakuza tales with Saito’s personal life and the ever changing narrative of the yakuza.
This is the best kind of mob gangster true crime story I like. Tokyo Vice was a good book. This is a great one. I hope a talented director reads it.
