Las Vegas -- as seen through the eyes of Martin Scorsese's Casino

Upon viewing a standard list of films based on or taking place in Las Vegas it becomes overwhelmingly obvious what the context Las Vegas brings to a picture. It seems that to be a Vegas movie you either have to be a happy-go-lucky romp, or a twisted and dark descent into hell. Casino might be about as middle of the road as you can get with a Vegas picture. Scorsese fashion is that the director shows you the good parts of a story then remind you that in real life there are consequences to living a life of sin, let alone a life in Sin City.

Money, delicious money; in Vegas it comes and goes. In Vegas movies it’s always going into the pockets of the protagonist. At least in 50% of the films it flows that way unless the protagonist is blasted on drugs or alcohol, and of course they could be earning it the most lurid way possible… Regardless, Las Vegas is about money, and Casino takes the cake for best money montage out of all films made about Vegas. Set to Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” this is the second time Scorsese uses this song for a montage in a film. Initially you can't help but ask, "Marty did you forget you'd already done that in Goodfellas?" After the Departed, however, it's obvious that he's linking all three films with this song and using money and success as a common thread. The concept behind this montage is that living a life around money can be both enticing and dangerous. Mad-cap comedies like Ocean's Eleven make Vegas' money very enticing, but even there they utilize the thrill of danger.

Danger surrounds the city in the form of the desert. Las Vegas is choked off at its border by the Mojave, which according to many a film has a deceased population rivaling that living in the city. In fact the only time the desert ever gets shown in a movie happens during events surrounding the unwilling passing of one of the film’s characters. The message is that leaving Vegas is deadly.

In fact, according to film, outside of the strip there are no safe places. Very few outer Vegas locations are ever shown in any movie. Ocean's Eleven ventures away from the strip a minor amount of times, and those times we might as well be in the ritzy part of L.A. In the case of Casino we get to see the occasional motel. These motels exemplify Las Vegas’ worst aesthetics. Seedy, cheap, and dated; the world off the strip is where old Vegas goes to die.

What are we missing in these films? How about “normal” life in Vegas. I would like to imagine that not everyone who lives in Las Vegas is a hooker or mobster. With 500 thousand people living in the city and another million in the area around it, some of those people must earn an honest living. We never see any of these people except when they're dealing cards.

Like a bit actor stealing a scene, Las Vegas steals a picture. Vegas is never just a backdrop, it is the movie, it takes over, becomes a character of its own and all the other characters in the movie have to compete with it. Hard competition, very few are strong enough to stand next to Vegas, most happen to be mobsters. Just imagine one day we might actually see a film about a family raising their children within the backdrop of Vegas, hopefully their children won’t be strung out on coke or their selling their flesh.