The greatest Martin Scorsese film that you haven't seen: Goncahrov

[thewayne]

From the article: Released in 1973, the little-seen Scorsese flick starred Robert De Niro as Goncharov, “a former discotheque owner who comes to Naples after the fall of the Soviet Union” with the goal of becoming a mob boss. Harvey Keitel plays the eye-patched Andrey (or Andrei) “The Banker” Daddano; Gene Hackman plays Valery Michailov; Al Pacino appears as Mario Ambrosini and Cybill Shepherd plays Goncharov’s wife, Katya. Apparently, it was really good and was added to the Criterion Collection.

Interesting that Scorsese foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union some 26 years before it happened!

Even Jazzy Dave and Howlin' Wolf haven't seen this movie. The biggest mafia movie fan among you haven't seen this movie.

Why?

It doesn't exist.

Fandom among the internet has joined forces and created posters, a cast, opening theme music, and even submitted critical reviews to review sites about it. It has become a legend and a force in Tumblr and beyond.

And an interesting article on The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/25/goncharov-why-has-the-internet-invented-a-fake-martin-scorsese-film

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/22/11/26/0550245/why-the-internet-invented-a-fake-martin-scorsese-film-called-goncharov

Comments

[mtbc]

Ha, I had no idea. Somewhat tangentially, given the unintendedness, I'm reminded of that non-existent Shazaam movie from back in the days of Blockbuster - https://www.theodysseyonline.com/remember-shazaam-movie-doesnt-exist

[thewayne]

Very interesting!

[disneydream06]

WOW, that's just bizarre. :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Bizarre, but cool!  NEVER underestimate the power of geekdom! :-)

[disneydream06]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kathmandu]

I tuned into that recently too! It's beautiful to see the cooperative art of world-building.

[thewayne]

You know, it just occurred to me that with the advances in AI-generated graphics and writing, it could be theoretically possible to feed all of Scorsese's scripts into an AI and have it produce a script based on the fragments produced...  BWAHAHAHAHAH!

[silveradept]

I loved watching the Goncharov thing unfold, and the first few pieces about it I came across referred to its fictional nature, thankfully. But shared storytelling like this is excellent to watch unfold and come into existence. I love it.

[thewayne]

I don't know if you saw my reply to another comment, but with the advances in AI story telling and AI graphics, feeding an AI with all of Scorcese's scripts and films, you could potentially make a fairly decent film based on the tidbits that people have generated!

[silveradept]

You'd make some good raw material to refine into a script, certainly.