How a 1973 gangster epic became the most famous movie Martin Scorsese never made
In early 2009, an Italian film that was marketing itself as “the greatest mafia movie ever made” earned the seal of approval from a legendary filmmaker who knew a thing or two about the genre when co-writer and director Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah was given the ‘Martin Scorsese Presents’ prefix.
The filmmaker said he admired the “bluntness of this picture” and the way the cast and crew devoted themselves to “their pursuit of a terrible truth.” So far, so admiring, but what does it have to do with a 1973 gangster epic starring Robert De Niro in the leading role? Everything, as it turned out.
As all strange tales start, this one had unusual origins: a knockoff pair of boots touting a movie called Goncharov, presented by one Martin Scorsese. That was all it took for the internet to have a field day, and before anybody knew what was happening, the brains behind several of cinema’s greatest-ever crime stories had added another one to his collection.
Ask someone who spends a lot of time online, and they’ll tell you that Goncharov stands shoulder-to-shoulder alongside Goodfellas, The Departed, Casino, Mean Streets, and The Irishman as one of Scorsese’s finest deep dives into the life of organised crime, apart from the fact that it doesn’t exist.
In a combination of gaslighting and a reverse Mandela Effect, something bizarre happened: Goncharov took on a life of its own, De Niro was surrounded by a supporting cast, placed in a complex narrative web, and showered with critical acclaim and admiration, all for a film that never existed.
It’s got a theme song, a theatrical poster, a Letterboxd page, a review from Roger Ebert, and even officially licensed merchandise, all of which is 100% fictitious. It became a meme with the power to move mountains, with one innocuous post snowballing into the legend of Goncharov, which follows De Niro’s arrival in Naples after the fall of the Soviet Union, where he works his way up the criminal ranks.
Harvey Keitel lends support as a banker, Cybill Shepherd plays a femme fatale, with Al Pacino as Mario Ambrosini and Gene Hackman cast as Joseph ‘Ice Pick’ Morelli. It sounds like it has the potential to be one of the greatest gangster flicks ever made, not just by Scorsese, and the only thing holding it back from greatness is that it’s completely made up, but you can’t fault the ambition.
Giving it the ultimate seal of approval, when the social media sensation himself was pressed for comment on Goncharov, he hopped on the bandwagon, saying, “Yes, I made that film years ago.” In 1973, to be exact, only for the movie to slip into the cultural ether until it was revived and everyone was reminded that Scorsese had, in fact, made the greatest mafia movie of all time in the early ’70s.
What started as an innocent joke eventually morphed into something that made it all the way to Scorsese, and he was happy to get in on the act and confirm at long last that he really had helmed Goncharov, except that he didn’t, of course.
