Goncharov: Martin Scorsese’s Mythical Masterpiece
- K.J. Griffith
- Dec 2, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 30, 2023
As a Gen-Zer, I like to scroll on TikTok to pass the time. Recently, I was just watching some videos on the app when I started getting a bunch of videos of people talking about this Martin Scorsese movie called Goncharov. Being a filmmaker who had studied many masters, including Scorsese, I couldn't comprehend that I didn't know about this film. Goncharov has been called "the greatest Mafia movie ever made" and yet, it's impossible to find anywhere. Additionally, this film is not in a single history book and it has never been mentioned by the director himself. So what is Goncharov, and why has it shockingly become such a major piece of cinema in the past two weeks?
Goncharov (1973) is a film starring Robert De Niro as the titular character Goncharov, alongside big names like Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, and Gene Hackman. The overall story is about ex-Russian mafia members who try to make roots in Naples.
This film is very loosely based on the 1961 novella, "Jestem Goncharov" by Irma M. Schuss. The novella is unfortunately out of print and impossible to find. Additionally, the film was difficult to obtain for many years, due to distribution rights, conflicting translation rights, the existence of at least seven alternate cuts of the film, and even rumored interference from the actual mafia. All of this makes this film still difficult to find today, especially the original theatrical version.
In Goncharov, we follow Goncharov, who once owned a discoteque front for the Russian mafia, try to work his way up the ladder of organized crime in Naples, Italy. During this, he becomes entangled with the lives of Andrey "The Banker" Daddano (played by Harvey Keitel) and Mario Ambrosini (played by Al Pacino). Meanwhile, Goncharov's wife, Katya (played by Cybil Shepherd), is unsatisfied with her life and her ambitions unfortunately clash with her husband, creating a major conflict between the two partners.
This film is considered to be one of the most progressive portrayals of homosexual eroticism of the time, showing a unique love square relationship. Goncharov is married to Katya. He falls in love with Andrey and it is alluded that they are having an affair, while Katya falls in love with Sofia (played by Sophia Loren) as part of her journey of self discovery. Considering the time period, this was extremely progressive to show same sex attraction on the big screen for both genders.
Let's not forget, though, that this film is first and foremost a mafia story. we have characters like Ice Pick Joe (played by John Cazale) who kill many people with, you guessed it, ice picks. Also, we cannot forget Katya's fall from housewife to femme fatale in this story, which should put her into the history books of powerful feminist figures.
From a filmmaker's perspective, this is a beautiful film. The motif of the clocks is just intoxicating, with the red and green color choices of Katya and Sofia. With a Cold War story like this, lots of themes are well intertwined with the history happening during the film. Additionally themes of religion, love, and overcoming trauma are deeply beautiful. This film is too good to be true, and it is.
Goncharov does not exist.
Everything I just told you Is. Not. Real.
Goncharov actually comes from knockoff promotional shoes from another film assumed to be Gomorrah, directed by Matteo Garrone, back in 2008. The film is based on a nonfiction book about the real story of the Camarro, a major mob group in Naples, Italy. The film received many accolades around the world from Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and it was even nominated for an Oscar.
Even though Martin Scorsese's name is included, he was not involved in the production of this film. Scorsese actually allowed Gomorrah to use his name for marketing purposes when it was released in the United States. A tumblr user posted a picture of the shoes in August 2020, but it recently has gained attention on Tumblr.
In the past ten days, this fake film has gained the attention of multiple tumblr users, with over twenty thousand people following #goncharov on Tumblr alone. This tumblr hashtag includes a Google doc of the canon lore to keep everyone in line with the fake story. The amount of dedication the self named "Gonchers" have to make this fake film convincing is almost alarming.
Though it does not have an IMdB, Goncharov can be found on Letterboxd, with many reviews talking about film quotes or even specific scenes. Again, none of this is real so all these reviews on the app are completely fake, but it is fun to take a read and see what people would imagine this films to be. Not only does it have a bunch of reviews, there is plenty of visual and audible items that make it even harder to decipher it as myth.
If you search up Goncharov on Youtube for instance, you'll find a multitude of fan edited trailers and film sequences. Some of them even look pretty legit, which just astounds me. Additionally, people have published full film score's based on this fake film, and let me tell you, they have put so much effort in to it. Because there is documentation of what is canon, there's a lot of consistent information to make this story look real through things like fan art. The consistency of all the visual materials about this film is amazing, considering there is no film to base it off of. All in all, for a fake film, it looks pretty real.
This is all just a large study in fact-checking. Lies can easily be created by anyone online. It’s up to you to separate truth from fiction in the digital world. It is an extremely important skill to be able to decipher what is real in today's modern society. So remember to do your research on reputable sites. Tumblr is gonna do what Tumblr gonna do, if you catch my drift. So maybe social media is not the best place to get researched news. I definitely should have known better than going down this rabbit-hole.
Well, at least Scorsese is in on the joke, as proven in a TikTok by his daughter, Francesca.
All images were sourced from Tumblr.
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