I was visiting Paris for the first time in 1995 with my parents and it was pissing it down.

I’ll always remember the first time I saw Heat. Savin Mattozzi Neil McCauley – Heat (1995) The gut-wrenching disappointment and humiliation De Niro’s character is subject to is enough to make any child of immigrants reach for the tissue box and give their parents an extra tight hug. A reality that was, and to some extent still is, present within the Italian American community in New York City, as well as for Italians in Italy. De Niro expertly plays the role of a father who desperately tries, and fails, to help his family in the face of external forces that are much bigger then himself. De Niro’s character breaks your heart as he tries to balance working to put enough food on his family’s table and being the only one in the movie who has the guts to stand up to the criminal organizations around him. This is made harder by the neighbourhood’s mob boss, Sonny, played by Chazz Palminteri, who glamorizes his experiences with crime and lures C into joining in his organization. De Niro plays Lorenzo, a bus driver and father to the main character Cologero who also goes by ‘C.’ Lorenzo is surrounded by organized crime in his neighbourhood and tries his best to guide his son away from any temptations of joining or participating in it.

Robert De Niro’s directorial debut, 1993’s A Bronx Tale, delves into the lives of Italian Americans in a working class neighbourhood of New York City in the 1960s.

Jonny Walfisz Lorenzo Anello – A Bronx Tale (1993) The same glint in his eye that makes you root for him even when he’s playing the most ghastly gangster brings you into the passion of a man so close to freedom but yet so far. Though Sacks’ experimentation with L-DOPA ultimately lead to his patients relapsing into their original stasis, the film sells its message of life’s beauty thanks largely to De Niro’s humanitarian display. Opposite Williams, De Niro is given a platform to perform the entirety of the human condition, distilled into a matter of months spent in a hospital facility. Based on neurologist Oliver Sacks’ 1973 memoir, Lowe experiences a short-lived but profound re-entry into waking life. When his doctor (played with tender grace by Robin Williams) gives him the experimental drug L-DOPA, it wakes him from his catatonic state. In Awakenings, De Niro plays Leonard Lowe, a victim of encephalitis lethargica suffering from locked in syndrome. Much as I have adored De Niro’s work playing host to Scorsese’s ample villains, the part of his closest to my heart is one filled with light.

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