Martin Scorsese had a long and successful career with many films to his credit. However, he did not make a film on the Neapolitan mafia with Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd and Al Pacino titled Goncharov. That fact hasn’t stopped Tumblr, one of many sites enjoying a resurgence in the wake of Twitter’s Ongoing Disasters– to decide that Goncharov should exist. Or band together to do it in an elaborate community prank.
The story of Goncharovas summarized by a very recent TV tropes hall, is about “a former nightclub owner who comes to Naples after the fall of the Soviet Union” to become a mob boss. The idea that this movie was also supposed to be released in 1973 may make its plot absurd from the get-go, but it still inspired a lot of discussion and fan art on Tumblr.
The Goncharov label Ileads to a wealth of illustrations that imagine scenes from the film as well as poster mockupsand, as Boing Boing round, a cash-in video game with accompanying soundtrack, a 3D model of the VHS versionand a piano theme song.
Thanks to creations like these, certain “facts” about the film have solidified into widely accepted truths. For instance, GoncharovThe cast of includes De Niro in the title role, Shepherd and Pacino, as well as Gene Hackman and Harvey Keitel. This too, as Initiated Explain“features a prominent clock motif” and is “full of homoerotic tension between Goncharov and a man named Andrey (fictionally portrayed by Al Pacino” as well as between “Goncharov’s apparent love interest Katya (Cybill Shepherd) and another woman named Sofia”.
The whole idea was sparked, it turns out, by an old Tumblr post which showed a photo of counterfeit boots ordered online. When the boots arrived, they had a tag that cryptically read, “The Greatest Mafia Movie Ever Made.” Martin Scorsese presents Goncharov. Produced by Domenico Procacci. A film by Matteo JWHJ 0715 about the mafia of Naples.
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After researching the origin of the boots’ bizarre claim, a user discovered the label likely referred to 2009 Gomorrahwhich was indeed produced by Domenico Procacci, was released in the United States with the support of Scorsese and is also “about the mafia of Naples”. (Gomorrah is based on a non-fiction book by Roberto Saviano on the Camorra and separated a television series of the same name.)
At the end, Goncharov is just an elaborate play from an existing film. Not like other legit movies from our past, like Seann William Scott’s memorable 2000s comedy, Vincey Masters: Born to be a Karate Master.
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