Note: This post is pretty long. If you don’t want to read the whole thing I encourage you to just watch the videos of certain scenes and read a few sentences below the videos.
Goodfellas (1990) is the best narrative-style movie of all time.
Movies of this quality are simply not produced anymore. We are deep within a film drought where production companies unfortunately value pure views, shock-value, and comedic bits over high-quality, well-directed stories. Think back to the year 1994: The winner for Best Picture was Forrest Gump, with Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption as runners-up. Just three years later, in 1997, the winner was Titanic and two other nominees were Good Will Hunting and L.A. Confidential. Within those three years, arguably six movies of the top 100 movies were produced. The sheer quantity of such high-caliber films have fallen off dramatically. These years, the best we can hope for is another CGI-infested action drama, or some poorly-written shameless appeal at consumer nostalgia in the Minecraft movie. I recently had the pleasure of watching an incredible movie, The Accountant, get butchered in its sequel, The Accountant 2. It’s baffling how the same director can direct two movies involving the exact same characters, yet they’re entirely different in scenery, music, and tone. Just worse overall.
Beginnings
The movie follows a young Italian-American Henry Hill in 1950s Brooklyn, who is head-over-heels enamored with the mafia lifestyle. He sees their lifestyle as a fast-track way to power and prestige, and values their care-free, loyalty-based way of life.
A Ruthless Culture
Goodfellas, on the surface, is a story about mobster Henry Hill, and his introduction into the mafia, growth within the mafia, and increased separation from the mafia. The story begins during his high school years and brings us along a voice-over style narration as his life slowly becomes more engulfed into the mafia. The beginning of the movie heavily involves his family, which Henry becomes increasingly torn from. Initially, his mother is happy that he gets a job, unaware that he is working for the mafia. She notes that the Cicero’s came from the same part of Sicily as she did, and that was enough to convince her. Themes of connection through nationality fill the entire movie, as Italian-American heritage is crucial to the hierarchical status of the mafia and its members. The movie demonstrates the cultural highs and lows of the Italian-American way of life during the 50s and 60s, including the low-class style of living many of the characters indulge in. Many women are seen swearing excessively, wearing heaps of makeup, and mirroring the vulgar and brutal lifestyles that their male counterparts engage in. The movie does not hold back, and it demonstrates the ruthless and gritty culture to the fullest extent. Characters are impulsive, threatening and beating people on a whim, for seemingly doing nothing wrong. Realism is a central theme to the movie, and the real-life experiences of Martin Scorcese enable the movie to capture the truth and put it on display.
Soundtrack and Camerawork
The soundtrack is brilliant, and allows the audience to be fully engaged and transported to the time period. Various hits from Italian singers including Tony Bennett, Giuseppi Di Stefano, and Mina Mazzini complement the realism in the movie by adding authentic, culturally Italian songs to often dramaticize the movie and allow the scenes to feel real.
This is the opening scene of the movie, and might be the greatest first five or so minutes of movie history. The soundtrack and narration perfectly introduce the main character Henry Hill, as we are transported from some time in his 20s or 30s depicting a blunt moment in his life, back to his origins, where his infatuation for the mafia began. The camerawork featuring close-ups, and slow panning scenes brilliantly capture the lifestyle of the mafia. Take note of around 1:32 in the video. The camera shows a local mobster’s hand decorated in expensive jewelry as he steps out of the car. This may seem like a minor detail, but it is often the simple shots that convey the most information to the audience. Subtlety is key.
Another brilliant scene displaying high-quality camerawork:
The camera follows Henry Hill and his girlfriend Karen through the kitchen of the copacabana, bypassing the line of people waiting to enter at the front. The scene flawlessly exemplifies the sheer power that the mobsters had, including at the end of the clip when a table is lifted above other seated people around them, making space specifically for the two of them at the very front. This style of directing and cinematography is brilliance. No CGI, no cuts, all in one go (Ray Liotta even bumps into a part of the kitchen accidentally, see if you can spot where).
Another brilliant usage of music to amplify the tone of a scene: Warning: Swearing and Blood (and terrible quality, sorry)
This scene does multiple things:
The operatic-style song “Parlami D’Amore Mariu” by Giuseppi Di Stefano compliments the dramatic depiction of this man being shot and needing assistance, simultaneously emphasizing the Italian-American heritage as well as the ruthless and gritty nature of the culture.
2.
Tuddy in the background, the guy who gets mad at Henry for “wasting aprons” on the man who is bleeding out, demonstrates the rigid and careless nature of the mafia. They only care about those directly involved in the mafia, and anyone else might as well be sub-human. This ruthless nature is an accurate depiction of mob culture of the time.
A Ruthless Culture as Lighthearted Humor
You may watch this video and think, “wow, what an unnecessary scene”, and you’d be right, as the scene inherently does not contribute anything to the plot. This brings me back to my previous point, however, as Goodfellas mostly serves as a depiction of a culture and of a time period. This scene demonstrates the sheer power and carelessness of the mobsters. The group of mobsters are sitting in the middle of the restaurant that they own, everyone else in the restaurant noticing their presence as loud and obnoxious, yet doing nothing about it. One man comes up to Tommy (Joe Pesci) inquiring about the bill, and explaining how Tommy owes $7,000, and Tommy responds by yanking him by the tie and smashing a glass over his head. While he does this, the rest of the mobsters burst out in laughter, demonstrating the ruthlessness and care-free mentality much of the mob operated with. Tommy even jokingly points a gun at Henry, to which they also laugh.
End
The combination of brilliant casting, excellently written screenplay in pacing and character development, top-tier camerawork and overall masterful directing allows Goodfellas to shine brightly, and the narrative-style of the movie is a perfect fit to convey all the movie’s goals. As a final note, maybe don’t watch this movie. It might ruin your perception of what a good movie actually is and you may become subject to movie elitism that leaves you feeling disgusted by the slop of today. But if you’re willing to take the risk, you won’t regret it. Thanks for reading and I hope you can find the same enjoyment in the movie as I do.
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