"In another ten years, people in this country will understand what Marty Scorsese is
really about. They're just starting to catch on, going back and seeing the first movies
he did over again. This one, GoodFellas, will be a classic."
- Frank DiLeo (Tuddy Cicero in GoodFellas)
In 1990, Martin Scorsese returned to familiar ground. After his breakthrough film, Mean Streets, in 1973, he took a departure from the Italian-American criminal life that he grew up around. He went on to make a feminist-minded film (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), a musical (New York, New York), two dark comedies (The King of Comedy and After Hours), and other classics like Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and The Last Temptation of Christ. Now he returns to the streets of New York once again to examine a whole new group of people much more sophisticated than those in Mean Streets.
Going into GoodFellas, one has some preconceived notions. At first glance, you might think that it would be a typical Martin Scorsese picture, since it takes place in New York and stars lots of Italian-Americans, much like Mean Streets. You also might think that it would be a typical gangster film, with the Mafia committing many crimes and perpetrating lots of violence. While these surface elements are indeed present, upon closer examination, we see that neither preconception is really true. Salvation, a popular theme of Scorsese's films, does not come to the main character of the film, gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), like it does to Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) in Raging Bull or even Jesus (Willem Dafoe) in The Last Temptation of Christ.
The film is also different from others in the gangster genre in that it doesn't revel in its depiction of violence such as the toll booth scene in The Godfather where Sonny Corleone (James Caan) is murdered, or the final scene of Brian De Palma's Scarface where we meet Tony Montana's (Al Pacino) "little friend." Instead, we are presented with an extraordinarily complex and exciting film that speaks to us on many levels, and grips us as only a classic can.
The film opens up with the credits speeding past us as we hear cars zoom by over the soundtrack. We know we're in for a ride. The first shot of the film is of the three main characters, Henry Hill, Jimmy Conway, and Tommy DeVito (played by Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci, respectively) driving down the highway at night. They pull the car over to investigate a strange thumping that has woken Jimmy and Tommy from sleep. The thumping is coming from the trunk. As Henry prepares to open up the trunk, Tommy pulls a butcher's knife from his waist. We know what to expect, and it's exactly that -- a battered and bloodied man that simply refuses to die, much to the annoyance of Tommy and Jimmy. After a couple of extra stabs from the knife, and some gunshots from Jimmy, the man is finally dead.
Scorsese then uses a simple zoom shot, coupled with a voice-over from Henry, followed by Rags to Riches by Tony Bennett to set up the entire premise of the film. The look on Henry's face during the close-up isn't exactly one of anguish or regret, but we can tell that he's thinking something along the lines of "What have I gotten myself into?" or "I can't believe that there's a dead man in my trunk!" His expression doesn't convey these feelings overtly, but couple it with the fact that he just stands back and watches his friends mutilate this man intensely, without participating, and we can tell that he is a man who is somewhat out of his element.
And yet as Henry slams the trunk closed, we hear his voice-over: "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." The viewer is now posed with an interesting juxtaposition. Henry is somewhat uneasy with his position in life, and yet this is the life that he has chosen for himself. Being a gangster isn't quite what he expected. And what did he expect? Scorsese answers that question for us perfectly by choosing to use Rags to Riches.
This is a trademark of Martin Scorsese; the ability to choose popular songs that not only entertain the audience, but also serve to move the film along by supplementing the plot and by evoking certain feelings in the audience that he wants to evoke. These things add a new dimension to the film, making it much more robust and complete.
The title of the song shows how Henry felt drawn in by the lure of easy money, and a lot of it. The light mood also suggests an exciting atmosphere that could entice someone into entering the world of organized crime, by portraying it as fun and exhilarating (a voice-over from Henry after the song ends explains to us exactly how he was enticed by this life). And as we hear this upbeat song, Henry's expression tells us that maybe this life's not all it's cracked up to be. That demonstrates the extent of Martin Scorsese's talent, the ability to present us with so much important information in such a small amount of time without being so overt and garish about it.
Another absolutely brilliant example of Scorsese's ability to have music add a new dimension to the film comes at the opening of the scene where Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) gets killed by Tommy over a small argument. We learn in this scene that Batts is the man in the trunk in the beginning of the film. This sequence is how they reached that point earlier in the night.
At the opening of the sequence we hear He's Sure The Boy I Love by The Crystals. Listen closely to the lyrics, and just as with Rags to Riches, we see that not only has the immediate future been foreshadowed for us, but so has the rest on Henry's life.
Always dreamed the boy I love would come along
He'd be tall and handsome, rich and strong
Now that boy I love has come to me
But he sure ain't what I thought he'd be.
Just as with Rags to Riches, these lyrics show that Henry had a idealized view of life in the mafia, and things didn't turn out exactly how he envisioned them. As Henry puts it: "Hits just became a habit for some of the guys." This was not the mafia that Henry wanted to be a member of. His apprehension is captured not only in the opening scene, as previously explained, but also by his silence at Tommy's mother's house after they beat Batts up.
Scorsese continues to present us with conflicting ideas about life in the mafia. A voice-over from Henry describes how the mafia and Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino), the neighborhood boss, simply "offer protection for people who can't go to the cops - a police department for wiseguys." During this voice-over, Scorsese has a slow zoom on Paulie as he chews on his sandwich. By listening to Henry, and seeing the quiet confidence that Paulie exudes, we learn that this a man that Henry admires a great deal.
And yet, a jump-cut to Henry dousing a parking lot full of cars with gasoline shows that this same man to whom he looks up to so much, is also willing to send him into a life-threatening situation. Henry at this age doesn't yet realize this duplicitous nature of the mafia -- the fun and excitement you have, and the big bucks that go along with that, mirrored by the threat of incarceration or death at any time, even at the hands of your friends. The duplicity of the mafia is also symbolized by a single shot later on in the film in which we see movers transporting a large mirror into the restaurant that the men frequent, and in which Paulie just became a partner. Seeing a large reflection from the mirror dominate the frame, we are reminded that these men's actions can also have dire consequences. To prove this, only seconds later, we see the owner of the restaurant and his colleagues forced into burning it down, because they ran out of credit, and can no longer take out a loan from the bank.
It is most interesting to note that even though this duplicity of the mafia exists, the gangsters themselves try their hardest to deny it, as is evidenced by "the two greatest things in life" that Jimmy tells Henry after his first arrest, "never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut." But since Henry never really seemed to belong in the first place, we can tell that there is no way that Henry will ever be able to abide by this code of ethics. This is Henry's duplicitous nature; the want and need to fit in with the gangsters, even though he will always be unable to do so. He even goes so far as to tell us later on in a voice-over that he can never be a "made man", because you couldn't trace his entire bloodline back to the old country.
So once again Scorsese gives us just the right amount of important information. He is foreshadowing Henry's future, but not being overt about it. We now know that at some point during the film, Henry will become estranged from this life he loves so much, but since Scorsese hasn't given too much away, he draws us into the film even more, anxiously awaiting this moment, and extremely interested in seeing how it gets to that point.
Fast forward a few years to the now grown up Henry, and as the camera pans up from his expensive leather shoes to his fancy suit to his face, we see that he has done very well for himself. He still hasn't seen the bad side of the mafia, and enjoys the good side of it immensely. He introduces us to all of his friends. He wants us to see how enjoyable this life is, and so does Scorsese as well. Scorsese uses a Steadicam tracking shot to bring us along with Henry as we meet his friends. We are practically walking along side of Henry, enjoying the atmosphere and having just as much as fun as he is.
Later on in the film, this excitement is shown to us once again, as Henry escorts his date Karen (Lorraine Bracco), whom he later marries, through the back corridors of the Copa Cabana, so they don't have to wait on line. Using another Steadicam shot, we follow the two of them as the make their way to the front dining room. Karen, seeing Henry escape the long lines and the long wait is in awe as the waitstaff brings out a whole extra table just for the two of them. She is impressed, and we can't help but be impressed as well, both by Henry's influence and Scorsese's ability to make such an incredible shot happen. It is truly one of the most spectacular sequences ever captured on film, in my opinion.
As was mentioned in the introduction, one of the things that sets this film apart from other gangster movies is the fact that it doesn't glorify violence in any way. Scorsese has always had the ability to present violence in a real and natural way, the way that it occurs in real life.
One good example of this takes place when Henry's girlfriend Karen tells him about an incident that just occurred, where an old friend of hers had just physically and sexually assaulted her. Instead of being garish and showy about it, Scorsese simply shows Henry slowly crossing the street, confronting the man, pistol-whipping him repeatedly, and then crossing the street back to Karen's house. Indeed, seeing Henry pistol-whip the man is frightening, but it certainly doesn't seem outlandish or unrealistic. And by showing Henry crossing the street as his anger builds, Scorsese shows us Henry's motivation for doing this. Thereby, we can almost empathize with Henry, even somewhat agreeing with his actions.
Another way that GoodFellas departs from standard gangster film fare is in how it portrays the day-to-day life of the gangsters. In a sequence in the middle of the movie, the point of view shifts to Karen as a voice-over from her describes to us how their life was just as normal as everyone else's, as we see them all celebrate family functions, vacations, and poker games with each other. Scorsese brilliantly shows us still photos of their families, celebrating and partying. From these pictures, we can get a sense that this could easily be any one of us and our families.
And then Scorsese quickly depicts another double nature of the mob. After these photos, we cut to Henry and Karen talking as they get dressed for the day ahead. Henry unloads wads of money from his pants as the camera pans over the dozens of suits that Henry owns. Cut to Karen getting dressed, and we see the equally shocking amount of dresses that she has. They try to live like normal people, but they're obviously not.
And as Henry tries his best to live the kind of life he always thought he would lead, circumstances around him continually interfere with his dream. He thought that he would have no problem being married to his wife and having an affair on the side, but his wife's pugnacity stand in his way. As he tries to make his money the only way he knows how, Tommy's hotheadedness and the general violence around him stand in his way as well. Scorsese shows us all this happening, scene by scene, until it culminates in Henry's initial downfall, a ten-year prison sentence. Strangely enough, while behind bars, Henry actually resumes his dream life, as him and Paul, and other gangsters lived in their own separate ward, cooked their own lavish dinners, and had other advantages that weren't afforded to regular inmates.
It was also in prison that the ground was laid for Henry's ultimate downfall. In order to save up some extra money to provide for his family, Henry was forced to sell drugs in prison. He found this to be a spectacular way to make money, so he decided to continue dealing after he got out, much to the behest of Paulie. As he continued to sell drugs, he became an addict himself. His mounting drug problem was disguised by his excitement over the largest robbery in American history, the Lufthansa heist, masterminded by Jimmy, as well as the news that Tommy was going to become a "made" man. Things begin to come crashing down for Henry after Jimmy starts murdering all of his Lufthansa accomplices, and Tommy gets killed as retribution for having killed Billy Batts.
Fast forward to May 11, 1980, and Scorsese presents us with one of the most unnerving, yet impressive sequences in the movie. Henry has many things on his mind, he has guns to deliver to Jimmy, drugs to deliver to his Pittsburgh connection, pick his brother up at the hospital, among other things, and on top of everything, he has to cook dinner for his family that night. The entire time he is high on cocaine, and is continually paranoid about being followed by the cops. Scorsese perfectly conveys to us Henry's paranoia and his rush to get everything done on time. Through the use of highly-charged music and camera action, we experience exactly what Henry is experiencing. Scorsese simulates Henry's paranoia and fear perfectly through various jump cuts, jerky camera movements, frenetic pans, and quick forward and backward zooms.
After Henry is arrested for his drug involvement. His paranoia increased two-fold. He is now not worried by the threat of incarceration, he is worried that his "wiseguy" friends are going to make an attempt on his life, if they think that he might "rat" them out in order to avoid prosecution. Henry has a plan to sell some cocaine he had hidden and use the money to escape and lay low for a while, but he hits rockbottom when he discovers that Karen has flushed the drugs down the toilet. In one of the most powerful moments in the movie, we see Henry's desperation as he realizes that he is trapped, and his life has, for all intents and purposes, come to an unfortunate end. The acting here in this scene is so commanding and forceful, that we can't help but feel the same pain and desperation that the two of them experienced at that very moment.
Scorsese also shows us that Henry's paranoia has spread to Karen in a very deft way. As Henry explains to her that if they stay in their current situation they're as good as dead, Karen scoffs at Henry, calling him too paranoid. We immediate cut to Karen talking with Jimmy, as he tries to measure just how much Henry is a risk to turn him in. Jimmy offers Karen some dresses from his new business and points them out in a storefront down the street from where they were talking. Right after she had just denied the gravity of the situation to Henry, Karen gets hit by a bout of paranoia herself, sensing that she is being set up to be killed.
The most brilliant of camera techniques that Scorsese uses to show Henry's fear and paranoia comes during a meeting at a diner with Jimmy to assess Henry's drug trial. He uses an interested effect that has been used before in such movies as Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, and Steven Spielberg's Jaws. There is no doubt that Scorsese has these scenes in mind when composing his. The effect, "which is achieved by simultaneously zooming the camera's lens in one direction while tracking the camera in the other" (Kolker, 1995), gives the illusion of the background outside the diner closing in on the foreground inside the diner. We are now practically inside Henry's mind. Everything is closing in on him, his world rapidly collapsing, and Scorsese captures Henry's psychology perfectly.
Henry has now realized that he's a good as dead, and he decides to turn State's evidence and testify against his gangster colleagues, Jimmy and Paulie included, in order to avoid both prison and death at the hands of the same men. An interesting scene takes place as Henry and Karen talk to a government official about being placed in the Federal Witness Relocation Program. The official is not played by an actor, rather it is Edward McDonald, the very same official who placed the real Henry and Karen Hill into the Witness Relocation Program. Also of note is the fact that their entire discussion in the movie came directly from the transcripts of the original meeting with the real Henry and Karen Hill.
Up to this point, we were participants in this film only through Scorsese's brilliant direction. But now that Henry has sealed his fate, testifying against his "friends" (disregarding Jimmy's "two greatest things in life" advice in the process), Scorsese takes us one step further, as Henry now talks directly to us. Henry reminisces to us about "the good ol' days," but he hits us with the stark truth, in essence not just speaking to the audience, but to himself as well -- "and now it's all over."
But is it? As we see Henry, relocated somewhere out in suburbia, pick up his newspaper, he tells us that he can't get spaghetti and marinara sauce, only egg noodles and ketchup, and that he has to live the rest of his life like "a schnook." As soon as he tells us this, we see Tommy in medium close-up fire his gun directly at us. We know from earlier in the film that he's already dead, so we immediately know that this serves no purpose to the plot of the movie. Scorsese has once again put us inside Henry's mind. This shot sums up, in a very short amount of time, the exhilaration and excitement that Henry felt during his best times as a member of the mafia. And as Tommy empties his gun at us, we hear Sid Vicious' rendition of the Frank Sinatra classic, My Way. What are the first words we hear? "Regrets, I've had a few..." Just another example of Scorsese's command of the material.
Another talent of Martin Scorsese that is demonstrated by GoodFellas is the ability to bring the best performances out of his actors. His collaboration with Robert De Niro on eight pictures, including this one, is legendary. In those eight films, De Niro has been nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award on three occasions, winning the award in 1980 for Raging Bull. Even though De Niro wasn't nominated for an Oscar in GoodFellas, both Joe Pesci and Lorraine Bracco were, with Pesci winning the Best Supporting Actor award, and Bracco losing out to Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost for Best Supporting Actress.
Great performances are given throughout, from Paul Sorvino's intimidating presence as the mob boss, and Frank DiLeo (ex-manager for Michael Jackson, in his first ever acting appearance) as his brother Tuddy, to Chuck Low, as the irritating and annoying Morris (Morrie) Kessler. Even Scorsese's own parents, whom he has used multiple times in his pictures, deliver solid performances. His mother Catherine, is simply perfect, offering a nice comic touch to the film as Tommy's mother. His father Charles, in a smaller role as Vinnie, an aged gangster, brings a certain class and panache to the role.
Not only are the individual's performances noteworthy, but the chemistry among the actors is, as well. Several scenes, including Tommy and Henry preparing the restaurant to be burned down (which was improvised), Jimmy physically intimidating Morrie over a debt he owes, and the post-drug arrest scene between Henry and Karen previously mentioned, among many, many others, all demonstrate the superlative acting and interacting of all the performers involved. All of the actors freely admit that it was Scorsese's capacity to create a strong working atmosphere, along with his ability to tap directly into the soul of each character, that helped them each deliver the performance of a lifetime.
GoodFellas, even though it failed to win, was nominated for Best Picture by the Academy in 1990. It garnered six total nominations, including Best Director and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium nominations for Martin Scorsese. Unfortunately, the shortsightedness of the Academy gave the Best Director Oscar to Kevin Costner and the Best Screenplay Oscar to Michael Blake, both for Dances With Wolves. The Academy has never been able to sense a true classic immediately however, seeing as how Scorsese has yet to win Best Director, and it took Steven Spielberg nearly twenty years to finally win his award. It did, however, win the immediate admiration of critics across the country. It was named the best film of the year by both the New York and Los Angeles Society of Film Critics, as well as the National Society of Film Critics. That's not to mention the fact the Roger Ebert called it "The best mob movie ever."
GoodFellas is a movie where the whole is most definitely greater than the sum of its parts. When examining all of the criteria that I have established throughout this paper, and to watch the film with all of these in mind, one gets the feeling that they are watching a masterpiece. That's not to mention the fact that the film as a whole has such a beautiful feel to it, that one can't but help think that they are viewing a true piece of art.
Its images are poetry, its performances electrifying. Add to that, the ability for Martin Scorsese, America's greatest living director, to carry out his creative vision with such pinpoint precision, only furthers the notion that GoodFellas is a bonafide "American Masterwork."