MUBI

There is no purer expression of humanity’s lust for power, respect, and dignity than the thousand masks of blood fathered by man as a reminder of his vicious nature; the face of a person drowned in blood, begging for the rest of it not to be taken by a void fist is a common image in a world dominated by the obsession of control. In politics it’s called the big stick policy –whoever holds the bigger one, holds peace–, and on certain streets where certain outsiders struggle to survive, it’s called life.

Throughout Martin Scorsese’s career, violence as an endemic characteristic of society and even as a means of communication has been presented in a raw and explicable yet hard to assimilate manner. On Goodfellas there is no such thing as pointless violence, but a tradition that outsiders living in the safer, more Western, more American parts of New York City just can’t understand, while a group of gangsters live on speaking through the barrels of their guns.

The story of what could be Scorsese’s most personal film follows a group of Italian gangsters from the early fifties to the eighties, becoming a radiography of a small orb of immigrant Mafiosi as they commence to relate to the world that surrounds them and their own Honorable Society, as they call the Cosa Nostra in Sicily.

Even though many would classify the characters in Goodfellas –and their real life counterparts– as nihilists, these remnants of ancient kingdoms ruled by the laws of the blooded steel are savage memories that dwell the sidewalks playing cards for a reason: they give balance to the American fantasy, and though such isn’t an acceptable raison d’être, the behavior of the streets is deaf to social conventions.

The protagonist, Henry Hill –played masterfully by Ray Liotta–, along with his brutal friends and bosses, is a cynical portrayal of a time and space away from the modern ideals of morality. To these men it’s of gargantuan importance not to mix with the culture around them, so they build their microcosm based on violence, loyalty, respect, and a certain fear of acculturation, of which, the refusal to the latter characteristic could, according to the more traditional Paulie –a slow and cool Paul Sorvino–, bring the end of their organization.

Certainly does the Western greed become a problem for the characters, since the breaking of their family-like dynamics introduced by the need for more money and the power and independence it brings along is what causes the crackdown on their society. More specifically, Paulie’s fears are made come true as his “crew” starts getting involved with drugs, a business that more traditional Mafiosi never liked since before the days of the Castellammarese War, fought in the early thirties between rival Italian gangs in America. To many bosses like Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather –based on Mafia headmen like Carlo Gambino and, mainly, Frank Costello–, drugs weren’t only nasty, but also cop magnets, so, to them, they only meant trouble.

It’s a strange morality the one of the gangsters in the film, since the old bosses dislike drugs, but stealing and killing aren’t seen as dangerous activities and they’re actually carefully planned and permitted matters, as the case of Billy “Batts” and its eventual consequences illustrate, for they explain what happens to those who break the ancient rules and decide to be outsiders, an ironic adjective since all the men in the American Mafia are natural born pariahs, just like Scorsese himself felt like when he couldn’t go out to play with other children due to his asthmatic condition.

Scorsese relates to this film even more than many others in his entire body of work because of several reasons: growing up in an Italian household showed him what a tight family bond means, and his camera captures the equally fuelled relationship among the gangsters who share a fraternal link, except when they don’t play by the rules or greed or paranoia step in the way.

On the other hand there’s the portrayal of the sociopathic Tommy –the majestic and frighteningly insensitive Joe Pesci– and his relationship to his mother, which at times seems like a staging of Scorsese and his own mother, who actually plays the role of the abnegated Italian housewife, making the film, along with the appearance of Scorsese’s father as Vinnie, an even more personal experience.

Henry’s drug problems seem to reflect Scorsese’s struggle with cocaine in the late seventies, when, after the disaster that New York, New York represented, the director was dragged by tears into depression and addiction. These experiences seem reflected in the sequence in which Henry has paranoid fantasies –which turn out to be true– while he drives from one place to another before he gets arrested, which is a mixture of Thelma Schoonmaker’s violent editing of both the fast, mind-boggling visuals, and the Rock n’Roll soundtrack, which completely forgets about the opera arias and Italian crooners in favor of a hard rocking sound that expresses the baffled, chronic-hangover-like state of Henry’s mind.

Overall, Goodfellas is a masterpiece in both style and story; its documentary-like plot, which keeps giving away details of what it means to be a Mafioso is superb as it unfolds and grabs the viewer until the very last image, in which Scorsese pays homage to Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery by putting Joe Pesci’s character to make a last act of defiance by shooting into the audience after Henry’s regrets are heard in the background.

In terms of the technical aspects, the film is amazing; the camera movements are very expressive and there are many wonderful shots that, along with the story, attract the audience to this unknown world and eventually repel and throw them back to their normal lives, creating a visual structure that mimics the behavior of a gangster by starting out as the child of Raoul Coutard’s imagery in Jules et Jim and eventually becoming erratic and out of control, just like the protagonist’s life. An example of the former feel would be the 3 minute-long tracking shot achieved by cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, which follows Henry and Karen through the back entry of the Copacabana and leads the audience into the world of luxury and exclusiveness that surrounds a Mafioso’s life.

The acting is wonderful, since every character is very well crafted by the actors, whose performances vary from the crazed, violent Joe Pesci, to the cool, cynical, and paranoid Robert De Niro, to the amazing Lorraine Bracco, who plays an essential role in the film by representing the ideal of the obedient Italian wife run amok due both to her not being Italian at all and the strength within her that makes her fight for Henry’s love even if it means pointing a gun to his head.

Goodfellas is, in the end, a trip inside the world of the Mafia; a reunion among friends who could pull out a gun in any minute and end the gathering with the roaring of a cannon or with a toast to loyalty without the victim ever feeling the breath of darkness on his shoulder; it’s a history lesson that spits blood as it tells of the rise and decay of a secret empire that has surrendered to circumspection and adopted its surrogate home, thus paying the price of migration.

Goodfellas, how do you describe it? It’s fucking fantastic, in fact I think it’s impossible to describe this film, without swearing like a sailor, so he it is. This film is fucking great, Scorsese fucking kicked the shit out of that flaming heap of shit, Dances with fucking Wolves. Fucking Ray Liotta and Robert mother fucking De Niro are fucking amazingly, fantastically, stupendous, drop-shit great. Martin Scorsese is a fucking great mother fucking film maker, and it definitively fucking shows. The fucking script is fucking amazing, and overall fucking all it is up their with the best films of the fucking 90’s. I am fucking sorry, for any one fucking offended with my fucking review. And I would understand if this got moderated.

Do you like watching Movie Classics or Cinematic Masterpieces? How about films that have lots of violence and swearing? Well if you said yes to either one then go to your local video store and buy Goodfellas on Blu-Ray, DVD, VHS or Laserdisc or torrent that shit because you are the only human beings on earth who hasn’t experienced Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece movie!

Why are you reading review still? You know it’s fucking crazy so go watch it and EXPERIENCE THE MOVIE that BIRTHED The Sopranos……………………….

Few films have ever used music so effectively. Juke Box tunes play throughout to different effect. At times it makes the violence and savagery familiar. A regular occurrence, depriving it of value, the very view of the mobsters themselves. It makes their whole lifestyle seem just the same as any. While at other times it is ironic, showing the ugly dehumanization. The ending song is The Sex Pistols’ rendition of “My Way”, an ironic song itself being originally by traditional swing singers, the very opposite of The Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols add a defiance and violence to “My Way”, making it mean something else. Much like mobsters did with ‘The American Dream’. The song lacks the glamour of the original, much like the mobster loses the glamour it once had.

“What do you mean I’m funny?”

A perfect film. The cocaine—helicopter—spaghetti sauce sequence. De Niro slamming the phone down on its cradle. Pesci shooting a boy in the foot. Liotta addressing the camera in court then on his stoop, in his robe, getting the morning paper like anybody else. Chaffing under anonymity of the witness protection program.

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Dynamic, brilliant masterpiece from Martin Scorsese — one of his greatest films. Based on the true story of mobster Henry Hill (as told in Nicholas Pileggi’s account of his life, Wiseguy), we follow Hill’s indoctrination into “the life” as an 11-year-old in the 1950s, through his rise in the ranks as a gangster in the 1960s and his descent into drugs, betrayal and eventual relocation into the Witness Protection Program in the 1970s and 80s. His closest associates are the quietly brutal Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro) and full-blown psychopath Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), all working under boss Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino). Film starts out showing the easy lure of the glamourous life; Hill taking his wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) through the back-way to the Copacobano (an incredible tracking shot from cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, whose work throughout is incredibly fluid and expressive); freely droping $20 tips to busboys and waiters; and enjoying girlfriends on the side while the wives stay at home with the kids. But things take a turn when Tommy murders “made” mobster Billy Batts (Frank Vincent, who seems to keep getting beaten by Pesci in various Scorsese films), which will surely be avenged. After the crew pulls off the famous Lufthansa heist in 1978, Jimmy will kill his crew before he pays them their share of the take. Pesci won an Oscar for his performance here, but De Niro (great, in his last great role) and Ray Liotta as Hill are equally good. What makes the film unique among mob movies is the focus on the nuts-and-bolts of low level gangster life, rather than the operatic grandeur of The Godfather or Scarface. Also, we can identify with Hill as he seems out of place from the start – always watching from the sidelines, commenting on the action in voice-over, and finally, spilling the beans when he knows the alternative is death. Known for his use of popular music in most of his films, Scorsese pulls out all the stops here with an incredible sountrack, skillfully woven in and around the avant-garde editing of Thelma Schoomaker; the “Sunday May 11, 1980” sequence is a brilliant lesson in picture editing, sound editing and mixing, while depicting with frightful power a drug-fueled paranoia. All of this gives the film an incredible realism (FBI agents frequently cite the film as the most realistic portrayal of the gangster life ever put on screen), while being sytlistically groundbreaking and kinetic. Superb attention to detail rewards the repeat viewer. Absolutely incredible — the work of a master filmmaker at the peak of his form.

I watched this again on a 2-disc Special Edition DVD, which includes a fascinating commentary track with almost all of the cast and crew, and various making-of docs, etc. But the real gold is the second commentary track, with the real-life Henry Hill and the FBI agent who put him away, Edward McDonald (who plays himself in the film). Hearing them riff together like old pals about the events on screen (which are surprisingly true-to-life!) is incredibly entertaining; and hearing regret drip from Hill’s voice throughout is especially poignant. While watching, I did some quick on-line research into the real-life mobsters the characters are based on; although they are brutally violent throughout the film, this is Disney compared to their real-life exploits. Chilling. Only thing missing is a documentary about the real-life characters and the events portrayed.