GOODFELLAS
April 3rd 2010 05:58
"As far back as I can remember - I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being president."
GoodFellas is a film that I have watched, repeatedly, more times than any other. It’s as seductive in it’s making as it is in the lifestyle it’s story portrays. It’s enormous attention to detail and richness is so beautifully crafted and orchestrated that it allows you to watch it over and over, always giving way to new discoveries every time. Yes it’s true, you are in the hands of a master while watching it, but could it be that this time director Martin Scorsese has chosen the path of pure style and story telling at the peril of sacrificing the very thing that made him a great director in the first place?
Martin Scorsese had set an unprecedented bench mark for being one of the few film makers who had the ability to merge the masterful craftsmanship of Fillini, Welles and Powell, all astonishing technicians. At once, his films also had the human foresight and enlightenment of Rossellini, Ozu and Cassavetes – film makers who spent their entire life plumbing the depths of the human soul. It can be said that those two styles of film making do not compliment each other easily. Scorsese by his own admission said he saw Welles’ Citizen Kane and Cassavetes’ Shadows and said that he has been trying to combine the two ever since, hardly a modest ambition. Films like Raging Bull or Taxi Driver are testaments of this passion, which has allowed him to deserve all the kudos he has received. However, I feel that Good Fellas for, better or worse, marked a very big change in direction for him.
Many things make an impact in Good Fellas, it’s furious velocity, it’s violence, the music, the alluring yet frightening gallery of characters, the precision camera and editing. From the opening credits, it is immediately clear that Good Fellas intends to be a slave to it’s chosen style of story telling as the screen title overstays it’s welcome, waiting for the bar of music on it’s soundtrack to conclude. The style never the less is a dazzling one. It has all the inventiveness and over confidence of a maestro at full volume and like the film’s characters, it never misses a chance to showboat.
For any of you that haven’t seen Good Fellas, it tells the true story of Henry Hill, who joined the Italian mafia as a teenager and would be there for a large portion of his adult life. Henry as a young man is dazzled by the power, money and lifestyle of these Mafiosos – and so are we - as we’re witness to the story that unfolds from his point of view. Henry Hill is played perfectly by Ray Liotta, an actor who has had a rocky career. This would be the highlight of it and the greatest performance he ever gave as he portrays a young man you could be likened to a Ferrari without breaks. His crew is lead by the silent but very deadly, Jimmy Conway (played cool and precisely by Robert DeNiro). The film is stolen, however, by Joe Pesci, who plays the crew’s muscle, the unbelievably volatile and frighteningly psychopathic Tommy. Loraine Bracco plays Hill’s wife. Bracco is another actress who made some poor choices and performance in her career and Good Fellas was a highlight for her.
The first half of Good Fellas plays like a grand embroidery of glorious story telling and design through the scrupulous production design and elegant cinematography of Michael Ballhaus. You see the glitz and glamour, these characters who run the mob are treated and live like movie stars. The clothing, the food, the women, the cars, which are presented in dazzling, cinematic fashion. All of these are bells and whistles to distract you from the harsh reality of the story’s unflinching violence. When Good Fellas was released in cinemas it’s graphic violence was unmatched, it took the graphic reality of killing to a new understanding.
During the second half of the film after several acts of senseless violence go too far, Henry’s crew start paying the price. The romance is over, the crooning, wall to wall, ‘Tony Bennet type’ soundtrack gets bulldozed through by The Rolling Stones, Cream and the Sex Pistols. It’s luxurious, unending tracking shots are replaced by paranoid, fast cuts. The self assured, smooth narration of Henry Hill makes way for a paranoid, coked out rant. You are sent on a hell of a ride, yet the film always retains it’s sense of polish. No matter what happens, it’s always clear that the raw truthfulness of Raging Bull and Mean Streets are a thing of the past. So much so that Scorsese almost seems to be making a statement about it. Maybe for some people this is a good thing, but for me it marked a changed for him as a film maker, someone no longer as interested in film making as a means of human exploration or art but rather in the art of film making itself.
Good Fellas seems to take a shopping list approach to story telling. There are so many facts and events for it to get through and it’s pulled off with great skill. The script by Nicholas Pileggi is based on his research in the gritty inner workings of organized crime. Even though the film’s style feels polished, it’s content never feels glamorised, it still manages to regularly get down and dirty in it’s own way as it continues to overload your senses with it’s visuals and soundtrack.
Roger Ebert said the Good Fellas was the greatest gangster film ever made. This made me wander, compared to other gangster films, is it really? Good Fellas is not at all interested in the romance of The God Father and I appreciate it’s unsentimental views. It certainly IS interested, however, in the shocking human consequence of violence and retribution, but never goes as deeply into it as Abel Farrera did in ‘The Funeral’. It’s definitely interested in the historical landscape of immoral conduct and power, but doesn’t touch on that like Sergio Leone did in ‘Once Upon a Time In America’. Good Fellas main interest is in the most detailed, almost mechanical, inside out workings of the Mob and for what it sets out to do it provides an unimaginably breath taking thrill ride that never has a quiet moment. Huge entertainment – and yes one of the greatest Gangster films ever, but definitely not the kind of masterpiece that Martin Scorsese has proven to be capable of making.
Below I have included one of the most memorable scenes in the film, a classic scene involving a scary Joe Pesci toying with Ray Liotta
GOODFELLAS
A Martin Scorsese picture
GoodFellas is a film that I have watched, repeatedly, more times than any other. It’s as seductive in it’s making as it is in the lifestyle it’s story portrays. It’s enormous attention to detail and richness is so beautifully crafted and orchestrated that it allows you to watch it over and over, always giving way to new discoveries every time. Yes it’s true, you are in the hands of a master while watching it, but could it be that this time director Martin Scorsese has chosen the path of pure style and story telling at the peril of sacrificing the very thing that made him a great director in the first place?
Martin Scorsese had set an unprecedented bench mark for being one of the few film makers who had the ability to merge the masterful craftsmanship of Fillini, Welles and Powell, all astonishing technicians. At once, his films also had the human foresight and enlightenment of Rossellini, Ozu and Cassavetes – film makers who spent their entire life plumbing the depths of the human soul. It can be said that those two styles of film making do not compliment each other easily. Scorsese by his own admission said he saw Welles’ Citizen Kane and Cassavetes’ Shadows and said that he has been trying to combine the two ever since, hardly a modest ambition. Films like Raging Bull or Taxi Driver are testaments of this passion, which has allowed him to deserve all the kudos he has received. However, I feel that Good Fellas for, better or worse, marked a very big change in direction for him.
Ray Liotta and Paul Sorvino in GoodFellas
Many things make an impact in Good Fellas, it’s furious velocity, it’s violence, the music, the alluring yet frightening gallery of characters, the precision camera and editing. From the opening credits, it is immediately clear that Good Fellas intends to be a slave to it’s chosen style of story telling as the screen title overstays it’s welcome, waiting for the bar of music on it’s soundtrack to conclude. The style never the less is a dazzling one. It has all the inventiveness and over confidence of a maestro at full volume and like the film’s characters, it never misses a chance to showboat.
For any of you that haven’t seen Good Fellas, it tells the true story of Henry Hill, who joined the Italian mafia as a teenager and would be there for a large portion of his adult life. Henry as a young man is dazzled by the power, money and lifestyle of these Mafiosos – and so are we - as we’re witness to the story that unfolds from his point of view. Henry Hill is played perfectly by Ray Liotta, an actor who has had a rocky career. This would be the highlight of it and the greatest performance he ever gave as he portrays a young man you could be likened to a Ferrari without breaks. His crew is lead by the silent but very deadly, Jimmy Conway (played cool and precisely by Robert DeNiro). The film is stolen, however, by Joe Pesci, who plays the crew’s muscle, the unbelievably volatile and frighteningly psychopathic Tommy. Loraine Bracco plays Hill’s wife. Bracco is another actress who made some poor choices and performance in her career and Good Fellas was a highlight for her.
The volatile Tommy, played by Joe Pesci, takes a joke too far!
The first half of Good Fellas plays like a grand embroidery of glorious story telling and design through the scrupulous production design and elegant cinematography of Michael Ballhaus. You see the glitz and glamour, these characters who run the mob are treated and live like movie stars. The clothing, the food, the women, the cars, which are presented in dazzling, cinematic fashion. All of these are bells and whistles to distract you from the harsh reality of the story’s unflinching violence. When Good Fellas was released in cinemas it’s graphic violence was unmatched, it took the graphic reality of killing to a new understanding.
During the second half of the film after several acts of senseless violence go too far, Henry’s crew start paying the price. The romance is over, the crooning, wall to wall, ‘Tony Bennet type’ soundtrack gets bulldozed through by The Rolling Stones, Cream and the Sex Pistols. It’s luxurious, unending tracking shots are replaced by paranoid, fast cuts. The self assured, smooth narration of Henry Hill makes way for a paranoid, coked out rant. You are sent on a hell of a ride, yet the film always retains it’s sense of polish. No matter what happens, it’s always clear that the raw truthfulness of Raging Bull and Mean Streets are a thing of the past. So much so that Scorsese almost seems to be making a statement about it. Maybe for some people this is a good thing, but for me it marked a changed for him as a film maker, someone no longer as interested in film making as a means of human exploration or art but rather in the art of film making itself.
Good Fellas seems to take a shopping list approach to story telling. There are so many facts and events for it to get through and it’s pulled off with great skill. The script by Nicholas Pileggi is based on his research in the gritty inner workings of organized crime. Even though the film’s style feels polished, it’s content never feels glamorised, it still manages to regularly get down and dirty in it’s own way as it continues to overload your senses with it’s visuals and soundtrack.
"where's my money!"
Roger Ebert said the Good Fellas was the greatest gangster film ever made. This made me wander, compared to other gangster films, is it really? Good Fellas is not at all interested in the romance of The God Father and I appreciate it’s unsentimental views. It certainly IS interested, however, in the shocking human consequence of violence and retribution, but never goes as deeply into it as Abel Farrera did in ‘The Funeral’. It’s definitely interested in the historical landscape of immoral conduct and power, but doesn’t touch on that like Sergio Leone did in ‘Once Upon a Time In America’. Good Fellas main interest is in the most detailed, almost mechanical, inside out workings of the Mob and for what it sets out to do it provides an unimaginably breath taking thrill ride that never has a quiet moment. Huge entertainment – and yes one of the greatest Gangster films ever, but definitely not the kind of masterpiece that Martin Scorsese has proven to be capable of making.
Below I have included one of the most memorable scenes in the film, a classic scene involving a scary Joe Pesci toying with Ray Liotta
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
It is the ultimate gangster fairytale for me, hyper reality and distinct style never make it believable drama, but a ferocious morality fable.