Goodfellas ~ Martin Scorcese (1990)
This film was quite a surprise. I don't normally enjoy films set in a gangster/mafia environment but I liked this one - a lot. It's always a fascinating conundrum deciding my feelings on a film. Some say a film's greatness has nothing to do with its genre, yet if a film is in an uninteresting or even unpleasant setting it's hard to remove that from my opinion. And, beyond that, if a film has too many elements that throw me out of the viewing experience can I really consider it a great movie? Goodfellas is quite violent, has characters that I don't care for, and is set in a world I find unpleasant, yet I did enjoy it in many ways. It's not going to be a huge favorite, but it is a masterpiece.
Goodfellas, a mid-career triumph for Scorcese, is virtuoso filmmaking. It's audacious, thrilling, wildly creative, and horribly violent. Based on a book about the career of a gangster in New York from 1955 to 1980, these men are despicable. Proclaiming the importance of loyalty, family, and trust, they turn in an instant into raging monsters if they feel they have been dishonored or undermined.
Scorcese knew this world well, having grown up in an Italian neighborhood in New York and seeing these men in their element. His camera work is stunning. The editing is brilliant and startling, with some famous long shots and unusual cutting. Even better, all this technical brilliance is never obtrusive or flashy but truly serves the emotional narrative. The acting from Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci is tremendous, with Pesci earning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as Tommy DeVito (described in a Premiere magazine as "perhaps the single most irredeemable character ever put on film"). The film is revered by many, ranking #48 in the 2012 S&S Directors Poll in a massive 11-way tie with the likes of Pather Panchali, Pickpocket, Lawrence of Arabia, L'Eclisse, Man With a Movie Camera, Psycho, The Searchers, Rear Window, etc. I feel this ranking is easily justified. The picture also earned multiple Oscar nominations, the BAFTA for Best Film and Best Director, and recognition as one of the best-editied films of all time in a survey by members of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. It won awards at the Venice Film Festival and a long list of awards from critics associations. It's widely considered one of the best crime/gangster films of all time and was a major influence on the heralded televisions series The Sopranos. In fact, a number of actors from Goodfellas also were in the Sopranos cast.
The film glorifies this lifestyle and these men who embody it. It's been described as a middle class, blue collar, gritty, look into this world as opposed to the operatic, classical view we see in The Godfather. These are not the elite mafiosi, but the men in the street getting their hands dirty. I consider Goodfellas more artistically creative, and The Godfather a bit more universally appreciated.
The film has been a wide influence on later films, and I especially found the comments from Frank Darabont on the 2004 Warner Brothers Two-Disc Special Edition DVD I own to be interesting. Darabont directed The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption, and developed and executive produced the first season of The Walking Dead. In his interview, Darabont echoes the praise for the creative editing of Goodfellas, and said that during the entire filming of Shawshank he watched Goodfellas every weekend for creative inspiration. Even the music in the film is masterful. Rather than a cue-driven composed score, Scorcese made perfect use of popular music of the day to set a mood and portray the passage of time.
Goodfellas was an adaptation of the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the script with Scorcese. It's based on the true story of Henry Hill as told to Pileggi. Hill left his life behind to join the witness protection system and testified against several former associates. He served as an adviser on the film.
So, where do I stand with my thoughts on the film? Comparing it to other films, I find it to be a more profound extension of the creative style first seen in works such as Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. I find it even more impressive than Raging Bull or The Godfather, and more gripping to watch than Raging Bull. These despicable men do get their comeuppance by the end, as they all end up either dead, in prison, or having to give up their life and go into hiding. Despite that, along the way they get glamorized a lot and we have to watch them do a lot of brutal things. It's a film that is a must-watch, but in the end there were quite a few moments where I kept thinking, "Marty, we get it, they've evil men, you don't have to keep showing us so many examples of depravity." For filmmaking it's a masterpiece and I would grade it A+, but it is so brutal to watch that I'm going to rate it A-, the same as The Bicycle Thieves. Like that movie, it's a masterpiece of world cinema that rewards repeat viewings but has aspects that are just grueling to watch. Don't let that stop you though. A-
Goodfellas, a mid-career triumph for Scorcese, is virtuoso filmmaking. It's audacious, thrilling, wildly creative, and horribly violent. Based on a book about the career of a gangster in New York from 1955 to 1980, these men are despicable. Proclaiming the importance of loyalty, family, and trust, they turn in an instant into raging monsters if they feel they have been dishonored or undermined.
Scorcese knew this world well, having grown up in an Italian neighborhood in New York and seeing these men in their element. His camera work is stunning. The editing is brilliant and startling, with some famous long shots and unusual cutting. Even better, all this technical brilliance is never obtrusive or flashy but truly serves the emotional narrative. The acting from Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, and Joe Pesci is tremendous, with Pesci earning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as Tommy DeVito (described in a Premiere magazine as "perhaps the single most irredeemable character ever put on film"). The film is revered by many, ranking #48 in the 2012 S&S Directors Poll in a massive 11-way tie with the likes of Pather Panchali, Pickpocket, Lawrence of Arabia, L'Eclisse, Man With a Movie Camera, Psycho, The Searchers, Rear Window, etc. I feel this ranking is easily justified. The picture also earned multiple Oscar nominations, the BAFTA for Best Film and Best Director, and recognition as one of the best-editied films of all time in a survey by members of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. It won awards at the Venice Film Festival and a long list of awards from critics associations. It's widely considered one of the best crime/gangster films of all time and was a major influence on the heralded televisions series The Sopranos. In fact, a number of actors from Goodfellas also were in the Sopranos cast.
The film glorifies this lifestyle and these men who embody it. It's been described as a middle class, blue collar, gritty, look into this world as opposed to the operatic, classical view we see in The Godfather. These are not the elite mafiosi, but the men in the street getting their hands dirty. I consider Goodfellas more artistically creative, and The Godfather a bit more universally appreciated.
The film has been a wide influence on later films, and I especially found the comments from Frank Darabont on the 2004 Warner Brothers Two-Disc Special Edition DVD I own to be interesting. Darabont directed The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption, and developed and executive produced the first season of The Walking Dead. In his interview, Darabont echoes the praise for the creative editing of Goodfellas, and said that during the entire filming of Shawshank he watched Goodfellas every weekend for creative inspiration. Even the music in the film is masterful. Rather than a cue-driven composed score, Scorcese made perfect use of popular music of the day to set a mood and portray the passage of time.
Goodfellas was an adaptation of the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the script with Scorcese. It's based on the true story of Henry Hill as told to Pileggi. Hill left his life behind to join the witness protection system and testified against several former associates. He served as an adviser on the film.
So, where do I stand with my thoughts on the film? Comparing it to other films, I find it to be a more profound extension of the creative style first seen in works such as Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. I find it even more impressive than Raging Bull or The Godfather, and more gripping to watch than Raging Bull. These despicable men do get their comeuppance by the end, as they all end up either dead, in prison, or having to give up their life and go into hiding. Despite that, along the way they get glamorized a lot and we have to watch them do a lot of brutal things. It's a film that is a must-watch, but in the end there were quite a few moments where I kept thinking, "Marty, we get it, they've evil men, you don't have to keep showing us so many examples of depravity." For filmmaking it's a masterpiece and I would grade it A+, but it is so brutal to watch that I'm going to rate it A-, the same as The Bicycle Thieves. Like that movie, it's a masterpiece of world cinema that rewards repeat viewings but has aspects that are just grueling to watch. Don't let that stop you though. A-