If we rank top gangster movies, at all cost Goodfellas (1990) will hold any of the top 3 places. It sets a standard for gangster and crime movies. The reason for its success was Martin Scorsese’s beautiful storytelling, great cinematography, excellent video editing, actors who literally live the roles. This movie was adapted from Nicolas pileggi’s book ‘Wiseguy’ which narrates the true life story of real mobster Henry Hill and his crime family (Lucchesse). In general, most gangster movies are focused at the gang’s head and his fights with other gangs. But this movie stood an exception from others, it was completely made to portray the mob lifestyle.
Martin Scorsese shaped the story in three segments. In the first segment, Henry Hill gives introduction about the gangsters life, how they behave in the society, about the boss Paulie Cicero what he does, how he communicates and conduct meetings. Then he tells about his job and the power he owns among the neighborhood and finally about Jimmy. All these narrations are from a newbie or an outsider view.
When Henry grows up, Scorsese takes the movie to next level, in which Henry tells about the Gang’s source of income and Henry’s romance. This time it was narrated by one of the gang member. Scoressese used steady cam shots, minimum cuts and mild violence scenes like threatening mailman, hitting the restaurants owner. It all happen in a funny way.
At the next stage, after whacking Billy Batts, we can feel that the movie is on fire. Henry cheats the women he loves, Jimmy and Henry assaulting Janice’s Boss, Tommy kills innocent Spidey, the Lufthansa heist which was considered to be the biggest heist on that time, Jimmy kills every connections between him, the helicopter scene.
Dramatic closeups adds beauty to every scene, he gives more space to tiny actions in his frames, like unlocking doors, cocaine mixing, violet ballsoin the christmas tree, garlic slicing. The frozen frames to synchronize the Henry Hill’s narration was another beauty added by the editor Thelma Shoonmaker. Martin Scorsese paid his most attention about the actor’s costumes, he made the actors to wear the suit with the colour same to tie because the real wiseguys do like that.
Like this, more tiny pieces of information and the researches done by Nicolas pileggi were utilized in this flim. The actors discussed with Pileggi to mock the real characters. That’s how the main casts Ray Liotta, Robert de Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco worked on their improvisations. Robert de Niro asked Pileggi, how the real Jimmy pours sauce and he used it in the ‘dinner scene’ with Tommy’s mom. Improvisation is the vital key to reality, it is the main tool to engage the audience. That’s why Goodfellas is one the best gangster film of all time.
Joe pesci saw a wiseguy doing like the ‘funny how’ scene to other wiseguy so he insisted Scorsese to adapt it. With that scene Scorsese created chaos, silence, anticipation among the audience. Scorsese gave full freedom to the actors to make up everything.
Robert de Niro’s iconic whacky look was the most brilliant scene done by Scorsese, he shot it in 32 frames per second and his main intention was to match De Niro’s eye movement with the beat of ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ song by Cream. Scorsese said when he wrote the scene, he had decided that song as background. That look explains the decision he made that in spite of sharing the money with the crew and get caught, he decided to kill them all to reduce the risk of getting caught. That look’s effect was shown in a wonderful way as the visuals of dead bodies in the pink car, bodies in the garbage and a body in the frozen container with pop music as background. That’s how Scorsese symbolize that look.
He played with words, like in the scene of Joe pesci packing Billy Batts with table cloth he says to Henry, “I don’t want to get blood on your floor” which delivers two different correct meanings. Scoressese beautifully synchronized the romantic pop music with the violent scenes. He chose red and purple lights in bar scenes. Red light used while whacking Billy Batts, digging up his dead body to express the combination of love and brutality.
Scorsese succeeded in the portrayal of wiseguy’s lifestyle as in the real world and created this masterpiece. It still serves as references to many Quentin Tarantino’s movies and other gangster movies.