Goodfellas: Real Life Stories of the Italian Mobs

Goodfellas is one of the best mafia movies of all time, directed by Martin Scorsese. The movie is influenced by real life events and the stories of the Italian Mobs back in the 60’s and the 70’s. Goodfellas is based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, which revolves around the life of Henry Hill who is also the protagonist in the movie, although all the other characters are seen to be in a somewhat antagonistic characters with each other at varying times throughout the movie.

Scorsese collaborated with Pileggi in the movie, where Scorsese had a very distinct vision of the scenes and the cuts that he wanted to include and Pileggi helped Scorsese on the Screenplay to bring that vision to the screen.

Set in the 1960’s of New York City, the story shows the everyday life in mafia as the plot revolves around Henry Hill’s character brilliantly played by Ray Liotta. Along with Ray, Joe Pesci plays the role of Tommy Devito and the Robert De Niro plays Jimmy Conway.

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The movie begins with a background narration by Henry and remains in his perspective with the occasional change in narration by Karen who plays the wife of Henry Hill. The movie also uses flashbacks to show Henry’s childhood and how he began his life in Mafia which sets out an overview for the audience and the style of the movie.

The way Scorsese approached to make this film seems very unconventional, his vivid storytelling shines where he does many quick cuts and frame freezing to make the scenes more suspenseful to keep the audience connected all throughout while still moving the film forward.

The music and the soundtrack that Scorsese chose to put in the film adds up to the narration and his attention to detail to pick the music from the era is really impressive. Martin did a phenomenal genre defying work with Goodfellas. He changed the way filmmakers make gangster movies where they all seem to take inspiration and Scorsese’s genius behind his portrayal.

The camera work and the cinematography in the film is a major part behind the film’s success into making it a masterpiece. The scenes tend to be very informative and overwhelming at the same time to the viewers with his choice of frame angles and details. The camera angles in the film are set in such a way that Scorsese doesn’t fail to define the essence or the tone of all the different characters and places and situations. One such scene of Copacabana in the movie is widely regarded as one of the best Steadicam shots or tracking shots and is a bright example of his use way to show the actor and the camera move at the same time and everything being in their place, still continue to move as Henry and Karen walk across the hallways and the kitchen of the restaurant, which captures all the intense moments and the details just as in real life, in just one shot.

The director is also seen to be using different optics techniques in Goodfellas. The way he has decided to put a shallow focus, deep focus or perspective focus according to the many different situations and emotions is commendable and is very unique to his filmmaking process. The lightings in the movie are used to such an extent that expresses the real life setting, an example can be again seen in the scenes where the mafia sits under the dark lights in the night clubs and Scorsese manages to again capture the moments with all the right light settings. Another example is the use of redness in the beginning of the movie to convey his signs of hope towards Henry so that the audience can connect to the character’s emotion and the movie moves forward without any moments of confusion. This is the true purpose of a brilliant director like Scorsese that helps define the main aspects and the ideas of all the interesting surprises and scenes in a unique combination of techniques and storytelling with his absolute genius.