GoodFellas at 25: why it's cinematic perfection
Monday, September 21, 2015 at 9:00PM David here celebrating 25 years of what might be Scorsese's masterpiece...
When I signed up to write about Goodfellas, the main motivation was simply that I hadn't seen it in years - the ideal opportunity to force a rediscovery before an overwhelming onslaught of new movies. When it came to actually writing this article, though, things didn't seem so simple any more. What could I possibly say that hasn't already been said? Pieces about things you 'never knew', about where the cast are now, about the making of the movie are already widespread across the fare internet shores, because the film remains one of the all-time favourites of the straight white male demographic that dominates both film criticism and film fandom. I mean, did you miss this New York Post article a few months back? Everyone else just doesn’t get it.
The fact remains, though, that Goodfellas is a classic, and incontrovertibly so. The same set of films tend to dominate all-time lists for a variety of reasons, but few, I'd argue, are so impeccably constructed as this one. I wouldn't call it Martin Scorsese's greatest film, because Raging Bull and Taxi Driver are so deeply imbued in their characters' headspaces as to be emotionally revelatory, and The King of Comedy is so eccentrically stimulating, but these are wilder emotional beasts, led by their characters' excesses along unpredictable or majestically fated paths. I would never call Goodfellas cold - it's too smart and jocular for that - but it is made with a level of forensic detail and a startling economy of longform storytelling that make it Scorsese's peak in terms of understanding how every aspect of the filmmaking can work together in perfect synthesis.
Consider the film's most famous scene - "You think I'm funny?" - and how it works on a multiplicity of levels. Joe Pesci is simultaneously terrifying, hilarious and intriguing: as early in the film as it is, this is scene that establishes character as its priority. It is also a prime example of how Scorsese balances the constant threat of violence with the relaxed atmosphere of camaraderie, and how these two frictional moods can co-exist and even compliment each other; the boldness of Ray Liotta's Henry to throw a confident insult back strengthens his masculine bond with Pesci's Tommy. This scene takes place in a panorama that is at once intimate and vast; the interaction is fiercely direct between the two men, yet it also lives in full view of their acolytes and is fully a performance of masculine superiority and comic bravado.
Scorsese's focus on such an essentially throwaway comic moment also brings into context how precisely he tells what could so easily have been a dry linear biopic as a brighter, vaster collage of a particular lifestyle. Kyle Smith's ridiculous article does at least understand that the film is less a gangster film than a tale of brotherhood, although Scorsese is much more aware of the men's foibles than Smith is. He explores the world through proto-Paul Thomas Anderson tracking shots like the path through the corridors of a nightclub’s service areas, and freezes frames to provide vital character beats in the form of casual anecdotes. Generic story beats like Henry and Karen's wedding are used not as story markers but as opportunities to strengthen the audience's understanding of this whole world. Scorsese trusts in Karen to narrate and trusts in the audience to grasp her character through how she describes and relates to what we are learning about.
Using Karen as a female counterpoint to Henry's laconic voiceover further unbalances Smith's contention that women cannot understand the film. Karen comes to understand this world perhaps better than then men inside it, precisely because she can observe it from the distance enforced upon her. When she screams at Henry, cluelessly thinking his nights with the boys are instead nights with "ready-made whores", it is only because she underappreciates how important the masculine bonds are and how shallow their enactment is. Despite their immense acquired wealth and social status, these Goodfellas favour inactivity over all else. Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi's screenplay is famously sharp and witty, and the banter is quick-witted and amusing, but Scorsese's direction is also aware of the dangerous friction in this makeshift family - as Henry eventually realises, a skull above your head reads the same as your entire Mafia life with these men.
GoodFellas has a reputation as one of the preeminent films about the Mafioso existence, and it’s a well-deserved one, but like all great films, Scorsese’s technical masterpiece is not solely comprehensible on that level. It is a fascinating dissection of masculinity, in all its grandeur and pretence, but most simply it is an engrossing story perfectly told, each stylistic whim unfurling with specific purpose and laying out a clear story in the fashion of a custom designed gown, unique but perfectly created to an exact end. And that end is mighty good, fellas. (Sorry. A little.)
Reader Comments (10)
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Cinema Bazaar
Very good post and excellent read of the film. I was just taken to task by fellow bloggers for stating this wasn't Scorsese's best (nor the best film of 1990), but I'd never say this wasn't classic for a reason. Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy are, in my eyes, the richer films, but what you said about this film's construction is right on.
I've just realised I'm transgender. How else to explain my lifelong blase feeling about this movie?
To be fair, I do think it's at the very least a decent, elegant film and I do sort-of like it, and I'm sure I'd be a lot more relaxed about liking it if it wasn't so damn overrated.
But I admit there's something here I just don't see. It must be my figurative ovaries getting in the way. Where others point out endless imagination and an almost-expressionistic use of style, I just see generic gangster movie and Scorsese well into the semi-lazy stage of his career. Not quite as lazy as Casino but all the same, nothing particularly thrilling.
For all that, I'm happy to admit the world is right and I'm wrong and just move on from the whole issue. Unless someone actually dares to suggest that this is a better film than Taxi Driver. Then I go full on pre-menstrual.
Goodfellas is great, but it may not even land in my Top 10 Scorsese films, which include Taxi Driver, The Last Waltz, Raging Bull, Mean Streets, Kundun, King of Comedy, George Harrison: Living in the Material World and New York, New York.
This is a great article that has given me a lot to think about. But I have to join in the chorus. I find this movie very overrated. It would not be in my Top 5 Scorcese. Still, on its own terms, it works and works very well.
I thought I was going to be the only one who found "Goodfellas" to be overrated.
I am female so maybe that accounts for my slight bit of boredom with all of the mafiosi world, but it seems I am not alone after all.
Give me "New York, New York" & "King of Comedy" any day. They are far more audacious in terms of film-making with much more interesting acting performances.
Maybe not "semi-lazy" but not as groundbreaking.
And Scorsese hasn't done a film with a female lead since "The Age of Innocence".
LadyEdith and Paul, ITA about NYNY...now that is a movie that is UNDERrated.
Wonder why the world isn't celebrating the 25th anniversary of Dances With Wolves?!?
You must have watched a different Goodfellas than I did. There had no character development, none of the characters seemed to have real motives. Joe Pesci's character was just a total asshole, I didn't see anything interesting or amusing about him. Liotta spent most of the movie staring off into space as though he was sedated and didn't know what was going on around him. De Nero could have been ok, but he was even less developed than the others. The story was told in a rambling, casual way, and most of the parts that could have been interesting were done off camera. The whole movie was essentially just watching a group of grade-school cafeteria bullies talk, argue, tease, threaten and bicker. The story itself seemed to just be an afterthought while we meandered through endless scenes of 3 uninteresting characters with no chemistry.
Im going agree with Shaun. Goodfella is a movie where nobody learns or grows. Its just a movie about boring assholes killing people. The worlds oceans are deeper than that.