My All Time Favorite Movies: Goodfellas

I have been toying with the idea of doing a series of posts on my all time favorite movies for a little while now. Working at a movie theater again has started all of these conversations about movies and I always love to hear what people have on their lists of favorite movies. I decided I would take my 20 favorite movies of all time and write a blog entry about each of them. There are no set qualifications for a movie to be on this list. These are simply my 20 favorite movies of all time. They will not be numbered. Do not assume that I am going in order from 20-1. I will probably do that starting at 10, but honestly 11-20 are not numbered. They kind of exist right outside of the top 10. A few things you will realize as the list goes on are how recent so many of them are, and how Americanized the list is. I make no apologies for this. I know most people who are deep into film as I am often have many movies from the pre-1970s on their lists, but you will only find 2 or 3 of those here. I do not dislike "classic" movies in any way, but they have never stuck with me as much. I respect the craft, but I am rarely left feeling like they are my favorite movies. I cannot really explain it further than that. I am not xenophobic, but when it comes to cinema, I just prefer the American Aesthetic. I have roughly 10 foreign films that I love, but they do not make it into this list. Again, it is just my personal taste. Each post will be labeled as "favorite ever" so you can easily find them as I go on. As always, I love to hear feedback, if not on my choices, on your choices for some of your favorite movies of all time. Okay, onto this week's post. Oh and there will probably be spoilers about each title on the list.



Martin Scorsese's second and final entry onto my list is my all time favorite film dealing with the mob. There are quite a few great movies about classic gangsters and the mob, and one in my top 10 has some dealings with it, but this is the epitome of films dealing with that era of gangster. The costumes, the score, the props, and the sets are all top notch and Scorsese paces the entire film perfectly. Of course, none of that should come as a shock in any way. Scorsese is a master film maker and Goodfellas is, in my opinion, the peak of his still awesome career. Scorsese co-wrote the script with Nicolas Pileggi and there are times where the film plays like a documentary, which is fitting since this is the true story of Henry Hill's rise, fall and eventually turn away from organized mob crime. Pileggi was the journalist the real Henry Hill told all of his stories to before entering witness protection and the best thing about the film is how real it feels. In fact, the emotions, moods, choices and consequences of all of the characters stay with you for days after the movie is over.

The first time I saw Goodfellas, I was opened to the world of film that was not about plot, because Goodfellas is essentially without plot. There is a driving story here, but there is not really a plot to the story. It is a film about characters, specifically Henry Hill. All his life, all Henry wanted to be was a gangster. They were his heroes growing up. They were the people he saw as influences growing up. From the time he was a young man in New York watching gangters out of his window, to the time he grows up and becomes one himself. However, Hill slowly realizes there are consequences to his actions and believes he might be in too deep, thus the story was born.

If you are watching a Scorsese film there are a few things you can be assured of, first of all amazing music. The score, and the songs in this movie are perfectly married to the visuals. The second thing being, the camera work. There is a POV shot as Henry takes his future wife on her first date past the long line outside of the club, through the security check, down a corridor, through the kitchen and service area, into the main part of the club, where a table is literally lifted into the air and dropped in front of everyone else, so Henry and his date can have first row seats for the show. That is the kind of power he has. His date does not know what he does yet, but when she learns, the film takes to a whole new level because she joins the voice over narration and we start to see things from outside of Henry's perspective. The brilliance of the POV shot is the ease with which the camera flows through the scene. This is a violent movie, a brutal movie, but everything moves so smoothly, it is almost jarring that a movie so nasty and violent could look so smooth and beautiful.

Another great thing about the movie is how it unfolds. It unfolds in easy chapters where characters are never introduced in a forceful way. The entire thing is organic. It gives us an idea that we are in Henry Hill's world because we meet people when he does. We follow him. And since we do follow Hill everywhere, making sure Hill is well played was key and Ray Liotta is definitely up to the task. Liotta's performance lives with you when the movie is over. We understand why the romance of the mafia appealed to him, but we also understand why he slowly, then not so slowly starts to rethink the entire enterprise. Liotta should have been a huge A-list star after this movie, but he became so synonymous with the mafia role that it became tough for him to break out of it. In a movie with big presences like Robert De Niro, Paul Sorvino, and Joe Pesci, Liotta manages to hold his own and make sure the movie never gets away from him. He remains the focus and Scorsese makes sure we understand that.

Of course, Pesci, De Niro and Sorvino are excellent. As is Lorainne Bracco, as Henry's wife, who has her own character arc realizing that mob wives do not do much. They do not see anyone not in the mob and they are quiet, mostly submissive types and that never quite sits well with her. Pesci won an Oscar for his turn as a mob member with a serious temper. His "Clown" speech has been satirized/parodied countless times, but when you watch the movie and see this scene in context, it still works every damn time. Pesci takes a character that could easily just be a cartoon character, but he adds depth, and a real human aspect to him that draws you into his temper, then you watch it explode at the same time Henry does and we are left with the same sense of horrific feeling that Henry is left with.

There are dozens of reasons to love Goodfellas, but there is a scene towards the end of the film that personifies everything I love about it. The scene follows Henry in one day where he has to make a drug deal, cook dinner for his family, make his mistress happy and deal with the possibility of being followed. it does not further the plot of the film, but it serves as a way for us to see how his world is closing in on him. All of these things have to get done, but the guilt is overwhelming him. He is slowly losing his mind, but he has to do all of these things. I think The Sopranos exists because of this movie and because of this scene. We see this member of the mafia have to juggle his criminal world and his personal world. It is a brilliantly paced/shot/edited/scored and acted scene. Scorsese knows when to push in and when to pull out. He understands the rhythm of the scene as it fits in the rhythm of the entire picture.

The entire world of Goodfellas is gripping. Scorsese's best picture will change from person to person, but for me, this is it. It takes a subject with which he has much interest and knowledge and he mines it perfectly. There is not a single frame out of place, not a single touch off center that was not there for a reason. But it is not just technically brilliant, it is full of emotion. It rocks you back and takes you on a journey. You see the highs and lows of one character who never really had a chance to be anything but a gangster, but finds that when he got what he always wanted, it left him cold. yet it shows his guilt in more than one way. He feels guilty as to what he has done, but he also feels guilty that he cannot uphold the code he has lived by for his whole life. It is chaotic for him and confusing for us, but also so perfect.