The Goodfellas

You might be confused at seeing a prefix ‘The’ to the title of Martin Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’. The purpose of this article is to address, and expose, the characterization of Goodfellas. What makes the Goodfellas so appealing? They don’t give a fuck. The approach director Scorsese and Editor Thelma Schoonmaker employ at making them give off that vibe is more than meets the eye.

Scorsese chooses long tracking shots to introduce us to the Goodfellas. You come to know of their quirks. Take their style of nicknaming, Jimmy Two-Times who always said everything twice”I’m gonna get the papers, get the papers.” Or that the sons were named Peter or Paul and their wives were all Marie. The three principal characters here are Henry Hill(Ray Liotta), Jimmy Conway (Robert Deniro) and Tommy Devito (Joe Pesci). They work under caporegime Paulie (Paul Sorvino).

Let’s begin with Henry Hill and his ambition. “Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a gangster. It meant being somebody in a neighbourhood full of nobodys. It meant belonging somewhere and being treated like a grownup.” The moment that line falls on your ears, you believe it.

Casino, revisited.

This isn’t a review. This is a write-up of my experience of revisiting, after a few years, the 1995 film Casino. Contrary to its title, Casino is not one of those gambling movies. It’s a follow up to Martin Scorsese’s mafia mob drama Goodfellas.

“When you love someone, you gotta trust them. There’s no other way. You gotta give them the key to everything that’s yours. Otherwise, what’s the point? And for a while, I believe that’s the kind of love I had” says Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein as he walks out with a cigar in his mouth and into a car that blows up. What does one make of that? Scorsese’s films rarely begin with the beginning. You’re given a glimpse of (mostly) some part of the middle. Just like how Kubrick began Lolita with its ending. By showing us where the story climaxes, our minds aren’t perched on the fate of the characters but instead on their functioning.

Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein (Robert Deniro) heads a Casino in Las Vegas. He might be working under the title of ‘Casino Executive’ in a Casino owned by Philip Green, who exists as the squeaky clean front man under the orders of the elders of a mafia family, but Sam was the boss. The first time the camera pans into his magnificent Casino, you see it brightly lit and adorned with slot machines lined up against each other. Sam explains about the business, “We’re the only winners. The players don’t stand a chance.”