Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Goodfellas
I actually really liked this movie. I was apprehensive to watch it because I'm pretty squeamish when it comes to graphic violence, but it was actually much less violent than I thought it was going to be. I mean obviously it was violent in parts, but it wasn't just non-stop violence the entire time. There are so many other facets to the movie besides pure violence, and I think that's what makes it so good. When you watch a gangster movie, you expect to be inundated with violence, but in Goodfellas, Scorsese does an excellent job of mixing the violence with so many other sides of the gangster lifestyle that are usually ignored. Scorsese does this in other films as well. He makes films that appear as thought they will be extremely violent throughout, but then turn out to be so much more than just violence. Take for example The Departed, it is not terribly violent the whole time, but there is just a couple very shockingly violent scenes like the boot hand smashing scene. Or Shutter Island, almost devoid of violence until the end where the kids are killed by their own mother. I like that instead of making his movies constantly violent, he puts in just a couple shockingly violent scenes to get the point across. That way, the movies are more memorable and you're able to connect with other parts of the movies besides just the violence. I also really like that Henry's character is narrating in a voice-over a lot of the time. It gets you up in his head instead of just being an outside observer. It also shows his thought process the whole time as he goes through the classic gangster plot: working his way up and being on his highest high, feeling invincible, until everything falls apart and he gets frantic and desperate. You see this in almost every gangster film, but this has a twist to the ending that I like. Usually, he would die in the end, but he chooses the less heroic path of going into the witness protection program. I love the the scene at the end where he comes out of his cookie cutter house in a bath robe. It is ironic that his whole life all he wanted was to be a gangster, and he became one, but instead of that getting him where he wanted, in the end it got him to a life of boring normalcy, which is the last thing he wanted and the last thing you would expect. It also connects to a past subject we talked about which is suburban discontent. He never wanted that life, but was forced to choose that or death. Overall it was a great movie and makes me want to see more Scorsese films.
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I completely agree, I think that this does flip back to the ideas of suburban discontent we talked about, and at the time that Henry was working so hard to become a gangster was, generally speaking, the same time that those feelings were on the rise in America, through the 50's and 60's.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what I wanted the ending to be, but I think something with a little more bang. But since this movie is based on the real story, Henry Hill didn't take a more dramatic or 'courageous' way out... he thought of himself and his family and acted accordingly.
I also really liked that a lot of Henry's dialogue was done via voice-overs because it allowed the audience to better understand exactly what he was thinking. I thought it was a good choice by Martin Scorsese to add in these voice-overs. I feel like I wouldn't have been as engaged with the characters had I not been able to know what Henry was thinking. I would have felt a little lost.
ReplyDeleteGreat point about linking Henry's fate to our discussion of suburban discontent, Lauren! Your comment also reminded me that in the series _The Sopranos_, a shot that was repeated throughout the series was Tony Soprano coming out to get the newspaper in his bathrobe--shades of Henry's life.
ReplyDeleteI liked your thoughts on the use of violence in the film. I thought Scorsese had a way of presenting violence in an almost hyper realistic way, where it's not over-the-top, but not quite subtle, so you get a definite feeling of shock and impact when violent scenes occur, without feeling like it is overdone or violent for the sake of being violent. I think the suburban discontent was a theme used perfectly in "Goodfellas", especially through Ray Liotta's wife, who finds excitement in her husband's lifestyle until she become overwhelmed by it.
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