Goodfellas

Martin Scorsese, USA 1990, 146 minutes

Not counting "Life Lessons", his contribution to 1989's New York Stories, Goodfellas is Marin Scorsese's first film since 1987, when he released The Last Temptation of Christ. This latter film was considered by pretty much everyone to be a bold move, but some also found it highly blasphemous (it contained scenes in which Christ fantasises about having sex with Mary Magdelene). It would seem that the firestorm created upon the release of The Last Temptation of Christ caused Socrsese to take a step back to something a little more familiar and `safe'. Some would say that Goodfellas is superfluous, that this particular ground (a look at life in the New York mafia) has already been sufficiently covered - especially by Scorsese, whose Mean Streets is seen by many as the definative film in this genre. Far from being a soft option, Goodfellas was a great risk - Scorsese was pitting himself against himself. Could he better his best?

For his source material he turned to Wiseguy - Nicholas Pileggi's true account of the rise (or fall, depending on how you look at it) of real-life mobster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta). The film charts Hill's progress through the ranks from small time gofer in the 50's up to rubbing shoulders with the bosses in the 70s, but the film takes the interesting and necessary step of not leaving him at the height of his career, but of following him as he hits the skids and begins the downward spiral into druss and paranoia. Right from the start we know we are in for a rough ride. About a minute into the film and almost out of nowhere comes one of the most frank and stoumach-churning acts of brutality ever comitted celluloid. Scorsese almost seems to be saying "Yes, I made The Last Temptation of Christ, but remeber, I also made Mean Streets, and it may be almost 20 years later, but I can still do this... BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM". It is an answer to critics of his decision to make another film about Italian-Americans living in New York. As the frame feezes at the end of the scene we hear the voice-over line "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." This line draws us in. The use of the first person suggests autobiography, or "this is what the mafia is really like. Scorsese makes good use of this device to show us a whole way of life. As we follow Hill's progrerss through the underworld, he is almost always in shot, but more often than not we are looking sideways at his milieu,his colleauges, his JOB.

The film is quite open to accusations of glorifying violence. It is important that we see Henry's downfall as it serves as a caveat. If you were to watch the first half and then leave, you would probably rush straight out and join the mafia. Everything looks so set. If there's a problem, then it gets sorted out. The can beat the mailman into diverting truancy notes away from young Henry's house, then can get him out of court unharmed, even the spell they serve in jail is spent in a luxury cell, the voice-over describing Pauly's garlic cooking technique rather than bemoaning the agonies of prison life. In short, everything looks hunky-dory. In one of the most technically showy sequences, Henry and his date (later his wife) stroll past a long queue of people waiting to enter a resturant, enter a dingy unmarked dorr and in what turns out to be a nearly four minute unbroken steadicam shot they walk through hallways and kitchens, greeting friendly flunkies and slipping small green pieces of paper into outstrached hands. As they enter the packed restaurant a table for two is set up in a space right by the band and the couple are seated. "What business did you say you were in?", she asks him. "Construction", he smiles, sitting back to watch the show. The direction is superb. Scorsese repeats his Mean Streets trick of pepering the sountrack with the music of the period to help set the scene. This idea works particularly well when coupled with Henry's life - we shift from sugary bubblegum pop in the 50's right through to the chaotic guitar noise of the likes of Hendrix as Hill sinks deeper into the pit. The shift is also made evident in the camera movements. Scorsese has never been one to use fixed camera shots when he can possibly avoid it and here his use of frenetic pans and tilts in the latter scenes birlliantly captures drug-crazed paranoia. There is also tension. Look out for the scene when Jimmy (De Niro) lures Kearen (Lorraine Bracco) down an alleyway to "show her something" and suddenly everything begins to look wrong as she walks further. Shot differently, the scene would be inoccuous enough but the constant use of tight angles, point of view shots and Jimmy gesturing `just a bit furter' render the scene unwatchably tense.

The film rests on a handful of effortlessly professional performances. Liotta fits into the Christopher Walken/John Malkovich school of just being a very scary man. He occasionally wins our sympathy with flashes of humanity but he is always treading the fine line between suave likeability and explosive brutality. He has THAT LOOK. Here he even out-chills his psycho-boyfriend from Something Wild. De Niro here is a million miles away from his cheeky young upstart in Mean Streets. Here he is Jimmy the Gent, always wise and level-headed until he too begins to lose ito twards the end. De Niro is a truly expressive actor, always controlled, occasionally letting rip with a savage outburst (note the total fury on his face as he destroys the phone box).

The jewel in the film's crown, however, is Joe Pesci's Tommy. He captures the character's psychosis so well that every time he walks into the room we sing into our seats in anticipation of the next explosion. The "funny how?" scene has already achieved deserved status as one of the most tense scenes ever shot. Pesci won an Oscar for his performance here and he deserved every bit of it.

Also showing tonight is Reservoir Dogs, and if you catch both it is interesting to notice that this is a much nastier, more violent film and yet Dogs has been refused a video certificate due to its violent content, while this film was embraced by the BBFC and hailed as a modern masterpiece. Oh, well, just goes to show what you can get away with if you're Martin Scorsese, I suppose...

Programme note written by Ben Stephens