Goodfellas: How Elements Transcend Enhancement - Assignment Example

 Goodfellas: How Elements Transcend Enhancement Martin Scorsese, the director of the popular 1990 film Goodfellas, has never been known for his refusal to tackle difficult subjects or of being too soft-spoken. In keeping with his reputation, he manages to find a means of instantly grabbing his audience’s attention while quickly informing them of just what they’re getting into from before the opening credits. The opening scene of the movie is brilliantly staged and timed to ensure the greatest number of viewers will stay in their seats throughout the rest of the film. It starts as Henry is driving a car with something loud and disturbing bumping occasionally from the trunk and two other men in the front section of the car with him, who he identifies as Jimmy and Tommy while he asks if they hear the noise too. When they pull over to take a look, a badly beaten and bloody man is in the trunk trying to get out. In response to this, Tommy is seen to pull out a large butcher knife and stab the man several times before Jimmy pulls out a gun and shoots the man a few more times just to be sure. This introduction is shocking to a normal audience, not accustomed to such unreasoned, excessive violence, drawing them immediately into the film, particularly as they realize the reaction of Henry. Throughout this violent opening action, Henry is standing back watching with a somewhat reluctant look on his face, only coming forward when the man is obviously dead to passively shut the hood of the trunk. It is at this moment that we hear Henry’s voice saying “as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” and the movie is overrun with the sounds of the song “Rags to Riches” as the opening credits roll and the movie tracks back in time to 1955. Henry’s reaction begins to establish the different approach to life that must be taken by the gangster while the song illustrates the reasons why someone would choose this type of lifestyle. But the numb expression on his face as he closes the trunk indicates Henry didn’t realize just what kind of individual he would become when he made his choice to be a gangster. While he doesn’t lend a hand in the murder of Billy Batts, the man in the trunk who will be introduced more toward the middle of the movie when the beginning of this scene actually occurs, Henry’s only reaction to the beating of Batts is to lock the door to prevent anyone else from entering and stands back along the side of the road to allow the vicious murder to be finished off. However, there is no dialogue happening throughout much of this sequence. The greatest degree of dialogue that happens occurs when the three men, with Batts in the trunk, stop at Tommy’s house to get a change of clothing and share an almost normal late night meal with Tommy’s mother before going out to finish what they’d started. It is precisely because the dialogue is so normal-sounding that it becomes so chilling as the audience realizes that all of the people at the table probably realize there’s a dead or soon to be dead man in the car parked outside. This becomes evident as Tommy’s mother accepts the story about the deer and loans him her butcher knife to “hack off the hoof” without asking any further questions or even looking outside at the car. This opening scene also sets up the unique aspects of Martin Scorsese’s style in developing the action. In the case of Goodfellas, the method of using the narrative of one of the men closely involved with the inner workings of the mob serves to draw in the audience, complete with verbal linguistic cues as well as internal translations as to what each of these seemingly innocuous phrases might mean to someone inside the organization versus outside. Scorsese refutes any claims of a Godlike overtone to the narrative voice as his narrator continues to defend the glamorous life of the gangster even as the viewer is aware of the detrimental effects this has on his personality, well-being and happiness. “Because voice-over narration automatically creates a double-layering of commentary over visual track, it is unparalleled as a mechanism for creating distance and irony … And, fundamentally, because voice-over refers to the most traditional of storytelling forms – that of oral storytelling – it reaches out to the audience in a singular way, making the filmgoing experience feel more ‘natural,’ more intimate. Like ‘dear reader’ references in a novel, or dramatic actors making eye contact with a theater audience, using voice-over narration implies an implicit recognition of the spectator; the device flatters us with its confiding tones or challenges us with its direct appeal” (Kozloff, n.d.). This is brought into sharp focus when Henry stands up out of a chair and directly addresses the camera toward the end of the movie, shocking the viewer into the realization that they have been a witness to this man’s thoughts and actions and he knows it. That most viewers experience this reaction is testimony to just how effective the narration technique, used in conjunction with strategic dialogue and limited action, has been in drawing the audience into the world created despite their best efforts to remain uninvolved. One of the ways that Scorsese makes his characters appealing in the film is his way of relating these characters to everyday events while still placing him in a pitiful light. Late in the movie, Scorsese provides a character type scene that incorporates all of the gangsters involved in the Lufthansa heist. A modernized version of the traditional Christmas carol “Frosty the Snowman” is used as a transition between the discovery of the success of the Lufthansa heist and the entrance of Henry and Karen into the club where everyone is celebrating. Ostensibly, the music is coming from the jukebox in the bar. This transitional effect not only serves to switch from the jubilant screaming of Henry in the shower to the more subdued but still jubilant party at the club, but also serves to comment upon the nature of the characters of these men as well. Each of them has become a snowman by this point in the movie, incapable of feeling any true depth of emotional connection to the rest of the human race. They live only to serve themselves and respect each other only as much as the other has power to harm. This is the beginning of the end for many of them as each one forgets to honor the agreement made before the heist was pulled in order to satisfy his interests. One instantly begins spending his part of the take, which will draw attention from the authorities as is pointed out the moment he arrives at the club in his new car and with his wife in a new fur coat. Another starts talking about his part in the crime to beef up his criminal reputation. Tommy, aided by Jimmy, quickly works to eliminate the rest of their partners in crime as each one fails his word. The systematic murder of each of the partners in the crime is cemented to the use of the “Frosty the Snowman” song as each of the murders is undertaken with a detached, almost humorous style, the final death illustrated and narrated as Frankie Carbone, killed by hanging him up in the back of a long-distance refrigerated meat wagon, was so frozen by the time he was discovered in the truck that it took him two days to thaw out for the autopsy. Scorsese also evokes sympathy for his characters through other character type scenes such as the one in which Karen is introduced. Karen, Henry’s wife, is the only other character allowed to express her thoughts and observations in the same narrative style as Henry, making the movie, in a sense, a story of the couple. By allowing her narration to take control at times, Scorsese presents her as something other than weak and stupid as her actions within the film, seen from hindsight and with 20/20 vision, might suggest. As she is introduced, she is seen to be a regular pretty girl on the block, not overly street wise, but living in a world where the streets are known to be full of danger. It is also a world full of danger in an economic sense in that girls were taught to select the richest man she could attract if she wanted to live a happy life. Her meeting with Henry presents her with a well-dressed man who knew all the right people and took her to all the right clubs. Her narrative and filmic elements such as attention given to her neighborhood and modest middle income household, illustrate how Henry’s lifestyle appeared to be a step into the upper class that every well-bred girl was trained to want. The only indication she is ever provided that he might be something more dangerous than what he seemed was the day he pistol-whipped her neighbor for having accosted her and then told her to hide the gun. As she says, it would have probably been a normal reaction for her to have been afraid and to break things off with Henry right then, but her segment thus far has already illustrated how Henry had been fulfilling her hopes in every respect. The need for protection was the final element she needed filled and, with this action, Henry became the man of her dreams. The fact that she didn’t fully realize the nature of Henry’s business is brought out when she attends the hostess party with some of the other wives and sees through their cheap imitations of culture. Works Cited Goodfellas. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and Lorraine Bracco. 1990. DVD. Warner Brothers. Kozloff, Sarah. “A Defense – and History – of Voice-Over Narration.” A Look at Voice-Over Narration. (n.d.). November 18, 2007 Read More