Better than being President of the United States

Rating: 10/10 (6 February 2015)

There is neither glorification or criticism of the gangster lifestyle in Scorsese's Goodfellas, despite the opening lines of Henry Hill's narration. At times it can seem almost alluring and seductive. Take the character of Karen for example, played excellently by Lorraine Bracco. One can pinpoint the approximate moment in which she becomes swept up in the lifestyle of Henry (Ray Liotta), right when she decides to hide a bloodied gun rather than go to the police as "other girlfriends" would do. Her voice-over from her first appearance is one of the film's only real insights into Henry's world from the outside world. From then on it's a slow process as she is swallowed into her husband's life. Some of it is subtle, like the line about the bag of money at the wedding and how no one would dare steal from the Mafia. In other instances she's shocked at what she's gotten into as we wake to see an extreme close up of a gun barrel pointed directly at the camera before she breaks down and realises she cannot do the deed.
One of the film's pivotal and most famous scenes is the long tracking shot that takes us through one of Henry and Karen's first dates. They bypass the waiting queue for a nightclub, entering via the service corridors and travel through the kitchen and right up to the stage where they immediately are presented with front row seats and a table. The magic of this shot as Henry greets acquaintance after acquaintance illustrates the lavish lifestyle and prestige of his position even at a young age, and seduces us like it seduces Karen. In a similar scene, we are presented with Henry's POV as the long take and voice-over narration combine seamlessly to introduce us to Mafia members in a bar. The camera-work is slow, deliberate and precise; each member is hinted at being their own fleshed out persona, each with their own powers and lives, yet for Henry it's a very familiar process.
The select few Mafia members that are shown to be in close correspondence to Henry are Tommy (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy (Robert De Niro), the three of them taking care of business in the opening scene. The ease in which the violence and brutality of their work slips between their mundane lives humanises and establishes the main characters as a family. One moment they are finishing off a murder and digging a hole for the body, the next they are having a meal with Tommy's mother. The opening of the film sharply paints a contrast when it is later revealed what they have done and where exactly they got the knife from. Compare the harsh ominous red lighting of the digging scene to the naturally calm dinner with Tommy's mother. The film's dialogue also makes similar comparisons which highlight the notion of family. There's a brief moment of tension between Tommy and Henry who comments on his "funny" nature, the same comment later mirrored as Tommy takes offense to Billy Batt's ball bustering. One ends in laughter, the other murder.
Even in prison, a usually dark and dismal location, their ties are are strong as ever. They live like kings inside, getting regular shipments of fine gourmet food from bribed guards: bread, salami, prosciutto, cheese, scotch, wine. It's arguable one of the film's calmest moments, the soft jazz vocals of Bobby Darin's Beyond the Sea accompany the scene as the four sit down and dine on better food than many on the outside can afford. It's just one of the many perfect choices of music Scorsese uses to add information and mood to the film. Later, as Jimmy begins to cut ties and whack the people involved in the Lufthansa heist, the heavy and bitter-sweet chords of Layla's piano segment signal the beginning of the end. Scorsese's use of freeze frames at vital points of Henry's journey, and the imposing dolly zoom near the end of his mafia life add additional subtext.
Goodfellas covers a great deal of time from the early deliveries of a young Henry, to his marriage and rise up the gang, to the 4 years he spends in prison and the growing up of his kids. So it's a little jarring as a sequence near the end depicts a whole day of his life and responsibility. Gone are the long and graceful shots of his luxurious lifestyle. His hair is not slicked to the side and his face shows visible signs of ageing and of course drug abuse, which leads the audience and even Karen to believe his paranoia is from that source. It's a very stylish and frenetic sequence; the edits seem to jump quicker and between locations at a moment's notice, the narration of Henry is suddenly a tiny bit faster and there's almost a slight fisheye lens effect as we slowly close into his character. The walls of the frame seem to squeeze Henry as he rushes from chore to chore; gun deals, snorting cocaine, another gun deal, check on the sauce, mix the cocaine, check on the sauce again. Work and life mixes together as Henry struggles to maintain his standard of living he has become so accustomed to.
The sentiment is echoed most prominently in the end. Henry gets up from the witness stand, walk across the courtroom and breaks the 4th wall as he directly narrates to the camera; "I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook." It's the high highs and the low lows of the gangster lifestyle that he craves even in the relative safety of the witness protection program. His comment on ordering spaghetti and getting egg noodles with ketchup is particularly telling: even in prison he ate much better and it's exactly in that world where he feels most comfortable. For that, Henry would do it all over again.