Literally my favourite film

Rating: 10/10 (9 September 2018)

It's hard to put into words exactly why this is my favourite film, or what it is that makes it so flawless.
Perhaps it's the ambitious way the scenes are put together. Many film makers would take a scene like Pesci's "Funny how?" rant or the one take walk into the Copacabana and say "You know what, that's the highlight, the whole film will revolve around that". Not Scorsese though, it's almost as if he tried to better himself in every scene and in many ways, he did just that.
I look at the 2 and a half hour run time and find it very difficult to think of what could be cut. Whether it's the wedding scene, the scene at Tommy's mother's house, or the montage showing prison life. Almost every scene in this film is a lesson in what good film making should be, and, more importantly, enhances the story that is unfolding.
It's almost as if the subject matter of the film doesn't matter. Some will see the gratuitous violence, lack of moral compass and abhorrent lifestyles on display and dismiss the film for those reasons. Goodfellas is so much more than that though, a triumph in cinematography and a masterpiece of storytelling.
Many have likened this film to the Godfather series. To compare Goodfellas to The Godfather does both films a disservice though. Yes, they're both about the mafia, but the way the story is told is so different they might as well be different genres.