Goodfellas (1990) is a major work of high cinema art. The best of the best in all ways!

Rating: 10/10 (27 December 2017)

Goodfellas (1990) is a major work of high cinema art. The best of the best in all ways! When the history of Western Art is written in the future, cinema will be included as a true and important art form along with painting and sculpture. Martin Scorcese will be ranked with his fellow artists of Italian descent, Michaelangelo and Leonardo DiVinci as one of the great artists of Western art history. Scorcese is a hero and a superstar in the world and history of art. No doubt about it.
The Goodfellas (1990) movie is ranked as the #2 best gangster theme of all time by the American Film Institute (AFI), as one of the top 100 best films of all time by the same organization, and included on the USA Federal Government's Library Of Congress National Film Registry List of best USA movies every produced.
The movie is about a 25 year span in the life of New York City born Henry Hill (Irish father, Italian mother, raised in 1940's and 1950's Queens, New York City) starting with his teen aged years in 1955 when he first joined an Italian organized crime group as a beginner errand boy for the mob, and continuing to 1980 when Henry Hill's 25 year history as a member of the Luchessi (NYC NY USA) crime family ended after Henry Hill agreed to become and FBI/ USA Federal Government prosecution witness against his fellow Luchessi crime family members (50 of whom were convicted and imprisoned as a result of Hienry Hill's 1980 turncoat testimony................Hill was then put into a Federal Government "witness protection program" from which he was evicted after the Goodfellas 1990 movie was released, and Hill got involved in mass media publicity activity connected with the movie which was based on his Wiseguy book (written by author Nicholas Pillagi) chraracter).
The beautifully filmed and written movie appears to be a near documentary describing the crime world in New York City Henry Hill lived in and participated in until he was arrested for illegal drug activity in 1980, and "flipped" ........ he agreed to testify against his long time friends and fellow criminals..........to avoid certain long term incarceration).
The statistics about this movie (reported in the WWW.IMDb.Com "Trivia" section of the IMDb.Com page devoted to Goodfellas 1990) are daunting.
The "F" word was used during the film many hundreds of times, and held the record for the use of that famous but historically avoided word (in the movies) at the time the movie was released (the record was later broken, we are informed!).
42 different songs were used to support the sound track of the movie.
The Sopranos (1999 - 2006) series TV gangster theme program (voted the best written dramatic TV series in TV history by the Writers Guild Of America) is largely based on story telling and structural approach used in Goodfellas (1990). Goodfellas (1990) lead actress Lorainne Bracco also appeared in the Sopranos (1999 - 2006) TV series as Tony Soprano's lady psychiatrist.
One of the minor actors in Goodfellas (1990) was a former New York City police officer whose father and other relatives had actually been in the Mafia. Eppolito wrote a best selling book about his life titled Mafia Cop, and was later convicted and jailed for murder and other crimes several years after the filming of Goodfellas (1990).
The Goodfellas (1990) movie was based on a 1980's book titled Wiseguy written by Nicholas Pillagi (author of Serpico, also about New York City Italians involved in crime............husband of famous book and movie writer Nora Ephron). The book was based on extensive interviews with Henry Hill, and some editions of the Wiseguy (1986) book credited Henry Hill as the book author.
A documentary titled The Real Goodfella (2006 UK) was produced about Henry Hill, and Hill himself appeared in the documentary which included his account of his part in the production of Goodfellas (1990).
Hill died in 2012. He served time in prison during his 1955 - 1980 time as a Mafie associate criminal, and also again after he entered the Federal Government Witness Protection Program after he was arrested and convicted for drug crimes. He served a total of 14 years in prison. He was kicked out of the Witness Protection Program in 1991 as a result of his participation in Goodfellas (1990) movie publicity and his efforts to make himself a public celebrity made famous by that movie and the book Wiseguy. He survived another 21 years after leaving Federal Government protection until his 2012 death. He was paid more than half a million dollars for his part and contribution to the making of the Goodfellas (1990) movie. He lived and died in open prosperity and was never attacked or harmed by presumably vengeful former associates from the Mafia.
Henry Hill's life after 1980 in the US Federal Government Witness Protection Program was presented and treated in comic form in a second movie about him titled My Blue Heaven (1991) written by Wisseguy author's book author and movie script writer wife of fame, Nora Ephron. Ephron wass famous for her comedy book writing (she wrote best seller Crazy Salad in the early 1970's) and comedy movie script writing (she wrote When Harry Met Sally 1988 starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan).
The Goodfellas (1990) movie describes the famous Lufthansa Aircraft Heist of 1978, one of the largest robberies in USA history. That robbery was the subject of a movie titled The 10 Million Dollar Getaway, and included several cast members who acted in Goodfellas (1990).
Goodfellas (1990) is by any measure an astonishing and worthy movie.
It is a portrait of urban America in the mid-20th Century.
Used copies of the movie can be purchased from Amazon.Com for tiny money (less than $5 as of 2017).
This movie is worth study and re-screening often. It is a highwater mark of USA cinema.
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Written by Tex Allen, movie historian, movie history teacher, SAG-AFTRA career movie actor. More about Tex Allen on IMDb.Com which has published 220 of his movie reviews as of December 2017).
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