A Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family is a 1986 nonfiction book written by crime reporter, Nicholas Pileggi. The account chronicles the story of Mafia mobster-turned-informant, Henry Hill. This book is the basis for the 1990 Academy Award-winning film Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese.
My Review of GoodFellas
5—The Perfect Sundae
Based on a true story, Scorsese and Pileggi fuse their talents and tell Henry’s story from the highest Hill, and we all hear it loud and clear.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro as James Conway · Ray Liotta as Henry Hill · Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito · Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill · Paul Sorvino as Paul Cicero.
Brief Synopsis of Goodfellas
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighborhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family.
To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies.
—Henry Hill
The overwhelming Mafia life that director Martin Scorsese has adapted from Nicholas Pileggi's bestseller, Wiseguy, is an American crime classic. In perfect Scorsese style, heartless characters are made intricately human. With just the right brushstrokes spreading three decades into a two-hour timeframe, the film bristles with brutal fervor, humor, and insight. The correlation between the works of Scorsese and Pileggi creates a delicious Italian mix of hot peppers in oil.
It was Scorsese who saw the potential. After having read Wiseguy, he called Pileggi, and the rest fell harmoniously into place. Scorsese grew up in Little Italy and frequented the same sidewalks and picturesque restaurants as the mobsters who were known as wiseguys or goodfellas. Like Scorsese, Pileggi was also raised in New York City, where he worked as a journalist reporting on the mob.
Henry Hill, played by then rising star, Ray Liotta. Even Liotta’s fanatical laugh was noteworthy.
Hill was the Brooklyn-born son of an Irish father and a Sicilian mother. He went to work for the mob as a kid in the ’50s and remained profitably employed by pinching, scamming, and breaking a few skulls. It was Hill’s association with drugs and his disloyalty that made him a mob target. During the ’80s, Hill was allowed to enter the Federal Witness Protection Program.
On the 20th anniversary of the release of Martin Scorsese’s seminal gangster movie, Henry Hill was quoted describing his friends, Jimmy “the Gent” Burke and Tommy DeSimone, played by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, as murdering psychopaths.
“The whole fucking crew were homicidal maniacs,” Hill said. “Just about every guy was a cold-blooded fucking murderer. It was tough for me. Every day I was scared. I never killed nobody, at least not on purpose. I shot at people but we didn’t stick around to find out what happened.”
Like all stories, Hill’s has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The people who color Hill’s world of crime make this film leave behind a clean print. (Fingerprint).
Scorsese’s characters were comprised of a vicious foursome including an unnerving Joe Pesci, Boobi De Niro, Paul Sorvino, and the sniggering Ray Liotta. Their outstanding performances exploded to the sounds of Bobby Vinton, Tony Bennett, and the Crystals.
To read about Jimmy, Robert De Nero’s character: americanmafiahistory.com/jimmy-burke/
The genius, of course, was in the little details, such as Pileggi’s use of expository descriptions, which were translated by Scorcese to the screen. It was Scorcese’s brilliant catch that actually heightened Pileggi’s telling imagery.
Pileggi explained the cabstand’s gangsters: “Some of the visitors were so large that when they hauled themselves out of their cars, the vehicles rose by inches. He saw glittering rings, and jewel-studded belt buckles and thick gold wrist bands holding wafer-thin platinum watches.”
In that one scene, we see the car droop and mount as over a thousand pounds of gaudy glam is positioned onto a Brownsville curb.
This is what dynamic photography and sharp editing does: it takes you right in, through Scorsese’s camera lens, to that wormhole of Henry’s and the American crime family. There’s a wonderful blend of montage, starting with the bright eyes of a twelve-year-old boy who rakes in more money than Pop. We skate smoothly forward, watching through a blur of sparkles and sin, to Henry’s courtship of Karen, a Jewish girl from outside the neighborhood. This is the spirited Lorraine Bracco that we remember and love, not the reserved woman who played Tony’s physiatrist on the Sopranos.
I love the blood and guts of this mafia story, but I prefer the silk-to-metal angle. It all begins when Henry impresses Karen with a night out at the Copa. Sophistication moves on the heels of Henry’s imported shoes as he leads his lovely inside, avoiding the lines of anxious people waiting to get in. Henry escorts Karen to a side door and pilots the way down a staircase into a complex, shadowy passage of smoky outlines, through the bustling kitchen, past the sweaty waitstaff, and into the nightclub. In that one moment, when the headwaiter acknowledges Henry, Karen’s gemlike eyes sparkle at the new table that was placed in the center just for them, sealing the deal for her. It was that suave move, along with the flattering stares of the crowd, that showed you she was liquid in Henry’s hands. This stretched camera take, starting from the lineup outside, weaving through the kitchen, and settling right into the heart of Henry’s world, was a methodological sensation. Via book or film, it was that passage through the maze, taking Karen from the outside to the inside, where we drifted through the delusion that Henry had traded his soul for.
And that's the hardest part. Today everything is different, there's no action . . . I have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food . . . right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles with ketchup. I'm an average nobody . . . get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.
—Henry Hill
It was Scorsese who saw the potential. After having read Wiseguy, he called Pileggi, and the rest fell harmoniously into place. Scorsese grew up in Little Italy and frequented the same sidewalks and picturesque restaurants as the mobsters who were known as wiseguys or goodfellas. Like Scorsese, Pileggi was also raised in New York City, where he worked as a journalist reporting on the mob.
Henry Hill, played by then rising star, Ray Liotta. Even Liotta’s fanatical laugh was noteworthy.
Hill was the Brooklyn-born son of an Irish father and a Sicilian mother. He went to work for the mob as a kid in the ’50s and remained profitably employed by pinching, scamming, and breaking a few skulls. It was Hill’s association with drugs and his disloyalty that made him a mob target. During the ’80s, Hill was allowed to enter the Federal Witness Protection Program.
On the 20th anniversary of the release of Martin Scorsese’s seminal gangster movie, Henry Hill was quoted describing his friends, Jimmy “the Gent” Burke and Tommy DeSimone, played by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, as murdering psychopaths.
“The whole fucking crew were homicidal maniacs,” Hill said. “Just about every guy was a cold-blooded fucking murderer. It was tough for me. Every day I was scared. I never killed nobody, at least not on purpose. I shot at people but we didn’t stick around to find out what happened.”
Like all stories, Hill’s has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The people who color Hill’s world of crime make this film leave behind a clean print. (Fingerprint).
Scorsese’s characters were comprised of a vicious foursome including an unnerving Joe Pesci, Boobi De Niro, Paul Sorvino, and the sniggering Ray Liotta. Their outstanding performances exploded to the sounds of Bobby Vinton, Tony Bennett, and the Crystals.
To read about Jimmy, Robert De Nero’s character: americanmafiahistory.com/jimmy-burke/
The genius, of course, was in the little details, such as Pileggi’s use of expository descriptions, which were translated by Scorcese to the screen. It was Scorcese’s brilliant catch that actually heightened Pileggi’s telling imagery.
Pileggi explained the cabstand’s gangsters: “Some of the visitors were so large that when they hauled themselves out of their cars, the vehicles rose by inches. He saw glittering rings, and jewel-studded belt buckles and thick gold wrist bands holding wafer-thin platinum watches.”
In that one scene, we see the car droop and mount as over a thousand pounds of gaudy glam is positioned onto a Brownsville curb.
This is what dynamic photography and sharp editing does: it takes you right in, through Scorsese’s camera lens, to that wormhole of Henry’s and the American crime family. There’s a wonderful blend of montage, starting with the bright eyes of a twelve-year-old boy who rakes in more money than Pop. We skate smoothly forward, watching through a blur of sparkles and sin, to Henry’s courtship of Karen, a Jewish girl from outside the neighborhood. This is the spirited Lorraine Bracco that we remember and love, not the reserved woman who played Tony’s physiatrist on the Sopranos.
I love the blood and guts of this mafia story, but I prefer the silk-to-metal angle. It all begins when Henry impresses Karen with a night out at the Copa. Sophistication moves on the heels of Henry’s imported shoes as he leads his lovely inside, avoiding the lines of anxious people waiting to get in. Henry escorts Karen to a side door and pilots the way down a staircase into a complex, shadowy passage of smoky outlines, through the bustling kitchen, past the sweaty waitstaff, and into the nightclub. In that one moment, when the headwaiter acknowledges Henry, Karen’s gemlike eyes sparkle at the new table that was placed in the center just for them, sealing the deal for her. It was that suave move, along with the flattering stares of the crowd, that showed you she was liquid in Henry’s hands. This stretched camera take, starting from the lineup outside, weaving through the kitchen, and settling right into the heart of Henry’s world, was a methodological sensation. Via book or film, it was that passage through the maze, taking Karen from the outside to the inside, where we drifted through the delusion that Henry had traded his soul for.
And that's the hardest part. Today everything is different, there's no action . . . I have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food . . . right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles with ketchup. I'm an average nobody . . . get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.
—Henry Hill
No comments:
Post a Comment