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The Goodfellas Film Analysis

1957 Words8 Pages

Alex Tennenbaum
Intro to Cinema
The Goodfellas
5/2/17

The goodfellas is a movie directed by Martin Scorsese based upon the true events of Nicholas Pileggis 1985 best-selling book, “Wiseguy.” An American crime classic this film takes place over the course over a 30 year period, filled with violent passion. It posses a witty virtuoso style that Scorcese built his famed reputation on with previous crime dramas such as mean streets.

After reading Wiseguy for the first time, Scorsese immediatley contacted author Nicholas Pileggi to request to direct a film adaptation for the novel. Pileggi based his book on interviews with the real Henry Hill, a Brooklyn-born son of an Irish father and a Sicilian mother who went to work for the Mob as a kid in 1955 and stayed employed by stealing, conning and scheming until a breach of trust involving drugs made him a Mob target. In 1980, in return for testifying, Hill was allowed to enter the Federal Witness Protection Program. Scorsese grew up among mobsters in New York and really felt like he had the perfect background to produce a film adaptation for Wiseguy.

Scorsese is in top form as he makes his return to the crime filled …show more content…

The concept of the movies may not seem familiar at all, but they share many similar elements. Greed is a major theme of both films. They are both men fantasies of living a lavish lifestyle through illegal methods. Both films have questionable morality, its controversial depiction of women, its glorification of greed and corruption, and its unfettered vulgarity . Both protagonists, Jordan Belfort from The Wolf of Wallstreet and Henry Hill of The Goodfellas both come from humble beginnings who end up getting exactly what they want. Belfort and Hill have much in common as

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Furthermore, Scorsese shows us how Henry Hill in Goodfellas lives the life of a gangster and finally gets away from it succesfully. Something that most of the audience would readily accept. Kolker says that: ―Henry speaks for the viewer. Like him, we love the gangster life. At least we love looking at representations of it.

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