As far back as I can remember I always loved Goodfellas… ha, nah even I’m not that lazy a writer and that is actually not true. I accidentally saw the horrifically violent opening scene at about age seven or eight when my Dad made the ill-advised decision to send me to bed ‘once it started getting nasty’. Yeah that’s in about three seconds, Dad. I think he was busy fumbling about for a VHS tape to record it on in the standard ‘SHIT A GOOD FILM HAS UNEXPECTEDLY COME ON TELE’ 90s way so couldn’t even get it off in time, either. Once that trauma had subsided, I then saw it alone as a teenager of about 15 and thought it was the coolest fucking thing I’d ever sat through. I remember getting really annoyed when the Channel 4 voiceover women had the fucking nerve to speak over the ending credits about what was coming up next as I was still taking it all in. I then spent the next few years making sure everyone knew it was my favourite film regardless of whether they had enquired, finding out what all the 60s/70s soundtrack songs were(no easy feat pre-internet!) and buying giant posters of it from shitty market shops to put up in case anyone didn’t already know that I BUMMED it. But, of course, there are a lot of things that seem cool to you at that age that you eventually realise are pretty naff and drop by the wayside. Including films. I used to think aggressively liking Pulp Fiction made me ,by default, 25-years-old and as cool as Uma Thurman. Now I’m just like 'meh'. And don’t get me started on Fight Club. But with Goodfellas, I am still instantly that try too hard teenager again. You know why?(it was out of respect..) Because it’s fucking cool AND an excellent film. It has well and truly stood the test of time, as I found out when I went to see it at the BFI last week- on the big screen for the first time. I took my mate Claire McAteer who'd never seen it before but knew it was a classic. (I think she might have regretted the decision, initially, when I was flapping about trying to co-ordinate buying wine, picking up our tickets and getting into our seats before it started once I found out there were no trailers). Thankfully, we were comfortably seated ,with large glasses of red, in time for the child-traumatising opening sequence. McAteer was definitely the only person in there who hadn’t seen it before as while me and a bunch of middle aged blokes tried to out ‘knowingly laugh’ each other, Claire flinched, gasped and put her hands up to her face every time someone unexpectedly got ‘whacked’ or an ostensibly funny scene suddenly descended into graphic violence. I knew she was enjoying it though, as the only time she remotely broke concentration was to share a quick ‘phwoar’ nod with me when we first see Ray Liotta as grown up Henry Hill and to agree that I take one for the team and sprint to the bar for more wine after the Billy Batts scene. (I was seconds from shouting “EXCUSE ME EVERYONE I AM BALLS DEEP IN GOODFELLAS” when I wasn’t getting served, instantly. Think most people would have understood and stepped aside..) But I knew it had really resonated when she literally didn’t move from her seat or look away until the last strains of Layla had finished playing out the credits! Even I was like fidgeting with my coat like, ‘ok, that’s Goodfellas then..’. When she’d eventually come out of her trance we re-located to the bar and had Newsnight fucking review for about two hours over how good it was. You might think there's nothing strange about two women chatting about how fantastic Goodfellas is. But apparently SOME men do. A year ago or so, I had the misfortune to see THIS article. It argues that women are not capable of understanding Goodfellas. When I first read it, I actually morphed into Joe Pesci's Tommy, such was the level of anger it set off in me. Aside from the obvious troll sexism, what really pissed me off about it was that HE clearly hadn't fucking understood Goodfellas, his so-called favourite film. He argues that its a 'male fantasy' a la fucking Entourage or 'the brat pack minus tuxedos'. This motherfucking mutt continues that the characters are "exactly what guys want to be: lazy but powerful, deadly but funny, tough, unsentimental and devoted above all to their brothers — a small group of guys who will always have your back. Women sense that they are irrelevant to this fantasy, and it bothers them." (I just had to re-read it to get that quote and am now FUMING again.) Has he ever even watched it all the way through? NONE of them have each other's backs. That is literally the fucking point of the movie; that the mafioso code of honour they all quote with reverence is total bollocks. They're greedy, ruthless and out for themselves and you can't trust them even if they claim to be your friend. I had a better reading of the thing as a FIFTEEN-year-old woman. Another crucial element that seemingly went completely over his head is that these men AREN'T the fucking brat pack. They're 'blue collar guys' *Lorraine Bracco voice* at the bottom rung of organised crime, not even part of a mafia 'family'. The foot soldiers, not the Don Corleones. Of course, as a viewer you can't help but be seduced by Ray Liotta's voiceover selling the lifestyle to you. It indulges everyone's basest desire to be powerful, respected and threatening sometimes. That facet of the human experience is not exclusive to men. It also explores the intoxicating desire to be someone like that's significant other- me and Claire both had to take a moment for Lorraine Bracco's Karen VO-ing "I know there are women, like my best friends, who would have gotten out of there the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn't. I got to admit the truth. It turned me on." (Oy Vey) And lest we fucking overlook Lorranine Bracco.. wow. The fact that this relatively unknown actor, in 1990 no less, appeared in a gangster film alongside Robert bloody DeNiro and Joe Pesci and practically stole the show, bears remembering every day. Simpering Dianne Keaton in Godfather she was not. Anyway(sorry, this is starting to sound as coherent Henry's coked up voiceover by the end of the film) most people will admit that sociopathic criminals and the lifestyle they lead can be very seductive and alluring. Yet scratch just a millimetre under the surface and it's as fake as the tacky furniture and clothes their women spend their ill gotten gains on. Goodfellas is cool, sure. But it's gritty, working class New York cool, people who are "somebody in a neighbourhood full of nobodies.." And if you can't appreciate that pretty fucking obvious theme and think the story is supposed to be aspirational, then you're either as morally bankrupt as the characters in the film or the film is as unsuitable for you as it was for me aged seven. Perhaps another reason stupid bro-y Americans such as the author of that bag of shite get caught up in the style rather than the substance of the film is the absolutely BANGING soundtrack. Like with all Scorsese's films, he scores it solely with sourced material from the time, meaning in the earlier scenes you get lots of cheesy, crooner numbers and by its paranoid, frantic last third you get 70s, cocaine guitar rock. But what always takes my breath away is his UNCANNY ability to pair totally unremarkable, sometimes almost twee, songs with an incongruous scene and trigger something really weird in you. For example, what is going on in the Pink Cadillac/dead bodies scene set to Derek and the Dominoes? How do you come up with something like that? Every time I watch that bit, I feel like I've just dropped an e; goosebumps and the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. But I can never really identify what emotion I'm experiencing. I'm not sad that any of them are dead, I'm not happy, I'm just weirdly exhilarated. It's almost kind of uncomfortable. Genius. I swear the man could set a scene to Agadoo and get an Oscar. Goodfellas, and a bunch of other Scorsese films, are out at cinemas again through February- although I think Goodfellas is now only out at the BFI and the ICA for a couple more days. Soz about me and my shit blogging speed. If you can get to a screening, even if you've seen it a million times before, I highly recommend you do. It was the perfect anecdote to the current state of affairs and I didn't think of Donald Trump once. Except for maybe subconsciously while Billy Batts was getting his head kicked in. NB If you've never seen it before, a word of warning, you will be STARVING by the end of it. Food is basically a character in its own right. My mate Bryanna is in a radge because it's not showing anywhere near her in Liverpool and she wants to see it again. So we've decided next I go up for a visit we're going to stick it on the tele and watch it with an Italian fest. She cooks Italian food as well as Paulie does in the can so if you want to follow suit, she recommends these dishes
1 Comment
Jessica
2/2/2017 02:05:12 pm
Having never seen it myself (I know. Bad film student), is it possible a 15 yo girl was able to grapple with the politics of backstabbing because life is Mean Girls? IDK
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