Goodfellas Analysis.

Goodfellas Analysis.


Goodfellas’ is a picture directed by Martin Scorsese.gangster. It is an American gangster film; we know this because of the iconography that is in the opening sequence. After the credits, the first thing we see is a car. The car is a Pontiac which is an American car, you would not find one of them in Britain, and this is the first piece of iconography that shows us we are watching an American gangster film. After that shot we see a black screen with the appearing words New York, 1970 written on it. It was around these years Italian American mobsters ruled the streets of New York, via the likes of reputed mob bosses John Gotti and Joseph Bonanno. This information tells us for certain that we are watching an American gangster film. The final iconography that tells us that we are watching an American gangster film is the voice over; he (Ray Liotta) has a very strong Brooklyn accent. The audiences generic expectations of a gangster film are met during the sequence by the clothes of actors, the characters are wearing very smart expensive clothes. They are wearing 3 piece suits, silk shirts etc, These are stock costumes for this genre, these types of clothes also appear in films such as ‘Scarface’, and ‘The Godfather’, 'Donnie Brasco; although in ‘The Godfather’ the suits look different to the ones you see in Goodfellas as The Godfather is set at a different period in time, around the 50's, it still gives you the impression of smartly dressed gangsters. The audiences expectations are fulfilled with the bat the end of the opening sequence when we see a body in the boot covered in blood, and one the characters starts hacking at him with a knife. The opening sequence does conform to the characteristics of the genre, the people are all dressed smartly, they are violent, and they use foul language; everything we would expect from a gangster.


The mise-en-scene of the scene reinforces our image of the gangsters. The scene is filmed at night, this tells us that they are bad guys and really portrays the dark side of the underworld. When watching films youre most likely to see that if there is something against the law occurring, it is being filmed at night. The fact that they are travelling at night could imply that they are trying to stay low key away from the police. When the car is travelling and when it pulls over we can see that is on a small country road well away from cities and towns. We know this because there is no street lighting along the road and because they are driving through a wood. Woods can be seen as a stock location in gangster movies because that is where they bury anybody they have murdered, such as the scene in Martin Scorcese's 1995 classic, 'Casino', where Joe Pesci's character is being killed off. The combination of the dark back road and the wood say to us that the characters have just broke the law or at least have done something that they would like to keep secret. When the characters get out of the car and go to the boot they are bathed in a red light, this connotes blood and violence. The opening shot is a tracking shot, which then proceeds to pans left and comes along side the car, this shows us the car that we are about to go inside and it gives the audience the idea that we are following the car, so we know that the people inside are going to be the people that are the main characters throughout the film. It almost puts you in their shoes. When we see a shot inside the car it is a medium close up shot of the driver, but we can also see the other characters in the car. The director uses the rule of thirds to show that all the people within the car are important, but we get the impression that the driver is the main character as the camera is mainly concentrating on him and his reactions, and the other two characters are slightly out of focus. We then go to a long shot when the characters walk around to the boot, the director uses this shot to show the background, and to show the characters in the red light, this portrays the characters as demonic and dangerous and the red light is a connotation of blood, which we see in the next scene. We see a point of view shot, which tracks in on the boot, this shows us that the noise we hear is coming from the boot. Sound is used to anchor the images during the opening sequences by the way that before we see the images of the car we can hear the sound of passing traffic anchors the image of the car. Scorsese also uses sound bridges, a good example of this is when one of the gangsters starts stabbing at the man in the boot, we can still hear this going on, but camera cuts to a reaction shot of one of the other gangsters. From the script and the dialogue these characters use, we learn that these are tough men, two of them swear in their first line of dialogue. The non-verbal language shows us that the men are tired, one of them is asleep and the driver is rubbing his eyes with fatigue; this tells us that they have been up along time and it reinforces the fact that they are driving at night.


It is structured narrative so that it does not run in linear sequence, at the start of the film we are already halfway through the story, we then flashback to the beginning of the story. We know it is a flashback because the voice over says ‘As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster. The narrative then works its way up to the point at which we started and the story then expands from there. The audience is placed in the style of objective treatment; we are treated as a person watching the film, not as part of the film. An example of this would be, is when we the follow car, and when we go into the car with the characters. This is objective treatment because the camera inside the car is positioned on the windscreen looking at the characters, if it was subjective treatment we would be viewing the inside of the car from a point of view shot or the camera would be positioned in an empty seat. The voice over at the end of the scene is another example objective treatment, because it addresses the audience.


The social group that is represented in the opening sequence of ‘Goodfellas’ are middle-aged, white males. They are all Italian American. They are portrayed as anti-hero’s. Even though they are the villians, we instantly like them. Gangsters are bad people, so we shouldn’t like them, but we do. Another ideological discourse within ‘Goodfellas’ is gender. Gangster films are very male films and ‘Goodfellas’ backs this point. The characters in the opening sequence are male, and there are not many females throughout the whole film. The females that are in ‘Goodfellas’ are portrayed to be lower in status to men. An example of this would be how Ray Liotta's character cheats on his wife without her knowing.  Capitalism is an ideological discourse with the majority of western films; this is because people are always reminding us of the values of our society, and capitalism is the belief that the foundation of our society is layered upon. ‘Goodfellas’ is about making money, it is not one of the main themes in the film, but it is without a doubt one of them. Making money is a capitalist ideology.


The target audience is for ‘Goodfellas’ is young adults in the age range of about 18-30. There is a lot of violence and other adult topics that younger children would not understand, and it is rated an 18 so anyone under that would not be able to view this film in a cinema or purchase it. The characters are predominantly white, so the target audience is white males, so the audience can relate to it. Gangster films are normally a male film; they seem to find all the violent scenes and drug abuse more entertaining than women do. British society is very similar to the society of America, and we hear about America in our media. So, I am able to understand the majority of the film, because I have some knowledge of the Italian american lifestyle, however I am sure there are some parts of the film that I would have been able to acknowledge better if I was an Italian American, and was brought up in Italian neighborhoods such as Little Italy or East Harlem.