Weblog #10- "Goodfellas"

Goodfellas is one of the many films directed the great Martin Scorsese. Released in 1990, the film is based on the true story of Henry Hill, a man who worked his way into and up in the mob. He is joined by a few friends, Jimmy and Tommy, and the three take on life as gangsters from the 1950s up until the 1980s. The character Henry narrates most of the film, and at one point he explains that they all refer to each other as "good fellas." For instance, he says whenever he or another member of the mob is introduced to someone else, they always say "hey you'll like him; he's a good fella." Although it was simple, I liked this brief explanation that made the title of the film seem all the more relevant.

The three main men are each portrayed by a brillian actor in my eyes. Henry is played by Ray Liotta, who does an excellent job portraying a rebellious gangster with a likeable quality. Although he is technically the bad guy, the audience roots for him and sympathizes with him during his struggles because we get an inside look into his life. Showing his less than perfect family life as a child definitely allows the audience to feel for Henry, and also even understand why he chose they lifestyle he did. Liotta also does a fantastic job at portraying Henry as an overall isolated man, a popular aspect each main character in Scorsese films seems to possess. Even though Henry is constantly surrounded by people, we still see a loneliness in him that is especially obvious toward the end of the film when he clearly states to his wife "I am all alone." Jimmy is played by Robert De Niro, who often partnered with Scorsese for films throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s. De Niro also does a great job making Jimmy to be a likeable character, even though we see him beat and kill people in several scenes. Also, the fact that he is so protective and kind to Henry, a character who the audience empathizes with, establishes him as a "good guy" in our eyes. Tommy was the one character that I wasn't particularly fond of, and I believe it was because of the wonderful performance by Joe Pesci. He did such a good job acting like a ruthless, vicious gangster that it made me not like him at all. That, to me, is an example of great acting. I am not sure if Scorsese meant for the character Tommy to be more unlikeable; however, this image was created due to Pesci's great style of acting.

I had never seen Goodfellas before viewing it in class, and I already want to watch it again. I really enjoy all of the Scorsese films that I have seen, and I think it is because of the way he presents his characters. Also, I believe audiences responded so well to Goodfellas because, similar to films like Bonnie and Clyde and Scarface, it glorifies rebellion and the outlaws. Our society seems to have such a fascination with gangster films because we are interested in seeing the lives of the bad guys. I think Scorsese did an excellent job with this film.

Weblog #9- "Bonnie and Clyde"

Although the film was not completely accurate in every aspect of the lives of Bonnie and Clyde, I believe it did quite a good job portraying them overall. Bonnie and Clyde was directed by Arthur Penn and released in 1967; however, it was set in the 1930s. It was interesting to see the style and representations of characters and things in the film that were meant to evoke the style of the 1930s, but certain things were clearly straight out of the 60s. The film is all about the adventures of Bonnie and Clyde and the Burrow gang, which included C.W. Moss, Clyde's brother Buck, and his wife Blanche. The gang journeyed all over robbing banks and eventually killing cops, all the while loving the adventure. Along with their crazy lives, the film conveys the love between Bonnie and Clyde. It ends, of course, with the death of Bonnie and Clyde in a violent scene where they get ambushed by a group of policemen. Though most of the audience expects this terrible fate, it is still a bit of a surprise to see the violence in the scene because most films up to this point abided by the code and did not show such intense scenes of murder.

One of the most interesting technical aspects of the film that I found was the use of fading between shots. Most of the scenes cut into the next or went to black before the following scene. I found it a bit ironic that the only few times a scene faded into another was when that next scene was a pivital scene in the film. For example, the scene where the food delivery boy recognizes Bonnie fades into the following scene that includes the dramatic fight with the police where they end up killing many officers. Also, the scene when Bonnie breaks down and explains that she wants to see her mother fades into the scene where she realizes her mother is not who she used to be, and she feels alone and without family. I am not sure if this is an intentional technique used by the director, but it was interesting and coincidental that the only few fades were dramatic scenes in the film. Another technical aspect I enjoyed was the music. I noticed that whenever there was a car chase or a scene with shooting or robbing where one would expect it to be serious and intense, the music would be light and folksy. This technique made the entire mood of the film less serious and almost comical. It definitely caused me to classify the movie as more of an exciting film rather than a dramatic one.

I like this movie a lot because of the fact that it was based on the lives of real people. Also, there is nothing wrong with having to stare at the lovely Warren Beaty for two hours :)