Fantastic piece, especially the point about how many of Scorsese's pictures — I have to call them "pictures!" It's Scorsese! — are about American tribalism.
It's been fascinating to watch late-career Scorsese extend the theme of tribalism and the cost of violence. THE IRISHMAN, especially, sure feels like it carries the final act of GOODFELLAS deeper into hell.
I once had an ex who talked like Captain Raymond Holt and was very into this particular film, which she called THE GOODFELLOWS. This is probably the main reason I hate this movie, but, I don't know. A lot of Scorsese movies feel to me like they're just about how cool Scorsese movies are, and this was the start of that, for me. I love Scorsese movies that feel like they're about people and hate Scorsese movies that feel like they're about Rolling Stones needle drops.
Anyway, I'd hoped that this would be the article that would convince me this movie is good, but that's probably not a realistic aim. A valiant effort nonetheless.
One of my favorite Goodfellas bits is when I saw an old AV Club headline along the lines of "Goodfellas actor sues The Simpsons for using his likeness" and I knew EXACTLY who they were talking about.
For me Karen makes the movie. What a character! One of my favorites in any genre, any movie. Everything I knew about the mob before seeing Goodfellas was from The Simpsons, I needed that introduction to the Pauls and Maries, to the cheap fits, to spitting on her own floor, if you can believe it! And the 2R Rossi bit!
I don't think I have seen Bracco in anything else. What a performance.
I remember when I watched this a lot as a teenager, I would always get so frustrated in the final sequence, because I loved the first sections so much, and they were cool and funny (aside from the occasional hard violence) and then that section was so stressful and unpleasant.
And then I remember finally realizing at some point as I got older and hopefully smarter, that the discomfort was the point. The first parts of the movie are fun because they are seducing you into the criminal life the same way Henry and Karen are, and the final sequence is when the movie removes the scales from your eyes so to speak.
So anyway, I think I was a person who took the wrong lessons, and then I grew up a bit. Not to say I ever seriously thought it was cool and glamorous to be a violent criminal, just that the surrounding lifestyle seemed fun and exciting.
One of the most basic aspects of my cinephilia is that this is one of my favorite movies.
You guys really nailed it when you said “If Goodfellas didn’t seduce viewers into the gangster life, it’s depicting it wouldn’t work.” The best part of this movie is that it IS really funny and fun to watch. The dissonance between that vibe and what’s actually happening is what gives it power.
This is why it’s always such a weird situation when people complain about Scorsese romanticizing gangster life. Because in some ways they aren’t wrong, but they also aren’t giving Scorsese or the film credit for how aware it is of that very tension. Also, personally, what do I care if gangster movies romanticize gangsters, I’m not going out and doing hits because of it lol.
I wonder how much of the online complaints are from people who don't get the issue of portrayal being different from endorsement, which seems ubiquitous these days. It's not only the audience being seduced into the gangster life, but the characters, especially a young Henry Hill before he's old enough to understand the tradeoffs and consequences and can only see the glamour.
I can't even remember the first time I saw Goodfellas. I do remember rewatching it a few years ago and trying to be more conscious of the satirical elements; there's a bit at the beginning, where young Henry is blowing up cars on orders from his boss, and the shot freezes on the explosion just as the voiceover mentions how the kids in the neighborhood carried his mom's groceries home for her out of "respect." It's the most obvious joke in the world, but I don't think I'd ever noticed it before. (I don't think "being entertaining" is a flaw, but I do think Scorsese's knack for making compulsively watchable movies can make it easier to miss the points where he sticks the knife in.)
The reason you’re not being paid is because you’re using Morrie’s “I want my money” rather than saying “f*** you, pay me”. Come on, guys.
Good piece; it must be so difficult to write something new about this movie.
Nothing makes me feel more like a basic dude than my love for this movie, but I do love it. Probably the best gift I ever gave someone was based on it (sadly?). My best friend and I must have watched this movie together at least half a dozen times. One year for his birthday, I had a recreation of the two dog painting made, put my friend’s face on the guy in the boat. What do you want from me?
Oddly, kind of a precursor to Paulie’s General Tony Soprano painting, with the horse. Unlike Tony, my friend was honored.
Sadly, the owner of Badabing Wings passed away and the shop closed. Bummer cuz I’d kept meaning to stop in. It’s kind of embarrassing how much I like chicken wings.
Anyway, thanks for another great write up. I rewatched Grosse Pointe Blank last week, and looks like Goodfellas is next!!
I love this movie so much. My wife and I watched it on our wedding night after the reception and everything else. Watching the Sopranos for the first time a few years ago helped me better understand the characters in Goodfellas thanks to a similar morality but a more modern time frame. You two are spot-on with how Henry's passivity is key to the movie: Henry's just like us. He's not a murdering psycho like Tommy or a genius schemer like Jimmy, he's a guy who wants a hot wife and cocaine and gaudy home decor and is convinced of his own righteousness because he's "providing for his family". In the '90s, he'd be inflating stock prices of phony web companies and boosting Pokeman cards. Today's Henry Hill packs a lip full of zyn pouches for a day at his cryptocurrency start-up. His whole lifestyle is built on violence and conquest, and he doesn't have to think that closely about it. And how different is that from the suburbanites dutifully clocking in at Northrup Grumman and Raytheon? Typing on our iphones made with slave labor in far-off lands? Henry Hill is just a few degrees closer to the violence than we are. That's the brilliance of the ending: the "bitter reality" Henry's stuck with is ultimately a very comfortable middle class existence during one of the more prosperous periods in American history.
Scott we must be neighbors, I love Badabing Wings and live just a few blocks away. The chef/owner died last year sadly young, but I'm happy to see the restaurant is back up and running.
Glad to see a few other people admitting that loving this movie does feel kind of basic. Is this my favorite Scorsese? (Checks his ranked Letterboxd list, sees that yes, it is #1.) Yep, it's my favorite. Confessions of a secret filmbro.
I really only wrestle with "bad fans" — the people who love something like this for the very parts that Scorsese is critiquing — when artists seem surprised that someone could misinterpret their art like that. If Scorsese made this movie and said "I wanted to show people how terrible it is to be a gangster, maybe steer some kids away from the streets" I'd think he was naive. But he's not — he knows both that being a gangster looks pretty fucking cool, and also that it's horrible (on a personal and social level), but doesn't just say that.
Extra Credit: sure, you love Goodfellas, but do you love Goodpigeons, the Animaniacs cartoon that kinda just hits the same joke every time but mostly makes it work (and has a "The Godpigeon" character just to spread it around a bit)?
We loved Animaniacs as kids and my parents lost their shit at the Goodfeathers episode where they sing an ode to Marty (whose statute they perched on, until at the end of the number it collapsed and they moved to the Coppola statute down the block)
I'm another person who loves a whole lot of kind of movies and kind of doesn't love Goodfellas (or Wolf of Wall Street) because, while it's clearly super well made, well acted and just, you know, objectively excellent, I just don't like these characters at all and I don't like the camera's point of view.
Totally get the POV that this only works if the seduction of the mob lifestyle (or the wall street hustle) works but jesus, these guys suck and I just don't like watching 'em for like 3+ hours. And not only do the leads suck - the supporting characters suck. The ones that are supposed to be sympathetic. The ones that are supposed to be 'more evil' than our leads. Just about everyone. While these movies are made to be kind of max fun, lord help me I'd pay to not have to spend a minute with these idiots.
AND - this is making me realize that Goodfellas and Wolf have something going that the Coens often got knocked for - people often accused them of kind of looking down on their characters thru the camera. I don't think they did (mostly) but I kind of think Scorcese does do that here and in Wolf and, I get that no one complains about it because these folks are jerks, but also, l can absolutely find some other movie I'll enjoy that isn't someone kind of hate-gazing on their characters (who do suck and who do suckie things) for big stretches of time.
The musical cue that sticks with me most is Donovan's Atlantis. The juxtaposition of Donovan's dulcet tones and earnest wistfulness with Billy being beaten bloodily to death is tonally ironic, but it also leverages the eerie, mythic darkness of the song. Here we are, deep beneath the sea, in a realm most only experience through imagination and stories. And yet the bloodstained floors are terrifyingly real.
Since CASINO isn't on the Sight and Sound 100, where do we stand on it? I'm in the GOODFELLAS is better camp but need to give CASINO a second watch to confirm
Casino is one of my least favorite Scorseses overall.
I actually love the almost documentary info about how casinos worked at the time, but once the plot kicks in I'm more bored than anything. I don't exactly love the GoodFellas characters as people, but Casino's characters I find actually repellant. Authentic, but this is where I hit "why am I spending time with them?" territory.
Thought maybe I'd like it more on a revisit, but I got to see it on the big screen in 2023 and still didn't really like it.
Fantastic piece, especially the point about how many of Scorsese's pictures — I have to call them "pictures!" It's Scorsese! — are about American tribalism.
It's been fascinating to watch late-career Scorsese extend the theme of tribalism and the cost of violence. THE IRISHMAN, especially, sure feels like it carries the final act of GOODFELLAS deeper into hell.
I once had an ex who talked like Captain Raymond Holt and was very into this particular film, which she called THE GOODFELLOWS. This is probably the main reason I hate this movie, but, I don't know. A lot of Scorsese movies feel to me like they're just about how cool Scorsese movies are, and this was the start of that, for me. I love Scorsese movies that feel like they're about people and hate Scorsese movies that feel like they're about Rolling Stones needle drops.
Anyway, I'd hoped that this would be the article that would convince me this movie is good, but that's probably not a realistic aim. A valiant effort nonetheless.
If watching goodfellas can’t convince you it’s good, then nothing can.
Oh, agreed, this is completely a me problem.
One of my favorite Goodfellas bits is when I saw an old AV Club headline along the lines of "Goodfellas actor sues The Simpsons for using his likeness" and I knew EXACTLY who they were talking about.
For me Karen makes the movie. What a character! One of my favorites in any genre, any movie. Everything I knew about the mob before seeing Goodfellas was from The Simpsons, I needed that introduction to the Pauls and Maries, to the cheap fits, to spitting on her own floor, if you can believe it! And the 2R Rossi bit!
I don't think I have seen Bracco in anything else. What a performance.
You would probably enjoy The Sopranos then!
I gave up on The Sopranos after 9 1/2 episodes on account of it being terrible.
I should have said "any other movie."
I remember when I watched this a lot as a teenager, I would always get so frustrated in the final sequence, because I loved the first sections so much, and they were cool and funny (aside from the occasional hard violence) and then that section was so stressful and unpleasant.
And then I remember finally realizing at some point as I got older and hopefully smarter, that the discomfort was the point. The first parts of the movie are fun because they are seducing you into the criminal life the same way Henry and Karen are, and the final sequence is when the movie removes the scales from your eyes so to speak.
So anyway, I think I was a person who took the wrong lessons, and then I grew up a bit. Not to say I ever seriously thought it was cool and glamorous to be a violent criminal, just that the surrounding lifestyle seemed fun and exciting.
One of the most basic aspects of my cinephilia is that this is one of my favorite movies.
You guys really nailed it when you said “If Goodfellas didn’t seduce viewers into the gangster life, it’s depicting it wouldn’t work.” The best part of this movie is that it IS really funny and fun to watch. The dissonance between that vibe and what’s actually happening is what gives it power.
This is why it’s always such a weird situation when people complain about Scorsese romanticizing gangster life. Because in some ways they aren’t wrong, but they also aren’t giving Scorsese or the film credit for how aware it is of that very tension. Also, personally, what do I care if gangster movies romanticize gangsters, I’m not going out and doing hits because of it lol.
I wonder how much of the online complaints are from people who don't get the issue of portrayal being different from endorsement, which seems ubiquitous these days. It's not only the audience being seduced into the gangster life, but the characters, especially a young Henry Hill before he's old enough to understand the tradeoffs and consequences and can only see the glamour.
I can't even remember the first time I saw Goodfellas. I do remember rewatching it a few years ago and trying to be more conscious of the satirical elements; there's a bit at the beginning, where young Henry is blowing up cars on orders from his boss, and the shot freezes on the explosion just as the voiceover mentions how the kids in the neighborhood carried his mom's groceries home for her out of "respect." It's the most obvious joke in the world, but I don't think I'd ever noticed it before. (I don't think "being entertaining" is a flaw, but I do think Scorsese's knack for making compulsively watchable movies can make it easier to miss the points where he sticks the knife in.)
The reason you’re not being paid is because you’re using Morrie’s “I want my money” rather than saying “f*** you, pay me”. Come on, guys.
Good piece; it must be so difficult to write something new about this movie.
Nothing makes me feel more like a basic dude than my love for this movie, but I do love it. Probably the best gift I ever gave someone was based on it (sadly?). My best friend and I must have watched this movie together at least half a dozen times. One year for his birthday, I had a recreation of the two dog painting made, put my friend’s face on the guy in the boat. What do you want from me?
Oddly, kind of a precursor to Paulie’s General Tony Soprano painting, with the horse. Unlike Tony, my friend was honored.
Amazing.
Sadly, the owner of Badabing Wings passed away and the shop closed. Bummer cuz I’d kept meaning to stop in. It’s kind of embarrassing how much I like chicken wings.
Anyway, thanks for another great write up. I rewatched Grosse Pointe Blank last week, and looks like Goodfellas is next!!
It’s since reopened. Sad story, though.
Oooh good to know!
I love this movie so much. My wife and I watched it on our wedding night after the reception and everything else. Watching the Sopranos for the first time a few years ago helped me better understand the characters in Goodfellas thanks to a similar morality but a more modern time frame. You two are spot-on with how Henry's passivity is key to the movie: Henry's just like us. He's not a murdering psycho like Tommy or a genius schemer like Jimmy, he's a guy who wants a hot wife and cocaine and gaudy home decor and is convinced of his own righteousness because he's "providing for his family". In the '90s, he'd be inflating stock prices of phony web companies and boosting Pokeman cards. Today's Henry Hill packs a lip full of zyn pouches for a day at his cryptocurrency start-up. His whole lifestyle is built on violence and conquest, and he doesn't have to think that closely about it. And how different is that from the suburbanites dutifully clocking in at Northrup Grumman and Raytheon? Typing on our iphones made with slave labor in far-off lands? Henry Hill is just a few degrees closer to the violence than we are. That's the brilliance of the ending: the "bitter reality" Henry's stuck with is ultimately a very comfortable middle class existence during one of the more prosperous periods in American history.
Scott we must be neighbors, I love Badabing Wings and live just a few blocks away. The chef/owner died last year sadly young, but I'm happy to see the restaurant is back up and running.
Glad to see a few other people admitting that loving this movie does feel kind of basic. Is this my favorite Scorsese? (Checks his ranked Letterboxd list, sees that yes, it is #1.) Yep, it's my favorite. Confessions of a secret filmbro.
I really only wrestle with "bad fans" — the people who love something like this for the very parts that Scorsese is critiquing — when artists seem surprised that someone could misinterpret their art like that. If Scorsese made this movie and said "I wanted to show people how terrible it is to be a gangster, maybe steer some kids away from the streets" I'd think he was naive. But he's not — he knows both that being a gangster looks pretty fucking cool, and also that it's horrible (on a personal and social level), but doesn't just say that.
Extra Credit: sure, you love Goodfellas, but do you love Goodpigeons, the Animaniacs cartoon that kinda just hits the same joke every time but mostly makes it work (and has a "The Godpigeon" character just to spread it around a bit)?
Close! "Goodfeathers." And, yeah, I introduced Scott to those characters while we wrote this.
Ha! Keith, you've passed my test.
We loved Animaniacs as kids and my parents lost their shit at the Goodfeathers episode where they sing an ode to Marty (whose statute they perched on, until at the end of the number it collapsed and they moved to the Coppola statute down the block)
I'm another person who loves a whole lot of kind of movies and kind of doesn't love Goodfellas (or Wolf of Wall Street) because, while it's clearly super well made, well acted and just, you know, objectively excellent, I just don't like these characters at all and I don't like the camera's point of view.
Totally get the POV that this only works if the seduction of the mob lifestyle (or the wall street hustle) works but jesus, these guys suck and I just don't like watching 'em for like 3+ hours. And not only do the leads suck - the supporting characters suck. The ones that are supposed to be sympathetic. The ones that are supposed to be 'more evil' than our leads. Just about everyone. While these movies are made to be kind of max fun, lord help me I'd pay to not have to spend a minute with these idiots.
AND - this is making me realize that Goodfellas and Wolf have something going that the Coens often got knocked for - people often accused them of kind of looking down on their characters thru the camera. I don't think they did (mostly) but I kind of think Scorcese does do that here and in Wolf and, I get that no one complains about it because these folks are jerks, but also, l can absolutely find some other movie I'll enjoy that isn't someone kind of hate-gazing on their characters (who do suck and who do suckie things) for big stretches of time.
The musical cue that sticks with me most is Donovan's Atlantis. The juxtaposition of Donovan's dulcet tones and earnest wistfulness with Billy being beaten bloodily to death is tonally ironic, but it also leverages the eerie, mythic darkness of the song. Here we are, deep beneath the sea, in a realm most only experience through imagination and stories. And yet the bloodstained floors are terrifyingly real.
Since CASINO isn't on the Sight and Sound 100, where do we stand on it? I'm in the GOODFELLAS is better camp but need to give CASINO a second watch to confirm
Casino is one of my least favorite Scorseses overall.
I actually love the almost documentary info about how casinos worked at the time, but once the plot kicks in I'm more bored than anything. I don't exactly love the GoodFellas characters as people, but Casino's characters I find actually repellant. Authentic, but this is where I hit "why am I spending time with them?" territory.
Thought maybe I'd like it more on a revisit, but I got to see it on the big screen in 2023 and still didn't really like it.
Yeah I got to see it on the big screen at the DC Landmark (RIP). It is the 30th anniversary this year, maybe I'll go to a screening this year
Sometimes I’ll walk past a pizzeria and into my head pops
“You wasted eight f*ckin aprons on this guy.”
And the I think of the matching boosted yellow Mr. Rogers sweaters and my day gets 8% better
"John Hinckley seems pretty chill these days"
I have bad news: https://bsky.app/profile/davidklion.bsky.social/post/3lj6t5qdr4s26
Yiiiikes.