Abstract
This chapter focuses on GoodFellas, discussing Martin Scorsese’s conscious attempt to re-create in some of his films what he saw through his window during the most voyeuristic phase of his childhood. Sharing with the audience his first-hand experience not only allows this filmmaker to portray Italian Americanness in an unprecedented realistic way, but often spills over some of his films’ protagonists, turning them into voyeurs as well. As a consequence, this mirroring effect (Scorsese showing his audience his film version of what he saw as a kid), often becomes a double-mirroring effect, because some of his movies’ protagonists represent the director himself. In Mean Streets (discussed in another chapter), the protagonist conducts a symbolic journey within himself through a series of mirrors, but never manages to accomplish a journey beyond himself, remaining stuck within his neighborhood’s insularity. By contrast, GoodFellas’ protagonist goes from an initial voyeuristic phase to a very active second phase, during which he manages to cross the threshold metaphorically represented by his window and, by so doing, leaves his domestic milieu and moves to the space inhabited by the ‘goodfellas’, ultimately becoming one of them.
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter will use the version of the title stylized with a capital ‘F’—as ‘GoodFellas’, given that this is also the way the title appeared on movie posters when the film was first distributed (meaning that, arguably, this is also the way Scorsese intended it to be)—rather than the most common graphic version ‘Goodfellas’.
- 2.
One can even say, as Lopes suggests, that no contemporary Hollywood director “has contributed as significantly to his own public story. Similar to how Alfred Hitchcock contributed to his rise as a celebrated auteur, Scorsese has shaped the reception of his films through an active and constant construction of his biographical legend” (Lopes 147). Moreover, he has emerged as a ‘public intellectual’ since the early 1970s, “when Hollywood film is first recognized by artists, critics, and audiences as not just pure entertainment but as an expression of the unique vision and/or biography of a director. And no other director of Scorsese’s generation embraced the role of autobiographical director more than he. His public story, therefore, represents the intersection of film, criticism, history, and biography” (ibid., 149).
- 3.
An expression borrowed from one of the subsections’ titles (“Scorsese’s Public Story I: The Kid from Little Italy”) of Lopes’ already cited study on Scorsese.
- 4.
This contrast is particularly striking in Mean Streets, whose eclectic soundtrack ranges from Neapolitan songs of the postwar period such as “Munasterio’e Santa Chiara,” “Maruzzella,” and “Malafemmena,” to the Stones’ “Tell Me”, and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” However, a heterogeneous mix is also present in GoodFellas, where tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano (“Firenze Sogna” and “Parlami d’amore Mariù”) stands alongside Italian American crooners like Tony Bennett (“Rags to Riches”) and Dean Martin (“Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?”), Italian music diva Mina (“Il cielo in una stanza”) and, once again, the Rolling Stones (“Gimme Shelter” and “Monkey Man”). Speaking of Scorsese’s heterogenous music taste and Mina’s song, it is also worth mentioning that he used it again in his 2013 commercial for Dolce and Gabbana titled Street of Dreams. In the striking opening scene, the director’s eclecticism has him pair the Brooklyn bridge (the first thing we see after the opening credits) with this iconic Italian song of the 1960s (the first thing we hear), conveying once more the idea that Scorsese’s cinematic universe is deeply informed by his Italian-American roots and by his love for movies—which is also the key to understanding this commercial, in which the streets are not ‘mean’ anymore, but rather leading to cinema’s dream factory. A perfect example of Scorsese’s unique blend of realism and movie magic also happens later in the commercial, when Matthew McConaughey tells Scarlett Johansson “I like this building, it used to be [brief pause] over there” (smiling and pointing in a different direction). This line alludes to both the classic immigrants’ tale about houses and buildings being able to move (that is, being transported) in New York from one street to another, but also to the illusory nature of cinema (able to make things move and disappear in a blink of an eye).
- 5.
Scorsese’s penchant for cameo appearances in his films can only be compared to Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary proclivity for this practice. In his debut film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967) he plays a gangster; in Boxcar Bertha (1972) a brothel customer; in Mean Streets (1973) he is the gangster Jimmy Shorts, who shoots at Charlie and Johnny Boy at the end of the film; in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) he is a customer at a diner; in Taxi Driver (1976) a cab passenger; in Raging Bull (1980) we see him in the mirror at the end of the movie talking to LaMotta; in The King Of Comedy (1982) he is a TV director; in After Hours (1985) he plays a spot operator lighting up the dance floor in a club; in The Color Of Money (1986) he breaks the rack at a pool hall; in his segment of New York Stories (1989), titled “Life Lessons”, he plays a man holding a dog getting his picture taken with the film’s protagonist; in The Age Of Innocence (1993) he is a wedding photographer; in Bringing Out The Dead (1999) we hear his voice as a dispatcher communicating over the radio; in Gangs Of New York (2002) he plays a wealthy landowner; in The Aviator (2004) he communicates with the protagonist from the booth in his screening room; in Hugo (2011) he is once again a photographer; in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) he is the protagonist’s first victim; and in Silence (2016) he is a missionary. For a more detailed overview of these cameo roles see Kyle Wilson “Every Martin Scorsese Cameo in His Own Movies Explained” https://screenrant.com/martin-scorsese-movie-cameos-explained/ (accessed November 16, 2021). Scorsese’s liking for playing small roles extends to other directors’ films as well. A case in point is his dubbing, in 2004 computer-animated Shark Tale (Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, and Rob Letterman), of a character named Sykes, a loan shark who used to work with Don Lino (voiced by none other than Robert De Niro).
- 6.
In Scorsese’s filmic universe his parents constitute a recurring presence (at least until they are alive). Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa—Mean Streets’ protagonist last name) has often acted in motherly roles in his son’s movies, as it happened in the short It’s Not Just You, Murray! (1964), and in Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967), Taxi Driver (1976), The King of Comedy (1982), and in Casino (1995). She has also played many bystanders, as is the case in Mean Streets (1973), After Hours (1985), Cape Fear (1991), and The Age of Innocence (1993). She also made small appearances in films by other directors, such as Easy Money (James Signorelli, 1983), Wise Guys (Brian De Palma, 1986), Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987), and The Godfather Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990). Luciano Charles ‘Charlie’ Scorsese has a long list of cameo roles as well, starting with Taxi Driver (1976), where his picture appears on a newspaper article, and continuing with Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1982), After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), Cape Fear (1991), and The Age of Innocence (1993). Just like his wife, he also appeared in Wise Guys (Brian De Palma, 1986) and Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987). Nonetheless—besides the fact that Scorsese’s parents are the protagonists of the documentary Italianamerican (1974)—it is in GoodFellas (1990) that they have the most screen time, one as Tommy DeVito’s mum, the other as Vinnie, a gangster who cooks with Paul Cicero when the gang is in prison.
- 7.
For a more detailed discussion of Scorsese’s juxtaposition of realism and formalism, see Fulvio Orsitto “Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas: Hybrid Storytelling between Realism and Formalism.” In Mafia Movies: A Reader, Second Edition, edited by Dana Renga, 103-108.
- 8.
While in GoodFellas there are several point-of-view shots, during which a character may look directly at the camera (a case in point being the famous bedroom scene during which Henry wakes up with Karen pointing a gun at his face), the filmic illusion is always restored by counter-shots that show the spectators that what they are seeing is all taking place within the diegesis (the story being told), and does not ‘touch’ them directly. However, during the brief trial that takes place at the end of the film, Henry abruptly pairs up his voice-over with a direct look at the audience (effectively breaking the so-called fourth wall with his look at the camera) and begins to address the spectators not only verbally, but also visually. This strategy of mise-en-scène continues after the trial when we see where he has been relocated. In this final scene, he first complains with the audience about the lack of decent Italian American food, then the editing shows us Tommy (also breaking the fourth wall) in a brief insert in which he shoots at us with six loud bangs, and finally takes us back to Henry smiling sarcastically while he turns his back at us and slams the door of his new house in our face—in what could also be interpreted as an irreverent reference mocking Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) memorable ending.
- 9.
As already mentioned, during this phase Scorsese would develop voyeuristic tendencies both at (and because of) the movies, and also through his window on Elizabeth Street, in Manhattan’s Little Italy.
- 10.
For more details on the voyeurism informing Scorsese’s protagonists, see this volume’s chapter on Mean Streets.
- 11.
This filmmaker’s connection to Italian Neorealism is acknowledged by Scorsese himself in his 1999 documentary My Voyage to Italy, in which he shows his familiarity with this film movement and openly admits the deep influence it had on his own cinema.
- 12.
According to neorealist writer and theorist Cesare Zavattini, Neorealism was all about shadowing characters’ daily lives, and merely opening a ‘window on the world,’ to show it as is, with the littlest possible degree of filmic and narrative manipulation. Nonetheless, as underlined by Ben Lawton’s study on Italian Neorealism (“Italian Neorealism: A Mirror Construction of Reality”), at a closer look neorealist films are more like a “synthesis of memories and fantasies filtered through highly creative minds… bracketed by economic, technical, and physical limitations” and, yet, their “realism, which an analysis shows to be highly subjective, continues to obsess us” (Lawton 14). The “elusive, evocative power” of neorealist films derives, according to Lawton—who, with this interpretation challenges Zavattini’s theory—from the fact that they are nothing but a “game played by the filmmakers and witnessed by the viewers” and, as such, they are mirror constructions of reality or, in other words, “a construction-en-abyme of reality” (ibid.).
- 13.
More on this line of inquiry in Ellis Cashmore, Martin Scorsese’s America. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009.
- 14.
See Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998; and David R. Roediger, Working towards Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
- 15.
In this context, Lopes seems to be drawing on another work by Matthew Frye Jacobson, more specifically on Roots Too. White Ethnic Revival in Post–Civil Rights America Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.
- 16.
While the Irish/Italian American mash-up is evident in the latter film, in the former (given the absence of Italian American characters) is way subtler. In effect, Jack Nicholson’s character Frank Costello, despite being modeled after Irish American gangster Whitey Bulger, is given by Scorsese the Italian name Costello, turning him into a “double” of Italian-American gangster Frank Costello, a crime boss of the Luciano family.
- 17.
Given that Scorsese’s protagonists are not easily classifiable as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (having at times both and at times neither of these qualities), it does not come as a surprise that the director himself recognizes how the Italian Master painter’s famous chiaroscuro technique has influenced his depiction of gangster figures. By saying “There’s something in Caravaggio that shows a real street knowledge of the sinner; his sacred paintings are profane” (Wolf 2005), Scorsese acknowledges the need to convey both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ traits. The same happens in Mean Streets’ prologue, in which a similar mise-en-scène (with Charlie’s face lit in chiaroscuro) also informs the protagonist’s introduction to the audience.
- 18.
The most famous version of this song—originally written in 1953 by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross—was recorded by Italian American singer Tony Bennett (née Anthony Dominick Benedetto) with Percy Faith and his orchestra. It must be highlighted how this extra-diegetic music accompanying the scene works as a perfect companion piece to the enchanted description the protagonist makes of his neighborhood’s gangster organization. The following are the lyrics from the song’s first stanza: “I know I’d go from rags to riches / If you would only say you care / And though my pocket may be empty / I’d be a millionaire / My clothes may still be torn and tattered / But in my heart I’d be a king.” Henry’s almost magical attraction to the Mafia during his teenage years is confirmed later by another voice-over, during which he enthusiastically confesses, “I belonged. I was treated like a grown-up. Every day I was learning to score. A dollar here, a dollar there. I was living in a fantasy.” The fairytale-like tone continues when, in another voice-over, the protagonist describes the Cicero family organization and explains why, to all intents and purposes, the neighborhood actually ‘needed’ goodfellas: “Hundreds of guys depended on Paulie, and he got a piece of everything they made. It was a tribute, like in the old country, except they were doing it here in America. All they got from Paulie was protection from guys looking to rip them off. That’s what is all about. That’s what the FBI could never understand. What Paulie and the Organization does is offer protection for people who can’t go to the cops. That’s it.”
- 19.
Even though Scorsese’s film is based on a book called Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family, the director gave his film a different title, and made sure that during the narrative all characters use the expression ‘goodfella/goodfellas’ rather than ‘wiseguy/wiseguys’ (this label is more often used in this version, as one word, and with no hyphen), to avoid any overlap with a Brian De Palma’s 1986 gangster comedy (with Danny De Vito, Harvey Keitel, and Joe Piscopo) titled Wise Guys. As an example of how this strategy was brilliantly inserted into the movie dialogue, one should consider the following voice-over in which—right before Tommy supposedly becomes a made-man (that is, right before he gets killed)—Henry explains to the audience: “You know. We always called each other goodfellas. Like you’d say to somebody: ‘You’ll like this guy. He’s all right. He’s a goodfella, one of us.’ You understand? We were goodfellas. Wiseguys.”
- 20.
One hour into the film, Scorsese leads us back to a virtuoso editing of this scene, during which we experience his penchant for expressive stylization and re-live the most dramatic moments, enhanced by the use of slow motion, freeze-frames, and red-tinted close-up shots of the protagonist’s face. In the meanwhile, Henry’s voice-over explains why they should not have done what they did, that is, killing Billy Batts, a made-men working for the Gambino crew.
- 21.
An important reference, in this context, is given by Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener’s 2009 book Film Theory. An Introduction through the Senses (revised and extensively re-written for its second edition in 2015); in particular Chapter 1 (“Cinema as Window and Frame”) and chapter 3 (“Cinema as Mirror—Face and Close-Up”).
- 22.
That is, “the neighborhood chiselers, loan sharks and screw-ups who prey on their own community and each other, sucking money out of ordinary people, hustling for ten-dollar bills” (Denby 48).
- 23.
However, Henry—being of mixed ethnicity (his mother is Italian, but his father is Irish)—cannot fully join the Mafia, given that his ethnic hybridity prevents him from ever becoming a made-man (like Jimmy, who is also part Irish, but unlike Tommy). Nonetheless, he wants to be part of the Cicero family gang so bad that, despite his outsider status, he manages to rise through the ranks. By contrast, in Mean Streets gangsters are already part of Charlie’s family, or better, his biological family and his Mafia family coincide, given that he is one hundred percent Italian and that he works as a collection agent for his uncle (and local boss) Giovanni. It is important to note that, as highlighted by Grist, in Mean Streets Scorsese represents the Mafia “not as a criminal ‘other’ but as the dominant, patriarchal norm” (Grist 2000, 95).
- 24.
As highlighted in the previous chapter on Mean Streets, recurring themes such as religion, gangsters, and cinema itself form the perfect trifecta that inspires and characterizes this director’s career. The persistence of these tropes is not only fostered by various academic studies but nourished by Scorsese himself, who, in his interview with Wilson, says “When you grow up in Little Italy, what are you going to be other than a gangster or a priest?” (Wilson 28).
- 25.
Speaking of character mobility (or hyper-mobility), if one considers Cavallero’s observations on Mean Streets—specifically when he notes that in that film “one sees a director who slowly becomes aware of and begins to interrogate the isolationism and regressive gender norms that were encouraged by his ethnic culture” (57)—GoodFellas should definitely be considered an upgraded follow-up to many of the themes present in Scorsese’s 1973 movie given that, for instance, its protagonist exceeds his neighborhood’s isolationism and that his female counterpart finally has a ‘voice’ (at times also a voice-over, which gives us a glimpse on her inner world).
- 26.
In terms of ethnic hybridity, Scorsese proposes an interesting metacinematic play between GoodFellas and Casino when, in the latter, to explain why secondary character Andy Stone was ‘dealt with’ at the first hint of trouble has Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) say that “As much as they liked him, I mean, he wasn’t one of us. He wasn’t Italian.”
- 27.
The word ‘hero’ appears in the correct spelling of its plural on the restaurant’s window in the phrase ‘HEROES LUNCHEONETTE,’ and is misspelled on the sign ‘HOT AND COLD HEROS.’ The word ‘sandwich’ here is not visible but certainly evoked, given that ‘heros’ (purposely misspelled) is a very common New York term to indicate submarine or Italian sandwiches (also known as hoagies, grinders, poor boy, or Garibaldi sandwiches).
- 28.
For a more detailed discussion of Henry’s (and Karen’s) feelings and relationship to power, see Roger Ebert’s discussion of this film in parts three and six of his book Scorsese by Ebert. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. In his analysis, Ebert posits that the main character deeply resonated with the early 1990’s audience because he wanted all the benefits of power without doing any hard work.
- 29.
A “descriptive” voiceover complements the scene of Karen’s wedding by giving us a peek at the Cicero family from her perspective: “It was like he had two families. The first time I was introduced to all of them at once, it was crazy. Paulie and his brothers had lots of sons and nephews. And almost all of them were named Peter or Paul. It was unbelievable. There must have been two dozen Peters and Pauls at the wedding. Plus, they were all married to girls named Marie. And they named all their daughters Marie. By the time I finished meeting everybody, I thought I was drunk.”
- 30.
A glimpse of Karen’s inner world is given by her voice-over’s comment on her transition into a gangster’s wife: “After a while, it got to be all normal. None of it seemed like crime”—further explaining that “Being together all the time made everything seem all the more normal”.
- 31.
In truth, one must also recognize that Karen is only slightly troubled by the crime world, and that—given how quickly she is seduced by the gangster life and willing to accept all that comes with it—her doubt is very short-lasting.
- 32.
For a more in-depth discussion of Crosland’s film, see Michael Paul Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
- 33.
Speaking of Karen’s sexual desire for Henry—exemplified by the fact he knew how to ‘handle’ a gun, but also things in general—on another instance, the woman’s voice-over says: “One night Bobby Vinton sent us champagne. There was nothing like it. I didn’t think there was anything strange in any of this. You know a twenty-one-year-old kid with such connections. He was an exciting guy. He was really nice. He introduced me to everybody. Everybody wanted to be nice to him. He knew how to handle it.”
- 34.
In her inner monologue, Karen says: “But still I couldn’t hurt him. How could I hurt him? I couldn’t even bring myself to leave him. The truth was that no matter how bad I felt, I was still very attracted to him. Why should I give him to someone else? Why should she win?”
- 35.
An attempt for which she will be, once more, physically punished.
- 36.
At the end of the dialogue, Karen even seems to believe Henry when—to assure her he will never go to jail (leaving her with other gangsters’ wives as her only support system)—he says: “Nobody goes to jail unless they want to.”
- 37.
As noted elsewhere, “Henry thinks he is living the American dream. What Scorsese portrays, however, is the American nightmare, or what could be the darkest side of the American dream” (Orsitto 106).
Works Cited
Cashmore, Ellis. Martin Scorsese’s America. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009.
Casillo, Robert. “The Society of Transgression: GoodFellas.” In Gangster Priest: The Italian American Cinema of Martin Scorsese, 266-325. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
Cavallero, Jonathan J. Hollywood’s Italian American Filmmakers: Capra, Scorsese, Savoca, Coppola, and Tarantino. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2011.
Denby, David. “Mean Streets: The Sweetness of Hell.” Sight and Sound 43, no. 2, 48-50.
Dougan, Andy. Martin Scorsese. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1998.
Ebert, Roger. Scorsese by Ebert. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Elsaesser, Thomas, and Malte Hagener. Film Theory. An Introduction through the Senses, Second edition. Abingdon: Routledge, 2015.
Grist, Leighton. The Films of Martin Scorsese, 1963-77: Authorship and Context. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Roots Too. White Ethnic Revival in Post–Civil Rights America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.
Lawton, Ben. “Italian Neorealism: A Mirror Construction of Reality.” Film Criticism 3, no. 2 (1979), 8-23.
Lieberman, Paul. “A Pair of Ringmasters: To Scorsese, They Were Always Mean Streets.” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2002, E1.
Lopes, Paul. “Martin Scorsese: A Sojourn from Italian American to White Ethnic American.” In Art Rebels: Race, Class, and Gender in the Art of Miles Davis and Martin Scorsese, 146-175. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.
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Pileggi, Nicholas. Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family. Pocket Books, 1985.
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Films Cited
The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993)
After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Martin Scorsese, 1974)
The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004)
Boxcar Bertha (Martin Scorsese, 1972)
Bringing Out the Dead (Martin Scorsese, 1999)
Cape Fear (Martin Scorsese, 1991)
Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995)
The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986)
The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946)
Easy Money (James Signorelli, 1983)
Gangs Of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
The Godfather Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990)
GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903)
Hugo (Martin Scorsese, 2011)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
Italianamerican (Martin Scorsese, 1974)
It’s Not Just You, Murray! (Martin Scorsese, 1964)
The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927)
The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1982)
Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987)
My Voyage to Italy (Martin Scorsese, 1999)
New York, New York (Martin Scorsese, 1977)
New York Stories—“Life Lessons” episode (Martin Scorsese, 1989)
The Oklahoma Kid (Lloyd Bacon, 1939)
Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
Shane (George Stevens, 1953)
Shark Tale (Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, and Rob Letterman, 2004)
Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2016)
Street of Dreams (Martin Scorsese, 2013)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Who’s That Knocking at My Door (Martin Scorsese, 1969)
Wise Guys (Brian De Palma, 1986)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)
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Orsitto, F. (2023). GoodFellas. When the ‘Kid from Little Italy’ Meets the ‘Oklahoma Kid’. In: Fioretti, D., Orsitto, F. (eds) Italian Americans in Film. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06465-4_11
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