Goodfellas

Posted 12 November 2010 | Movies

Goodfellas is a 1990 American gangster film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Scorsese. The film follows the rise and fall of three gangsters, spanning three decades.

Scorsese originally intended to direct Goodfellas before The Last Temptation of Christ, but when funds materialized to make Last Temptation, he postponed what was then known as Wise Guy. The title of Pileggi’s book had already been used for a TV series and for Brian De Palma’s 1986 comedy Wise Guys, so Pileggi and Scorsese changed the name of their film to Goodfellas. To prepare for their roles in the film, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta talked often with Pileggi, who shared with the actors research material that had been left over from writing the book. According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals where Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines that the actors came up with that he liked best, and put them into a revised script the cast worked from during principal photography.

This film views the mob lives of three pivotal figures in the 1960′s and 70′s New York. Henry Hill is a local boy turned gangster in a neighborhood full of the roughest and toughest. Tommy Devito is a pure bred gangster, who turns out to be Henry’s best friend. Jimmy Conway puts the two of them together, and runs some of the biggest hijacks and burglaries the town has ever seen. After an extended jail sentence, Henry must sneak around the back of the local mob boss, Paulie Cicero, to live the life of luxury he has always dreamed of. In the end, the friends end up in a hell of a jam, and must do anything they can to save each other, and stay alive.

Goodfellas

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