12th Favorite Movie - Goodfellas

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

Many of the remaining movies on my list were at one point in my life my favorite movie. With Goodfellas, it was 1991 when it first came out in the theater. I saw it 4 times in the theater, which to this day is the most times I have ever seen one movie during its original release period. I think that had a bit to do with how old I was at the time - 17. See, I had wheels and freedom, I had money for tickets but was not burdened with a job, and other technological time-wasters like DVD and Facebook and iTunes and Playstation hadn't been invented yet. It seems like of all the people who go repeatedly to see the same movie in the theater, the 15-17 year old crowd does this the most. Once you get to college, there is other stuff to do and spending $10 on laundry or pizza often seems like a better investment.

I'm not quite sure if this movie is what really got me interested in film (compared to just movies), but it is possible. It certainly got me interested in Martin Scorsese. After seeing this, I immediately rented Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, neither of which came CLOSE to impacting me in the way Goodfellas did and neither of which I have seen since. I have seen most of Scorsese's movies and I think this is his finest work. I was actually a bit disappointed with The Departed... the way critics and people everywhere were gushing about it, I wanted to say "haven't you people seen Goodfellas? This is rubbish compared to that." I think that after seeing Goodfellas, pretty much EVERY Scorsese film has been a letdown for me... especially Casino, which is a sort of sequel to Goodfellas. Both movies are based on the real-life findings of Nicholas Pillegi, who wrote a couple books about gangsters that became these two movies.

So what is so great about this movie? It isn't inspiring, like Shawshank Redemption. It doesn't make you want to be a better person, like Braveheart. It doesn't even really have a positive message. If anything, the message of Goodfellas could be summarized as, "times were great when we were breaking the law, but now everything is pretty lame". The funny thing is, 'pretty lame' is describing a lifestyle that would be perfectly acceptable to most of us. Goodfellas is about wanting to be at the top of the world, getting there, loving it, and then losing everything and being left wondering, "did that really happen?".

I was reading somewhere (I think it was an interview with Quinton Tarintino) that a character who is in the mob but trying to get out (like Jules from Pulp Fiction) is the perfect character to create. Here is why: the dilemma of a character who is stuck doing what they don't want to do but yearns for a better life often parallels our own lives, and the moral/spiritual implications can be strong. Scorsese himself was studying to be a Catholic priest before making Mean Streets, which is also about gangsters - some of which are trying to get out of that lifestyle. The gang member who longs to get out of the mob can parallel our own longings for redemption, to be saved, to be forgiven and absolved of wrongdoing. Perhaps that explains some of the fascination I and others have with gangster movies, including Goodfellas.

Or it could just be the camaraderie, the humor, the unexpected outbursts of violence, and the idea of being able to get whatever you wanted from whoever you wanted whenever you wanted simply because of the power you wield and the fear you instill... and not having to work all that hard to get it. To a race of beings who were once tempted in a garden to be "like gods", what could be more appealing?