The Novel

Author: Nicholas Pileggi (b. 1933)

First published: 1985

The Film

Year released: 1990

Director: Martin Scorsese (b. 1942)

Screenplay by: Martin Scorsese, Nicholas Pileggi

Starring: Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci

Context

The nonfiction book Wiseguy (1985) was written by Nicholas Pileggi, a journalist who worked on the organized crime beat in New York City. Pileggi had grown up in an Italian American neighborhood in New York and consequently had a deep familiarity with the far-reaching Italian American criminal organization known as the Mafia. Wiseguy, his best-known book, came about after he was approached by the lawyer of a former “wiseguy,” or gangster: Henry Hill. After a life of crime, Hill had been arrested and faced years in prison. He was cut a deal, however, in exchange for informing on his associates—a violation of one of the Mafia’s central codes. When Hill reached out to Pileggi about writing his life’s story, he had been in witness protection for several years.

The publication of Wiseguy arrived at a time in American culture when gangster stories were in vogue. Most influential was Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather (1969), which sold nine million copies in the span of two years. It was adapted into the equally popular and critically acclaimed film The Godfather (1972), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which generated two sequels and won several Academy Awards. Quickly regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, it shaped public perception of organized crime and spawned numerous imitators over the decades.

Both were best sellers about organized crime, but Wiseguy was quite different from The Godfather, a work of fiction famous for its over-the-top style and romanticized qualities. Pileggi’s book, by contrast, is a work of true crime that tells the everyday stories of street-level crooks. It is gritty and realistic, mostly made up of verbatim interviews with Henry Hill, his wife Karen, and other people who knew him. The book is also engaging because of the real-life notoriety of events Hill was involved with—including the over $5 million Lufthansa heist in 1978, one of the biggest robberies in history.

The success of Wiseguy quickly led to it being optioned for a film. Italian American filmmaker Martin Scorsese was impressed by the book, and contacted Pileggi. Soon, the two were collaborating on a screenplay. Scorsese’s decision to adapt Wiseguy came at an interesting point in his career. The director had built his reputation on films about seedy street life, including Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967) and the crime drama Mean Streets (1973), but had declared his intent to avoid projects about the Mafia. By the late 1980s, however, he had endured the commercial and critical failure of The King of Comedy (1982) and attempted to reboot his career by returning to a bare bones production style with After Hours (1985). He returned to box office success with The Color of Money (1986), giving him more freedom to pursue his passion projects.

Scorsese soon involved his frequent collaborator, the actor Robert De Niro, on the Wiseguy adaptation, casting him as Hill’s fellow gangster Jimmy “the Gent” because he was too old to play Hill himself. The two had worked most famously together on Mean Streets and Raging Bull (1980). Joe Pesci, whom Scorsese had also worked with in Raging Bull and who was mainly a character actor known for his gangster roles, took the part of Tommy, who like Jimmy was based on a real-life figure but was given a different last name. The director ended up fighting the studio to cast the relative newcomer Ray Liotta in the lead role, and eventually won. Because several other works released in the late 1980s had similar titles to Wiseguy, the film project changed its title to Goodfellas, another word for gangsters.

Film Analysis

Both Wiseguy and Goodfellas became touchstones in American popular culture and are now considered classics. Yet there are a number of significant differences between the two, with the book presenting a more comprehensive biography of Hill and the film providing a more artistic, stylized look at a life in crime. In writing the screenplay, Scorsese and Pileggi omitted certain details about the gangster-turned-informant’s life. For example, the film never addresses the time Hill (Ray Liotta) spent in the army as a paratrooper or the fact that he and his wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) originally eloped. Additionally, there are a number of events and characters that are changed for the screen. Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) in the film, for example, is a composite of the book’s Tommy DeSimone, Lenny Vario, and Paulie Vario, Jr.

Similarly, Hill’s time in prison is condensed into a single sentence where in fact he was incarcerated several times throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The choice to effectively pare down and merge such details makes for a smoother, more traditional film narrative structure. The book is overflowing with highly amusing tangential anecdotes that do not necessarily move the story forward. Ultimately, Scorsese and Pileggi carefully selected and rearranged the best details and lines of dialogue to craft a cohesive, engaging story suitable for the medium of film.

Wiseguy is a book that explores violence and organized crime from a journalistic perspective. Goodfellas takes a more literary approach to the subject, presenting Hill’s story as an engaging morality tale about the effects of greed and materialistic consumption on the human soul. This is evident in Hill’s devolution throughout Goodfellas: he begins as a clever kid eager to join the seemingly glamorous gangster life and eventually becomes a drug-addled middle-aged man, with friends who want him dead and a family in danger.

Other characters endure similar fates. Karen, for example, is complicit in Hill’s crimes and can be seen as losing a piece of her humanity in the process. Scorsese uses the wedding scene to showcase her indoctrination into this world of immorality. Karen is shown as a new bride being handed envelopes of money by dozens of Henry’s mob associates. She is a Jewish girl from a good neighborhood who recognizes that something is not quite “right” about these people, yet being in their company excites her. In a later scene, which is intended to take place years later when Karen knows exactly what Henry does for a living, she asks him for money. He hands her a stack of bills and she responds by performing a sexual act on him. Her actions demonstrate that not only does she know about her husband’s crimes, but she actively encourages them to continue. The scene also emphasizes the interconnected themes of materialism and eroticism that the film explores in the context of organized crime.

Scorsese uses stylized or self-consciously cinematic techniques throughout Goodfellas, reflecting the director’s well-known love for the medium of film, its techniques, and its history. This creates interest and excitement. An example of these techniques is the film’s flamboyant use of voice-over. After an introductory action scene, the film begins with Hill’s voice describing his life and associates using lines that are often taken verbatim from Wiseguy. This is significant because in the year the film was released, 1990, the use of voice-over was considered old-fashioned. Scorsese pushes the envelope further by also including voice-over narration from Karen. In some ways, Karen is a stand-in for the audience; she is an outsider entering Henry’s world for the first time. Her thoughts and remarks reflect viewers’ naiveté and disbelief.

Some film historians have pointed out that Goodfellas mainstreamed cinematic techniques associated with the sixties-era French New Wave. Spearheaded by Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, the French New Wave employed novel and exciting camera movements, editing styles, and screenwriting techniques to play with audience expectations. Scorsese’s use of freeze frames and jump cuts is clearly an homage to the New Wave style and, in particular, to Godard’s emblematic crime movie, Breathless. Again, in the scene where Hill’s criminal associates are introducing themselves, the director has the actors break the fourth wall by speaking directly to the camera. The technique goes back to the days of silent cinema, but its use as a creative, fun, stylized gesture is associated with Godard.

A famous example of the influence of the New Wave style on Scorsese is in Goodfellas’ Copacabana scene. During it, Hill takes Karen to the nightclub for the evening, but rather than wait in line with everyone else, the two are ushered in through the back door. They travel through the basement hallways and kitchen where chefs are busy at work until they arrive in the packed main room and waiters quickly set up a table for them. Scorsese follows their journey the entire time, using a single Steadicam tracking shot that is uninterrupted for over three minutes. The long tracking shot is a cinematic technical flourish that had been employed by classic American directors like Hitchcock and was beloved by Godard, whose film The Weekend (1967), contains a famous sequence in which the camera moves alongside a traffic jam in a single seven-minute take. The use of the technique in Goodfellas is effective in that it provides audiences with the feeling of the couple’s experience—the energy and excitement of their privilege. This further highlights the money, power, and connections at Hill’s disposal because of his gangster status.

Significance

Goodfellas was a critical and commercial success, earning $46.8 million domestically at the box office. It was quickly labeled one of the best films of the year by critics across the country. In his original review, noted critic Roger Ebert wrote, “Most films, even great ones, evaporate like mist once you’ve returned to the real world; they leave memories behind, but their reality fades fairly quickly. Not this film, which shows America’s finest filmmaker at the peak of his form. No finer film has ever been made about organized crime—not even The Godfather.” Goodfellas went on to earn six Academy Award nominations, including for best picture and best director, with Joe Pesci winning for best supporting actor. The film continues to be lauded as one of the best films of all time, and certainly one of the best gangster movies.

The impact of Goodfellas on the filmmaking world was enormous. Many film historians argue that Scorsese generated a new prototype for the gangster movie, one marked by excessive violence and highly profane dialogue. This influence quickly became evident throughout the 1990s, with examples including director Quentin Tarantino’s bloody, dialogue-driven films Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) and Scorsese’s own Casino (1995), starring De Niro. In addition to the way it portrayed gangsters, Goodfellas’ highly stylized, rule-breaking filmmak-ing techniques gave rise to an era of more experimental cinema. Directors such as Stephen Soderbergh, David Fincher, and Paul Thomas Anderson began aiming to push boundaries in new ways.

Goodfellas was a pervasive influence on the television series The Sopranos (1999-2007). That award-winning show similarly focuses on the world of street criminals and explores themes of violence, humanity, and material consumerism, and its creators noted that it would not exist without Goodfellas. The character of Henry Hill in many ways became the archetype for later television antiheroes, the immoral but likeable protagonists whom audiences simultaneously cheer for and root against. The antihero has defined the Golden Age of television with characters including Tony Soprano, Don Draper of Mad Men, and Walter White of Breaking Bad.

Further Reading

Bibliography