GoodFellas - Review

I'm back with another Scorsese classic, this time it's his sprawling crime epic GoodFellas.

GoodFellas is a film that shows an auteur at the peak of his powers - directed with the swagger of the wiseguys that our protagonist Henry Hill idolises - Scorsese invites us into their world. From the famous freeze frames, now synonymous with Scorsese, to the elegant long takes, he isn't afraid to let us know that he is there; showing considerable directorial flare, he paints a stylish picture of the milieu of the wiseguys, bathing us in every unique detail. Indeed, like many great gangster films, GoodFellas surrounds you completely with their lifestlye, blurring the lines of morality, implicating us in the crimes that are committed. As a result of the odd hermetically sealed bubble in which the story takes place, we are made to understand the distorted morals of the characters; when Henry's wife Karen narrates, "After a while, it got to be normal. None of it seemed like crimes.", we can empathise with her feeling. 

One thing instantly remarkable about the film is that it lacks any clear central narrative drive; instead, it is more of a collection of short detailed stories, parables even, that come together to form an idea of the story of the wiseguys. Scorsese is more concerned with capturing the overarching mood that surrounds their lives, using this loose yet precise method of storytelling to cover a broad range of time whilst maintaining an intimacy with the main characters. He shows us their life in its entirety. From the almost quixotic ambition of the early years to the inevitable decay that follows, every stage of their rise and fall is rendered completely convincingly. 

Scorsese uses the long take brilliantly to capture the initial allure of the life of the gangster. During the famous "Copacabana" sequence, Scorsese's choice for Henry and Karen to go in through the back door is inspired, it distills perfectly what attracted Henry to being a wiseguy. Whilst displaying Henry's influence, the long take also echoes the atmosphere of hectic excitement; as the camera weaves its way in and out of the waiters, its swift movements are overwhelming, placing us in the shoes of Karen. We also have the perhaps underrated introduction scene where one glorious long take plunges us into the dingy depths of the "Bamboo Lounge". Henry's introductions to the likes of "Pete the Killer" and "Jimmy Two Times" are handled with a knowingly comic edge, highlighting the ridiculousness of this friendly family of criminals.

In fact, GoodFellas is a film laced with surprisingly frequent moments of caustically dark comedy. These serve to draw attention to the hypocrisy of the combination of their unsavoury work and the respectable family life that they hold so dear. When they stop at Tommy DeVito's (another gangster) house mid-killing and his mother (played by Scorsese's mother) insists that she cooks for them, the innocent domesticity of the sequence is made to seem completely comical. As Tommy compliments one of his mother's paintings "I like this one, one dog goes one way, one goes the other", Scorsese does the same thing that the montage at the end of The Godfather does, albeit in a rather more understated manner. 

Despite the at times affectionate treatment of the gangsters, the film ultimately exposes the fickle, egotistical motives that drive everything they do. Near the start of the film, a young Henry is lectured on the importance of loyalty by local gangster Jimmy Conway, "Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut!". By the end of the film, the list of friends Jimmy has "whacked" is considerable, and the people Henry dedicated his life to have turned on him. The deceit central to their lives is summed up in heartbreakingly pragmatic fashion when he describes the process he has seen so many times, "Your murderers come with smiles. They come as your friends, the people who have cared for you all your life, and they always come at a time when you are at your weakest and most in need of their help."

GoodFellas, like all of Scorsese's best work, is unflinching in its portrayal of its main characters. Here, Scorsese is completely unafraid to end on an unhappy note, coming out with a final act that is brilliantly bleak in its depiction of the paranoid turmoil that Henry's life has devolved into. As we follow his manic movements on the day he is finally caught, we see a man living a life completely devoid of any of the allure that initially enticed him to the life of the wiseguys, swamped by the mundane juggling act he is failing miserably to execute. When all is said and done, Henry is consigned to a fate that is worse than death in his eyes, he has to live life like everyone else does. As Henry puts it, "I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook".  

Taxi Driver - Review

Thanks to the BFI's Scorsese retrospective, a digital restoration of the classic Taxi Driver is showing all over the place.

We open on Travis Bickle's dark watchful eyes gazing out of the window of his cab; he sees dreamlike scenes, all billowing smoke and blurred neon lights. Every distorted image is viewed through the lens of a windscreen that gushes with water - an apt division to place between our protagonist and the world - it echoes both his detachment and clouded perspective. This opening passage through what seems a sort of Stygian underworld is rendered with an achingly cinematic style that continues throughout the film. Michael Chapman's cinematography captures the clashes of the dark street corners with harsh artificial shop signs, bleeding them into one another, whilst the saxophone of Bernard Herrmann's score expresses something completely transcendent.     

Travis is perhaps the defining example of the type of fundamentally flawed character with which Scorsese and De Niro worked so brilliantly in the late seventies and early eighties. From Travis Bickle to Jake La Motta all the way to Rupert Pupkin, they showed themselves to be masters of the portrayal of emotionally crippled men, deeply isolated from the world. In Travis' case, this manifests itself as an irrepressible desire to salvage what innocence he can from a world that he perceives as rotten to the core. 

Despite this morally ambiguous centre, Travis is treated typically affectionately by Scorsese, fostering - in the same way that he often does - a compassion for a character that is profoundly flawed. Indeed it is the ways in which these flaws are explored which make Travis so completely likeable; we are able to empathise with everything he does on some level. Even more instrumental in this is De Niro, brimming with wiry energy, his performance paints a picture of a man at tipping point perfectly. When he says "I get some real crazy ideas, you know?", we definitely believe him. However, what is most compelling about his performance is the visible evolution of the character. The descent from his burgundy blazer clad charm to the gun toting vigilantism with which we finish is made completely convincing by De Niro.    

As the film gradually progresses towards a violent climax that feels inevitable, the growing sense of grim direction we see in Travis is mirrored by the film. We are made to feel like him - careering towards the edge of a cliff - without the means or desire to divert our course. One excellent sequence shows Travis watching the TV, he sits back in an armchair tipping the crate on which it rests with his foot, pushing it farther and farther until finally it crashes to the floor, breaking the TV.  Moments such as this epitomise the subtle ways in which Scorsese foreshadows the destruction that is to come; the TV seems a fitting representation of both his precarious mental state and the self destructive compulsion central to his character.

When we finally reach the climax, Scorsese does not disappoint, putting together one of the most uncompromisingly grim sequences in cinema history. Travis tears through what becomes a blood-soaked brothel with deranged determination; we see a man possessed, feeling the visceral intensity of every gunshot. When the dust settles, Travis slumps onto a sofa, does the famous finger gun to the head and stares skyward; no words are needed. Scorsese cuts to a shot from above that looks down on the aftermath - as it quietly surveys the carnage with odd serenity - it seems to both lament and condemn what has happened.

Following this is the much debated ending, depicting a world where Travis has been hailed as a hero for what he did. Is it another manifestation of Scorsese's compassionate treatment of his main characters? An ironic flourish, hinting at Travis' continued mental instability? Who knows (I fall into the Travis' fantasy camp). Above all else though Taxi Driver works as a tale of social alienation - an unflinchingly brutal study of one man's search to connect with a world that seems completely foreign to him - the film expresses a profound loneliness that is universal. As Roger Ebert pointed out, it is the "well I'm the only one here." that follows the famous "Are you talkin' to me" that really cuts to the heart of Taxi Driver.