GoodFellas makes for fascinating comparisons with Mean Streets. Both movies draw their gangster protagonists from the lower echelons rather than the godfather class, and Scorsese’s anti-heroes are a typically unsophisticated, unstable bunch of street-wise hustlers with ambitions to move up in the criminal world. Based on Nicolas Pileggi’s true story of a New York mobster-turned-informant, GoodFellas covers a span of twenty years in its vivid account of chief protagonists Henry Hill’s movement from awe-struck teenage messenger boy to successful thief, desperate drug-dealer and, finally, reluctant state witness. The difference between the two films has to do with the director’s attitude towards his characters and the way this finds expression stylistically. Whereas Mean Streets is essentially sympathetic towards the plight of its minor-league Little Italy hoods, GoodFellas is relatively cool and detached in its depiction of the criminal life. Thus, while Mean Streets’s dynamic though rough-edged style seems to reflect the world of its characters, in GoodFellas the mature Scorsese makes sophisticated use of cinematic devices to comment on the action and impose a critical distance for his audience. This is most evident in the movie’s brilliant deployment of voice-over commentary, fast-paced editing and especially its use of the freeze-frame, with the last device literally stopping the often explosive action in mid flow and forcing us to ponder its implications.

U.S.A., 1990.
With: Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro.
Colour.
Dolby stereo SR.
143 mins.