The Al Jolson clip from The Jazz Singer that Karen watches when the Feds come over foreshadows the fact Henry is going to sing like a stool pigeon. It's also a reference to Karen's estrangement from her Jewish parents (which is the plot of The Jazz Singer, and is reflected in the lyrics, which repeat "Goodbye, goodbye.") It's also a reference to Henry saying goodbye to his life of crime eventually.
Finally, it's an example of Scorsese's obsession with film history- the jazz singer was the first sound feature film, and Jolson's song is the first scene with sound in movie history. His famous first line is "You ain't heard nothing yet" before he launches into "tweet tweet"- that's foreshadowing everything the Feds will hear from Henry before the film is over. They haven't heard anything yet, but they will. The momentousness of that first sound scene on film, saying "wait till you you see what's going to happen now" is transferred to Henry and Karen's life with the Feds. Henry & Karen don't know their phones are tapped yet.
Also, I think Bill is right with his brilliant theory that the red light of Billy's death and burial represents how this action is going to get Tommy killed and their friendship split up, this is them being damned.
I think Scorsese must have gotten that from The Searchers. I saw a documentary where Scoreses said this camera movie explained the entire second half of The Searchers:
The dolly is bizarre, but Scorsese said it represented Ethan's racism reaching a boiling point, we see it in his eyes, and this is the moment where he turns, and he decides to murder his niece for fucking a Comanche.
It's the idea of a seemingly bizarre cinematography setting up something that is going to happen later that seems common to the two pictures.
I think Bill is right with his brilliant theory that the red light of Billy's death and burial represents how this action is going to get Tommy killed and their friendship split up, this is them being damned.
It doesn't even make sense. That scene was not even a major turning point; things went wrong when they killed Billy Batts. That is when their fate was sealed. Now they're just getting rid of the evidence.
There is a red glow in both Batts death and his reburial. You're dismissing the possibility of visual symbolism in a fucking Martin Scorsese film? The guy with encyclopedic knowledge of classic film and who has written hundreds of film analysis columns over his life, who is famous for his worship of Powell and Pressburger's "The Red Shoes," who is obsessed with the colour red in his movies, and who is famously very religious?
Read Scorsese and his DP talk about the color symbolism they used in Wolf Of Wall Street:
Before Belfort starts his own business, he lands his first job at the firm LF Rothschild, a set dominated by green and gold lighting that evokes “old-world wealth,” as Scorsese notes. Prieto adds, “The color scheme was inspired by a photo I found of a brokerage firm in the 1980s.” Shooting on 5207, the cinematographer used tungsten-balanced fluorescent lights and ¼ Tiffen Black Pro-Mist filters on the Hawk lenses. “For wide shots of the office space, we used the 28mm and 35mm V-Lite lenses, which curved the edges of the frame a bit, adding to the sense of instability,” he says. “This look was not as crisp or clean as the look of Belfort’s later offices, where we used a lot of white. Using daylight stock with tungsten lighting resulted in an amber coloration, and then I pushed those scenes 1 stop to add a little extra grain and contrast. The warm ambient lighting contrasts with the green graphics on all the desktop computer screens and the green LED tickertape in the office.
“When the crash of 1987 happens, LF Rothschild fails and closes, and Belfort finds himself unemployed,” Prieto continues. “He eventually finds work at an investment center as a regular employee, a job he hates. I lit that set only with light through big windows on one side, and the feeling is like a cave, a place where he sort of falls into darkness.”
That's like saying "who cares if there's an X on screen every time someone dies in the 1933 version of Scarface." You might not care, but Scorsese obviously does, which is why he did the same thing in The Departed. Scorsese is a visual guy and a film nerd.
No it's not... It's literally a matter of getting some red lights. Arranging the scene in such a way that there's an X above a character that will die is a bit more involved.
1) Was Tommy genuinely angry with Henry in the "You Think I'm Funny?" scene? I always thought the purpose of the scene was to show Tommy's psychopath mask slip away for a moment, but then regain it. But most people I've discussed it with think he's joking the whole time...
2) Do you think Jimmy was going to whack Karen with the "dresses down the alleyway"?
3) Why did Jimmy decide on a whim to just kill Morrie? He says to Henry "forget about it" just moments before
The second two were things that actually happened. Karen got scared once and was afraid Jimmy would kill her. Who knows what Jimmy was really planning? But that's what Karen felt.
Morrie's real name was Marty, here's how he really died:
"In a little while Jimmy and I were on our way to the Forty Yards to see Marty about the baskets. I could see for the first time that Jimmy was a nervous wreck. His mind was going in eight different directions. All the way to the Forty Yards I talked about what a pain in the ass Fran Krugman would turn out to be if we whacked Marty. That she'd pester everybody until she found out what happened. I also reminded him that we needed Marty to lay off some of our bets. I didn't use the words, but I was trying to say that killing Marty was like taking bread off our table.
"When we got to the Forty Yards, Marty was waiting. On the way in the door Jimmy said, 'Forget about tonight.' It was like a load off my mind. And in a few minutes Jimmy's drinking and joking with Marty like they were the best of friends. We drank for the rest of the afternoon, and there was no mention of Lufthansa and no mention of the money. I thought maybe Marty was wising up. Maybe he had a chance.
Then a page later:
"Right after New Year's the Lufthansa heat got to be too much at Robert's, so everyone moved to a new place Vinnie Asaro opened on Rockaway Boulevard. Vinnie was spending a fortune fixing up the place, which was right next door to his fence company. I remember when I got back from Florida, Marty was all over me. He was hanging around Vinnie's new joint now, and he wanted to know about Tommy. He wanted to know about Stacks. What was going on?
He knew Tommy had had trouble with the Gotti crew and that Stacks was probably hit over a business deal that went bad, but he was nervous. I think he sensed something was wrong. He used to hang around Vinnie's bar waiting for war news.
"And that's where they whacked him out. At the bar. On January 6. Fran called at seven o'clock the next morning and said Marty hadn't come home that night. I knew right away. I couldn't get back to sleep. She called back at nine. I told her that I'd go out and look for him later that morning.
The fates are capricious. "As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, they kill us for their sport."
There is a podcast called "The Canon" where 2 critics (a man & a woman) discuss 1 movie the whole show & whether it's a great movie or not. The 1st episode was "Goodfellas" & obviously the guy thought its one of the greatest movies ever & the broad hated it. But it was interesting to hear this lady try to make sense of things that are so 2nd nature to men. Like "why would this character do this? & why would he do that?". It's a good listen
in the "best of 2015" episode she named "Chiraq" the best movie of the year which has to be one of the worst movies ever attempted.
But if u find the podcast interesting at all I really liked the "Forrest Gump" episode. They made some points that made me really think of that movie totally differently
Did she know it's based on a true story? The first time I saw Goodfellas I hated it because I found it very unbelievable- for example, everything with Spider. Then I found out that was a true fucking story, the entire thing with Spider, and on every rewatch I loved it more, it's now one of my favourites.
Paul Sorvino also hated it the first time he saw it, too, and he said later he realised that it was because he was in shock from seeing such relentless pacing and tension the first time. The film gets so fast and gets you so wound up by the end of it.
I knew it was based on a true story when I saw it but I think even barring that I still would have thought it was a great movie. It is filmed beautifully and the dialogue is great and believable and it is funny at times and it makes gangsters look cool for a while until they all start dying and you realize that it didn't pay off for any of them and the whole "as far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster" shit was a bad idea. It was just a brilliant movie.
one thing I like about "goodfellas" is that it kinda breaks-all-the-rules as far as filmmaking goes. There really isn't a structure & it's all over the place. They don't even keep the voice-over consistent. So a lot of critics are tight-ass because a movie isn't suppose to be like the way "goodfellas" is.
That's why you can have a discussion about all films by just talking about "Godfather" & "Goodfellas". Because, if you were to go "by the book" of what is a perfect film I think "Godfather" pulls it off. But "Goodfellas" is experimental. So, should a film be experimental and push the boundaries of the rules of filmmaking? Or should a movie try to be the best possible movie it can be within the "rules" of what a film is suppose to be? I feel too many critics focus on the latter which is why usually a "best picture" winner is a pretty safe film (like "Kings Speech") & usually the greatest movies take time to appreciate and therefore usually don't win the Oscars
it was interesting to hear this lady try to make sense of things that are so 2nd nature to men.
When I saw the Matrix with my ex she admitted when we were walking out that she didn't get it at all. It was mind-boggling to me because it all seemed fairly clear. Eventually I had to get out old gaming magazines and realized that when you'd read those in the 90s, you'd fantasize about when and how video games will look exactly like real life 200 years from now or whatever, from pixels to polygons to all the new shit that came after.
I always thought, in the billy bats scene when Tommy puts the gun in his face, that Jimmy knocks the gun out of his hand.. But I read in real life, Tommy pulled the trigger and the gun broke apart in his hand..
"I was on the side of the bar when Tommy took the thirty-eight out of his pocket. Billy saw it in Tommy's hand. The second Billy saw what was happening, Jimmy tightened his arm around Billy's neck. 'Shine these fuckin' shoes,' Tommy yells and smashes the gun right into the side of Billy's head. Billy's eyes opened wide. Tommy smashed him again. Jimmy kept his grip. The blood began to come out of Billy's head. It looked black.
Then:
"Finally we left Tommy's and got on the Taconic. We'd been driving about an hour when I heard a funny noise. I'm in the back half asleep, with the shovel. Tommy was driving. Jimmy was asleep. I heard the noise again. It was like a thump. Jimmy woke up. The banging began again. It dawned on all of us at once. Billy Batts was alive. He was banging on the trunk. We were on our way to bury him and he wasn't even dead.
"Now Tommy really got mad. He slammed on the brakes. He leaned over the seat and grabbed the shovel. Nobody said a word. We got out of the car and waited until there were no more headlights coming up behind us. Then Jimmy got on one side and I got on the other and Tommy opened the trunk. The second it sprang open Tommy smashed the sack with the shovel. Jimmy grabbed a tire iron and he started banging away at the sack. It only took a few seconds, and we got back in the car. When we got to the spot where we were going to bury Billy, the ground was so frozen we had to dig for an hour to get him down deep enough. Then we covered him with lime and drove back to New York.
I wonder if Henry actually committed murders that he just never admitted to in the book and in his testimony? It's quite a coincidence he sees all these violent things happen but he doesn't actually kill anybody. For all we know Henry might've killed Batts and just lied.
Also Tommy was killed because he tried to rape Karen when Henry was in the joint, and after Tommy killed Billy, Paulie okayed the hit. John Gotti was friends with Billy and personally killed Tommy himself.
Did she know it's based on a true story? The first time I saw Goodfellas I hated it because I found it very unbelievable- for example, everything with Spider. Then I found out that was a true fucking story, the entire thing with Spider, and on every rewatch I loved it more, it's now one of my favourites.
Paul Sorvino also hated it the first time he saw it, too, and he said later he realised that it was because he was in shock from seeing such relentless pacing and tension the first time. The film gets so fast and gets you so wound up by the end of it.
it was interesting to hear this lady try to make sense of things that are so 2nd nature to men.
When I saw the Matrix with my ex she admitted when we were walking out that she didn't get it at all. It was mind-boggling to me because it all seemed fairly clear. Eventually I had to get out old gaming magazines and realized that when you'd read those in the 90s, you'd fantasize about when and how video games will look exactly like real life 200 years from now or whatever, from pixels to polygons to all the new shit that came after.
That's like saying "who cares if there's an X on screen every time someone dies in the 1933 version of Scarface." You might not care, but Scorsese obviously does, which is why he did the same thing in The Departed. Scorsese is a visual guy and a film nerd.
37 comments
9 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
The Al Jolson clip from The Jazz Singer that Karen watches when the Feds come over foreshadows the fact Henry is going to sing like a stool pigeon. It's also a reference to Karen's estrangement from her Jewish parents (which is the plot of The Jazz Singer, and is reflected in the lyrics, which repeat "Goodbye, goodbye.") It's also a reference to Henry saying goodbye to his life of crime eventually.
Finally, it's an example of Scorsese's obsession with film history- the jazz singer was the first sound feature film, and Jolson's song is the first scene with sound in movie history. His famous first line is "You ain't heard nothing yet" before he launches into "tweet tweet"- that's foreshadowing everything the Feds will hear from Henry before the film is over. They haven't heard anything yet, but they will. The momentousness of that first sound scene on film, saying "wait till you you see what's going to happen now" is transferred to Henry and Karen's life with the Feds. Henry & Karen don't know their phones are tapped yet.
Peckahs.
5 hookahreed 2016-07-12
What's the significance of Tommy trying to bang that Jew broad?
2 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
I think that's a true story from the book.
2 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
Also, I think Bill is right with his brilliant theory that the red light of Billy's death and burial represents how this action is going to get Tommy killed and their friendship split up, this is them being damned.
I think Scorsese must have gotten that from The Searchers. I saw a documentary where Scoreses said this camera movie explained the entire second half of The Searchers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NtDz6-AVWw
The dolly is bizarre, but Scorsese said it represented Ethan's racism reaching a boiling point, we see it in his eyes, and this is the moment where he turns, and he decides to murder his niece for fucking a Comanche.
It's the idea of a seemingly bizarre cinematography setting up something that is going to happen later that seems common to the two pictures.
-1 [deleted] 2016-07-12
this is a grade-school level analysis.
3 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
Do you think NYU film professor Martin Scorsese's analysis of the same exact thing in The Searchers is grade-school level analysis?
0 [deleted] 2016-07-12
Did he say that somewhere? Who gives a shit if he did, it's still not an amazing insight. YOU MEAN RED=BAD? WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW
8 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
I do.
-2 [deleted] 2016-07-12
It doesn't even make sense. That scene was not even a major turning point; things went wrong when they killed Billy Batts. That is when their fate was sealed. Now they're just getting rid of the evidence.
2 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
There is a red glow in both Batts death and his reburial. You're dismissing the possibility of visual symbolism in a fucking Martin Scorsese film? The guy with encyclopedic knowledge of classic film and who has written hundreds of film analysis columns over his life, who is famous for his worship of Powell and Pressburger's "The Red Shoes," who is obsessed with the colour red in his movies, and who is famously very religious?
Read Scorsese and his DP talk about the color symbolism they used in Wolf Of Wall Street:
https://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/December2013/TheWolfofWallStreet/page1.php
-4 [deleted] 2016-07-12
is there a red glow during the murder? i don't know man. who gives a shit. i'm just saying it's not a keep observation or anything.
4 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
That's like saying "who cares if there's an X on screen every time someone dies in the 1933 version of Scarface." You might not care, but Scorsese obviously does, which is why he did the same thing in The Departed. Scorsese is a visual guy and a film nerd.
-1 [deleted] 2016-07-12
No it's not... It's literally a matter of getting some red lights. Arranging the scene in such a way that there's an X above a character that will die is a bit more involved.
1 Guinness525 2016-07-12
Film student?
-1 [deleted] 2016-07-12
yeah we all saw the fucking thread on /r/movies a week ago
6 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
No we fucking didn't.
1 [deleted] 2016-07-12
^ bad liar and the product of inbreeding
6 FloggingTheHorses 2016-07-12
1) Was Tommy genuinely angry with Henry in the "You Think I'm Funny?" scene? I always thought the purpose of the scene was to show Tommy's psychopath mask slip away for a moment, but then regain it. But most people I've discussed it with think he's joking the whole time...
2) Do you think Jimmy was going to whack Karen with the "dresses down the alleyway"?
3) Why did Jimmy decide on a whim to just kill Morrie? He says to Henry "forget about it" just moments before
3 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
The second two were things that actually happened. Karen got scared once and was afraid Jimmy would kill her. Who knows what Jimmy was really planning? But that's what Karen felt.
Morrie's real name was Marty, here's how he really died:
http://www.obooksbooks.com/2015/4280_35.html
Then a page later:
The fates are capricious. "As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, they kill us for their sport."
1 Muted_Post-Horn 2016-07-12
If you're gonna quote Shakespeare, get it right instead of mangling the meter.
7 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
tsss meter what are we parking or sumpting. double iambs you peece a shit.
3 cracked6 2016-07-12
I think that's exactly it, Tommy caught himself as soon as he was getting ready to pull out his gun and shoot Henry in the face and laughed it off.
2 axeheadroad 2016-07-12
I always thought it was a power thing, you know kinda like he was dictating Henrys emotions.
5 xxmikekxx 2016-07-12
There is a podcast called "The Canon" where 2 critics (a man & a woman) discuss 1 movie the whole show & whether it's a great movie or not. The 1st episode was "Goodfellas" & obviously the guy thought its one of the greatest movies ever & the broad hated it. But it was interesting to hear this lady try to make sense of things that are so 2nd nature to men. Like "why would this character do this? & why would he do that?". It's a good listen
6 NihilistKnight 2016-07-12
I'm listening to this right now. I'm only five minutes in and I already want to knock this bitch's lights out.
2 xxmikekxx 2016-07-12
in the "best of 2015" episode she named "Chiraq" the best movie of the year which has to be one of the worst movies ever attempted.
But if u find the podcast interesting at all I really liked the "Forrest Gump" episode. They made some points that made me really think of that movie totally differently
2 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
Did she know it's based on a true story? The first time I saw Goodfellas I hated it because I found it very unbelievable- for example, everything with Spider. Then I found out that was a true fucking story, the entire thing with Spider, and on every rewatch I loved it more, it's now one of my favourites.
Paul Sorvino also hated it the first time he saw it, too, and he said later he realised that it was because he was in shock from seeing such relentless pacing and tension the first time. The film gets so fast and gets you so wound up by the end of it.
1 kgt5003 2016-07-12
I knew it was based on a true story when I saw it but I think even barring that I still would have thought it was a great movie. It is filmed beautifully and the dialogue is great and believable and it is funny at times and it makes gangsters look cool for a while until they all start dying and you realize that it didn't pay off for any of them and the whole "as far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster" shit was a bad idea. It was just a brilliant movie.
1 xxmikekxx 2016-07-12
one thing I like about "goodfellas" is that it kinda breaks-all-the-rules as far as filmmaking goes. There really isn't a structure & it's all over the place. They don't even keep the voice-over consistent. So a lot of critics are tight-ass because a movie isn't suppose to be like the way "goodfellas" is.
That's why you can have a discussion about all films by just talking about "Godfather" & "Goodfellas". Because, if you were to go "by the book" of what is a perfect film I think "Godfather" pulls it off. But "Goodfellas" is experimental. So, should a film be experimental and push the boundaries of the rules of filmmaking? Or should a movie try to be the best possible movie it can be within the "rules" of what a film is suppose to be? I feel too many critics focus on the latter which is why usually a "best picture" winner is a pretty safe film (like "Kings Speech") & usually the greatest movies take time to appreciate and therefore usually don't win the Oscars
1 [deleted] 2016-07-12
[deleted]
2 packitchofsositch 2016-07-12
When I saw the Matrix with my ex she admitted when we were walking out that she didn't get it at all. It was mind-boggling to me because it all seemed fairly clear. Eventually I had to get out old gaming magazines and realized that when you'd read those in the 90s, you'd fantasize about when and how video games will look exactly like real life 200 years from now or whatever, from pixels to polygons to all the new shit that came after.
1 ihaveaholeinmyass 2016-07-12
I always thought, in the billy bats scene when Tommy puts the gun in his face, that Jimmy knocks the gun out of his hand.. But I read in real life, Tommy pulled the trigger and the gun broke apart in his hand..
1 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
It looks like they pistol whipped him:
http://www.obooksbooks.com/2015/4280_21.html
Then:
I wonder if Henry actually committed murders that he just never admitted to in the book and in his testimony? It's quite a coincidence he sees all these violent things happen but he doesn't actually kill anybody. For all we know Henry might've killed Batts and just lied.
1 americanmook 2016-07-12
Jimmy had beef with Billy cause Jimmy had Billy's bookmaking business and Batts wanted it back when he got out of prison.
3 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
Also Tommy was killed because he tried to rape Karen when Henry was in the joint, and after Tommy killed Billy, Paulie okayed the hit. John Gotti was friends with Billy and personally killed Tommy himself.
1 sumant28 2016-07-12
This is fantastic really scratches the VideoandA itch
-7 [deleted] 2016-07-12
meeeh. stick to sports-talk and being emasculated by a female gibbon on your own podcast
3 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
What's ancient Rome got to do with this!?
2 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
Did she know it's based on a true story? The first time I saw Goodfellas I hated it because I found it very unbelievable- for example, everything with Spider. Then I found out that was a true fucking story, the entire thing with Spider, and on every rewatch I loved it more, it's now one of my favourites.
Paul Sorvino also hated it the first time he saw it, too, and he said later he realised that it was because he was in shock from seeing such relentless pacing and tension the first time. The film gets so fast and gets you so wound up by the end of it.
2 packitchofsositch 2016-07-12
When I saw the Matrix with my ex she admitted when we were walking out that she didn't get it at all. It was mind-boggling to me because it all seemed fairly clear. Eventually I had to get out old gaming magazines and realized that when you'd read those in the 90s, you'd fantasize about when and how video games will look exactly like real life 200 years from now or whatever, from pixels to polygons to all the new shit that came after.
6 NihilistKnight 2016-07-12
I'm listening to this right now. I'm only five minutes in and I already want to knock this bitch's lights out.
4 DianaKurlan10 2016-07-12
That's like saying "who cares if there's an X on screen every time someone dies in the 1933 version of Scarface." You might not care, but Scorsese obviously does, which is why he did the same thing in The Departed. Scorsese is a visual guy and a film nerd.