Does the closing sequence of Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990) adhere to the narrative and generic conventions of the gangster film?

Louise Smith

FS1 Coursework: The Macro Analysis

Narrative and Genre conventions in the gangster genre

‘Does the closing sequence of ‘Goodfellas’ (Scorsese, 1990)’ adhere to the narrative and generic conventions of the gangster film?

Martin Scorsese’s epic ‘Goodfellas’ (1990) is in some aspects a classic gangster movie using many generic and narrative conventions of the gangster genre throughout the film. Nevertheless Scorsese’s masterpiece challenges the audiences’ expectations of the gangster genre by showing the rise and fall of gangster Henry Hill and his crime and blood family in a diverse and inventive way that infuses with the subject of crime with a huge amount of realism and formal inventiveness.

The beginning of the final sequence starts with the last caption of the film- ‘The Aftermath’ this emotive inter title suggests an expected resolution. After the inter title the frantic pace of the previous sequence abruptly stops- bringing our anti-hero Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta) and the audience to a sudden narrative halt. Contrasting to the recent excitement where Henry juggles with the selling of guns, cooking dinner for his large family and snorting huge amounts of cocaine, we are removed from viewing the generic dangerous life of a gangster, fuelled by illegal substances and far fetched arrangements and deals (that are bound to back fire), back to the normality of Henry’s arrest and ending up in a police station. Henry Hill is presented to us now as rough, badly kept and tired with red eyes due to his frequent drug abuse. This is distinctively different to how we first saw Henry, as a slick, smooth and well-groomed characteristic generic gangster. This is clearly not the typical representation of what we perceive a gangster should look like; Scorsese underlines the realistic and pathetic side to the glamour of the crime life.

After this scene, as the audience begins to realise that Henry’s long awaited downfall is beginning, roles are reversed with Henry and his wife Karen. When Henry breaks down and cries and is comforted by Karen, there is a contrast with the typical part a women plays in a generic gangster film; gangster movies are usually centred on men, women generally play the marginal although usually significant part of the mother, the wife or the mistress. However, Karen Hill is shown as being dominant and taking control of the situation by bailing Henry out of prison and going to Jimmy (Robert De Niro) to ask for help. Again, Scorsese plays with our expectations of the gangster genre, by showing a woman as a fundamental and important part behind each gangster. Scorsese uses un-conventional narrative techniques to illustrate to the audience that the Goodfellas is simply a story. Shortly after the scene in which Henry realises that his wife Karen has flushed the last of the cocaine he had down the toilet in fear of the police finding it, we see a sequence in which Henry meets up with Jimmy- a freeze frame is held on Jimmy then on Henry. This technique occurs frequently in the film, by drawing attention to important narrative events we concentrate on the non-diagetic voice-over of Henry Hill. When a close up of Jimmy is held then we hear, ‘Jimmy had never asked me to whack anybody before’ is a narrative drive to want to learn more and focus on the importance of what retrospective Henry is saying.

The narrative structure of ‘Goodfellas’ (1990) does not adhere to the narrative and generic conventions of the gangster film due to the non-chronological placements in time. We finally realise that the narrative has been narrated from a courtroom, which we see towards the film’s close. We see flashbacks to Henry’s life and flash forwards in the time sequence Henry is narrating. For example when Henry and Karren are talking about being put into the witness protection programme with an FBI agent, there is a cut to a flash forward in time to when Henry ‘rats out’ his gangster family and we ...

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The non-diegetic voiceover of Henry Hill that his narrated his life that has been used throughout the film suddenly switches from non- diegetic to diegetic, as Henry theatrically addresses the courtroom when he ‘rats out’ his partners and gangster family members. The switch from non- diegetic to diegetic surprises and intrigues the audience; we understand that the memories and sequences we have viewed have been from Henry Hill’s subjective selective expressionistic viewpoint. Here we realise that we have only seen what Scorsese wanted the character of Henry Hill to divulge to the audience or the courtroom full of people. This interesting retrospective narrative viewpoint clearly does not adhere to the to the narrative and generic conventions of the classic gangster film where the audience usually views the gangster’s live from the classic unrestricted narrative governed by verisimilitude in which the story is simply shown to the audience in a linear chronological narrative structure. By showing only a restricted narrative viewpoint we can see how Scorsese has portrayed gangsters- as being devious and tuned into the skill of deceiving people but also as being humans who make mistakes and end up bored and alone in a down beat contrast to the power and authority they once had.

From diegetic back to non- diegetic, Henry narrates the final part of his story, he states to the audience that he is ‘an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook’. Here Scorsese plays with the audiences’ views of gangsters and crime - by portraying Henry as a man who has lost his gangster status and has had his dignity, authority and power taken away from him. Henry Hill stands outside his suburban house in his pale blue dressing gown looking every inch the ‘average nobody’ he describes himself as. Henry then looks directly at the screen, at the audience, this rarely ever happens and such eye contact and intimacy with the gangster character we have watched throughout the past few hours is unnerving and allows us to understand how little we know about gangsters except from what we see in films. Fast paced non-diegetic punk anthem "My Way" by Johnny Rotten begins as Henry turns to go inside, this music is a contrast to the past source music of the 1960s and 1970s, it reflects Henry’s arrogance in his deflated situation but also is nostalgic nod to the ‘good times’ in his life. The music could also illustrate the change in times in the 1980s, this change could perhaps suggest how gangsters are old news and Henry is too old to be involved in crime anymore. There is a surprising and diagetic cut to Tommy- (who we know is dead), who fires a gun directly at the audience, this is a clear homage to ‘The Great Train Robbery’ (Porter, 1903), again as an audience we feel uneasy that Tommy is staring directly at us, this could show how audiences do not belong in the Italian, American gangster world, and that it is no business of ours to judge these people. The shot with Tommy also has qualities of a generic gangster move from his iconic trilby hat to the brick wall similar to the opening credits of ‘The Public Enemy’ (Wellman, 1931), this perhaps illustrates the contrast from the romantised view of gangster life we in the beginning to the realistic, unpleasant and gritty look upon life of a gangster at the end. We are reminded of this thought as the sequence cuts back to the dressing gown clad Henry shutting the door on the audience and most likely his life as a gangster. As the door slams shut there is a sound effect of a prison door slamming shut. This could be to represent Jimmy and Pauly’s future or how Henry is now enclosed in the prison of his suburban life. The door shutting could also symbolise the metaphorical death of the gangster element of Henry Hill. Scorsese clearly does not adhere to the narrative conventions of the gangster movie, ‘Goodfellas’ (1990) is a most likely more realistic and formally more adventurous portrayal of gangsters than many other generic gangster movies. The audience might feel disappointed by the surprising ending, however Scorsese illustrates how little we, as an audience only know the world of the gangster from what we see in generic gangster films.

In some respects, Goodfellas has the characteristics of a classic gangster movie with a large number of typical generic elements employed in the film from iconic guns and flashy suits to the actual plot tracking the rise and the fall of gangster Henry Hill. However, Scorsese challenges the audiences’ expectations and views of how we perceive the typical Italian American gangster by experimenting with narrative structure, voice-overs, iconography and realism. Scorsese blatantly exploits how our only knowledge of gangsters comes from what we see in movies by leaving the ending ambiguous and in some ways un-resolved. This is distinctly different to the usual generic climatic endings in gangster movies. The ending is not dramatic and shocking like the melodramatic, climatic ending in ‘Scarface’ (De Palma, 1983) nor is it a conservative yet equally as shocking ending where harmony has tried to be restored by the brutal killing of the anti hero- as in ‘The Public Enemy’ (Wellman, 1931). Henry Hill has been stripped of his power and lifestyle that we, as the audience have experienced from Hill’s perspective, in replace of this we have been left with an anticlimax of an ending where Hill ends up living a dull, defeated and pointless life in suburbia in the witness protection programme. Clearly Scorsese defies our narrative expectations by showing Henry ending up in normality instead of ending up dead.

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