Sound and Drama

Goodfellas was directed by Martin Scorsese and debut in 1990.  The film is a literary adaptation of a book by the name of Wiseguy, by Nicholas Pileggi.  The adaptation was pretty close to the book in fact Nicholas Pileggi was involved in a lot of the making of the movie.  Nicholas Pileggi co-wrote the screenplay of the movie w Martin Scorsese.  What is great about this movie is that there are great actors involved and Scorsese and Pileggi both made the script but let the actors, Robert de Nero, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta more or less free style the lines as they rehearsed.

It is important to know a little background about the movie to understand the drama involved.  The movie is about the rise and fall Lucchese crime family.  They were essentially a gang that would go around stealing things to make a living.  They would then pay off anyone they needed to, to stay free.

The movie takes place in Brooklyn, New York.  Just the fact and the history that we already know about New York helps to create drama.  There is almost an untold respect that people have that when you hear someone if from New York you almost look up to them.  This I feel goes along with the movie credentials for creating drama.  This also is an important and big way that we see character development.  New Yorkers have had a reputation over the years of having a quick temper and a sharp tongue.  I think we see that a lot in all of the characters but especially in Tommy Devito.  In the scene below we see the New York temper come out as Billy Bats insults Tommy and ends up getting into a little rumble.

The costumes also are a big part of drama.  When you think about character development and costumes one has to think about Henry.  Henry went from a poor Irish kid that had to work from the time he was physically able to help provide for his family.  We see him at the beginning wearing poor old clothing and then as he starts to develop and make money his costume changes to always wearing nice suits.  This is also an example of how it shows differences in social class.  The low social class wears poor clothing and the higher the social class the better the clothing. That difference in social class can be seen below when we look at Henry from when he is poor to when he is rich.

www.independent.co.uk

I think another thing we can take away from how the costumes create drama is how it affects race.  I am not saying that the movie is racist in any means but when you look at “Stacks”, the African American in the movie he is never seen in any nice costume or at least as nice as a lot of the men involved in the heist that he too was involved in.  I think this just goes to show how still even during that time period we see differences in race.

Sound is an important part of this movie as well.  In the movie the directors in my mind did a good job of preserving the time period with the song choices.  In fact it was made a point to only put songs in the movie that you would hear in that time period.  This helps tell the story because it does not stray the viewer from where we are in a particular time.  This helps compliment the drama as well because music helps to make the viewer feel emotion.

Louis Giannetti Understanding Movies Thirteenth Edition

Synthesis Practice

         The movie Schindler’s List is an extremely moving and interesting movie. Liam Neeson did an incredible job in this film as he played the lead role of Oskar Schindler. The movie was directed by Steven Spielberg and this could possibly be one of his best movies the Steven Spielberg has directed. The film is a touching story during the start of World War II when the Third Reich was starting to imprison Jews in Concentration Camps. At first Oskar Schindler thought it would be smart to take advantage of the Jews not being able to own businesses and get help from them to run one of his own. He then started a pots and pan factory and hired in all the Jews from the ghetto. Through a lot of hardship Oskar is able to save over 600 hundred Jews because he makes so much money to pay off guards to protect them. This movie is even based on a true story.
         One of the most interesting scenes in the movie is the little girl with the red coat. One really important thing to note in this movie is that the movie even though it was filmed in 1993 is not in color except for the little girls red coat. The scene is shown below.

       We see in the clip a little girl walking around in a red coat at this point in the movie the viewer does not know why but the movie obviously makes a point to emphasize it.  We see also in the film a lot of different shots.  We see a low angle; close up shot on Oskar Schindler and his horse.  It is a close up shot because we only see from his chest up to his head.  This combination of low angle and close up shot gives a sense of empowerment towards the protagonist.  When we are looking at the little girl it is a long high angle shot until we see at the end it is a medium shot of her hiding under the bed.  When thinking about mise en scene this scene in particular and the really the whole movie is in an open form.  The open form tends to be stylistically recessive.  The movement in the scene is very critical.  The camera at the beginning of the scene does not move we only see reaction shots of Oskar as he looks on at the massacre going on at the bottom of the hill he is on.  The camera moves when we see the little girl.  The camera makes a tracking shot as the little girl moves a long in the street.  The scene is mostly edited to be seen from a bird’s-eye view.  I think this was very smart from a viewer’s stand point because you are now able to take in all that occurred and really understand how bad the situation was.  The sound also is what makes the scene very chilling.  There is music being played that sounds as if it were children singing a somber song and the only other things you here are screams and gun shots.  Towards the end of the film the viewer gets one more glimpse of the girl in the red coat.  The image of the scene is shown below and it is at that moment when the emotional effects of the movie and the real situation of the holocaust are made known.

retroflix.livejournal.com

Understanding Movies Thirteenth Edition Louis Giannetti