Analysis of GoodFellas

GoodFellas 1990

Director - Martin Scorsese

·         The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family.

In class we analysed the opening 2 minutes of ‘GoodFellas’ down below is an image of the analysis that was done and a break-down of what happened.

 

 

Visuals and Sound

Between the 0 seconds and 12 seconds the Warner Bros image appears this then lasts for a bout another 2 seconds taking us to 0:14 seconds at this point of time in the movie there was no sound. 3 seconds later ‘a Irwin wrinkle productions’ fades in, once it hits 0:17 ‘Martin Pictures appeared lasting 3 seconds. Whilst displaying the main characters names wiping across the screen and slowly fading in the middle of the screen the sound of multiple vehicles are heard passing this takes us the sound time of 0:53. Between 0:43 and 0:53 the camera pans the side of the car that was heard. 2 seconds later a subtitle appears in the middle of the screen reading ‘New York, 1920’. Between these times the vehicle sounds had stopped causing the silence throughout these 2 seconds. At 1:00 there is a medium – close up of 3 men; 1 driving and 2 sleeping passengers that suddenly wake up indicating there is a problem.The sounds that heard during these 23 seconds; from 0:57 to 1:20 are sounds of crashing almost the sound of a car breaking down causing slow motion. These men then start dialogue in New York accents. 9 second after there is foot - steps walking and the car door slamming shut when matching the visuals all 3 men get out of the car and check the back tyres, this then goes into a mid – shot of the men faces with a red light reflecting on their faces. Taking us to the time of 1:33 there is sounds of soft banging from inside the trunk of the car, in visuals this is shown in a zoom in of the trunk swaying side to side this then leads to a pan of the characters assembling their weapons. Between 1:43 and 1:56 there is no sound at all but there is a cut in of a hand unlocking the trunk once the trunk in opened there is a man covered in blood finding it hard to move. 1 character then tries to kill him with his knife this quickly turned to a reaction shot of the 3^rd character the 1^st character then pulls out his gun and starts shooting the man in the trunk at 1:54 this once again is then followed by a reaction shot of the 3^rd character. In the final 4 seconds of the opening sequence both in visuals and sound there is shooting bringing it to a close.