The Making Of Goodfellas - An Oral History, Part Three
How it was made, by the people who made it.
A version of this article appeared in Hotdog magazine.
Catherine Scorsese (Martin's mother; actor, Tommy’s Mother): In my scene, Tommy brings his friends home and his mother cooks for them all. I said to Marty, ‘So what am I going to make for them?’ And he said, ‘Make pasta and beans, just like you used to make for me.’ When Marty would come home late from a date or from being at university, I’d get up and make him something to eat. Marty said, ‘If it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for them.’
Martin Scorsese (screenwriter, director): I don’t romanticise the violence. I just show it . And I tried to show it like it really is - cold, unfeeling and horrible. Almost incidental. It’s really a perverse way of doing business. If you show it, you can be accused of reckless violence and exploitation. But if you don’t, then you’re just not telling the truth.
Greg Nicotero (SFX guru): The violence in Goodfellas is incredible. It really blows you away, not because it’s spectacular but because it’s so casual. To these guys, it’s like eating pizza. It’s a spectacularly bloody film, too. If you watch a lot of horror or action movies, the blood is orange rather than a rich red. The effects people on Goodfellas did a great job. The blood doesn’t look like watery ketchup or spaghetti sauce. It looks like the real thing, and that just heightens everything else.
Nicholas Pileggi (author, screenwriter): Let’s say you’re growing up in this area and you want to be a gangster. Well, you can get into somebody’s crew, but you’ve got to prove yourself. Not only do you have to commit violence, you have to learn to enjoy it. And that’s what I think people started to get upset about with Goodfellas.
Beau Starr (actor, Henry’s Father): I think the scene where I take a belt to Henry is important as it shows how frightening and horrible real violence is. These guys only punch out and kill one another. That can’t be condoned but it’s nowhere near as distressing as the sight of a middle-aged man beating up a small boy. That’s just detestable. Beyond detestable. So I think that scene served to balance out the rest of the violence in Goodfellas. For all the horrible things that happen in the picture, none is quite as appalling or sadly as real as what happens after I take off my belt.
Nicholas Pileggi : We were just so lucky to have had access to real Mafia guys. Most novels and sagas about the Mob come from the imagination of great writers who’ve seen great Mafia movies. It’s a self-generating process. And as for the word Mafia, you wouldn’t hear the term used by anyone involved in organised crime. They use euphemisms like ‘wiseguys’ and ‘goodfellas’. They also tend to employ the word ‘crew’ rather than the broader term ‘family.’
Robert De Niro (actor, Jimmy Conway): I had a lot of conversations with Henry Hill. He’d call me from a different place for security reasons. I’d say, ‘Call me tomorrow because I’m going to do such and such a scene and I’d like to talk to you about it.’ We’d go over and over the scene and he’d give me all the information. I had to rely on Henry because, obviously, I couldn’t make contact with Jimmy Burke [the inspiration for Jimmy Conway].
Florian Ballhaus (cinematographer): There are two things people always ask me about Goodfellas. One is, ‘What is Robert De Niro like?’ The other is, ‘How did you do that tracking shot through the kitchens at the Copa?’ After telling them how nice Robert Dr Niro is, I tell them the reason we came through the kitchens was we couldn’t come through the main entrance. The management wouldn’t allow it.
Martin Scorsese: There’s a reason to do it all in one shot. Henry’s whole life is ahead of him. He’s the young American ready to take over the world and he’s met a girl he likes. It had to be done in one sweeping shot because it’s his seduction of Karen and it’s the lifestyle seducing him.
Florian Ballhaus: Contrary to popular belief, long takes aren’t the brain surgery or rocket science of filmmaking. While they do require a lot of rehearsal, they’re not much more difficult than traditional scenes. Indeed, in some ways, they’re easier and more cost-effective. There’s not stopping and starting. There are no continuity problems to worry about. Plus, you can get to shoot two or three minutes of footage in a single take. If you’ve got a million cuts to worry about, it can take a couple of days to shoot a three-minute scene.
Michael Imperioli (actor, Spider): It amused me that my character Spider gets shot in the foot for being late while, in The Sopranos, my character Christopher shoots a waiter in the foot for exactly the same thing. I know fans of the film and the series got a big kick out of it. It’s a wonderful moment of recognition, a great in-joke.
Martin Scorsese: The speed of Goodfellas stems from the guys I knew when I was young who’d stand on street corners and were great storytellers. They were funny, self-deprecating and they could conjure up images so quickly. And I imagined that to make a film with that kind of speed and excitement and humour would be entertaining. I was also annoyed by the attitude in American film which meant that things were getting faster and faster. I thought, if you want it fast, I’m going to give it to you fast. That was the lifestyle of those guys. Life-expectancy for them was mid-to-late-twenties. You got stopped by a bullet or a bat or a cop put you in jail, but until then, it was fast and you had a great life.
Saul Bass (Titles): It’s always a pleasure to work with Marty. We share the same vision, artistically. When it came to designing the titles, it struck me that we had to marry the speed of the picture - the film really flies by - with the brilliant way that Marty had used freeze-frame throughout the movie. I think he’d been impressed by Truffaut’s Jules Et Jim. The end effect is of cars and taxis speeding through the New York streets on the way to commit a crime or on the run from the police.
Martin Scorsese: At the end of the movie Henry has the nerve to complain. He complains about marinara sauce. I remember Paul Schrader telling me, ‘Marty, you should have that ending changed. People don’t want to be sat there for two hours and 20 minutes with a guy who reacts like that at the end.’ I said, ‘But they’re the kind of guys I knew growing up.’ I’d rather deal with it realistically. We dared the audience to get annoyed.
Robert De Niro: Nobody knows movies like Marty knows movies.
Martin Scorsese: The shot at the end [of the deceased Tommy DeVito shooting straight at the camera] is a reference to The Great Train Robbery (1903) by Edwin S Porter. The point is that Henry’s always going to have to be looking over his shoulder. He’s got to have eyes behind his head because they’re going to get him someday.
Beau Starr: Goodfellas wasn’t a difficult shoot. We were all convinced of the worth of what we were doing, that we turned up on time every day with smiles on our faces. It was how a movie should be made.
Florian Ballhaus: Goodfellas was a perfect example of everything the filmmaking process can and should be: professional, enjoyable, artistic and utterly satisfying.
Robert De Niro: I’m proud of Goodfellas.
Martin Scorsese: Goodfeallas is an indictment. I had to do it in such a way as to make people angry about the state of things, about organised crime and how and why it works. Why does it work? What is is in society that makes it work so well and operate on such a grand scale? Major gangsters aren’t usually convicted. Like the policeman says in the movie, ‘It’s all greed’. The gangsters make money and other people make money because of them. ‘Give me my check and don’t cause any trouble’ - that’s the attitude that allows them to exist.
Nicholas Pileggi: The Mafia had ceased to be the primary fear object of the American public. So many innocent people are dying today because of random, insane killings by 16-year-olds high on crack, shooting 9mm guns. The thing is that, while there’s a lot of killing in the Mafia, at least they only kill each other.
Henry Hill (former Mafiosi): Wiseguys love Goodfellas because it’s real. They see themselves up there on the big screen, the way they really are, and they’re happy. However bad it makes them look in the eyes of the public, they see it as their movie. Me? At first I didn’t want to see the movie. Hell, I had told Nick Pileggi everything that Marty put in it. But they arranged a very private screening. It was emotional for me. I expected a lot of nostalgia.
Karen Hill (Henry Hill’s ex-wife): I saw Goodfellas three times. Before I saw it the first time, my anxiety and fear were very high. But as it turned out, I was able to relive 25 years of my life on the screen. The second time, I was actually frightened by the blood. The third time, I concentrated on the players. Robert De Niro had really done his homework. Paul Sorvino was just terrific as Paulie. Ray Liotta was the Henry I had fallen in love with all those years ago - good-looking, well-dressed, immaculately clean. He’d light up a room when he came in. It was all there. Tommy was as frightening as a killing machine with no ‘off’ button. I thought the movie was fast and furious, and correct.
Ray Liotta (actor, Henry Hill): I formed an affection for Henry. I didn’t agree with anything he did. I don’t like violence. But I liked the way that he kept his cards close to his chest.
Henry Hill: What would I say to Tommy [DeSimone]? I’d say that I had to do it.
Nicholas Pileggi: It’s sad. I think of Henry as dead already. I’ve seen what’s happened to all his friends.
Karen Hill: When we went into the Witness Protection Program, I thought it was the worst situation that could ever happen to us. I was wrong. What happened to me and my children in the 10 years that followed was worse.
Ray Liotta: Henry called me up. He’d seen the movie and really liked it. He was just appreciative of both the movie and the performance. He seemed relieved. He thought it was going to be even less flattering. He remembers himself as being, as he put it, a scumbag. He was afraid that’s how he was going to come off. All he remembers from the whole thing is that he ratted on his friends. He forgot that he started off as just a naïve kid. He was just caught up and it all got bigger and bigger. He forgot the reasons why it happened. I think he was pleased about that. It was kind of cathartic for him.
Henry Hill: I’ve changed. I don’t want to be that little jerk Henry any more. I don’t hurt people any more. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I broke anyone’s arm with a baseball bat.
Michael Imperioli: Once you've made a Scorsese movie, you're free to enjoy the rest of your career. You can get on with your work knowing that you've already got a classic in the bag.
Nicholas Pileggi: The Godfather is like War And Peace, a book and a movie about the Napoleonic Wars from the Emperor's point of view. Goodfellas is a movie written from the point of view of Napoleon’s aide-to-camp. And this aide-de-camp isn't talking about moving armies across Belgium. He's telling you things like, 'The first thing you gotta know is, Napoleon doesn't like cream in his coffee'.
Henry Hill: Goodfellas is the way we lived. That's the real Mafia.