Goodfellas

I chose the movie Goodfellas to watch for my project. For this movie we had to do the camera work and how it affected the movie. The movie shows in how the soldiers of the mafia or gangs lived. It is centralized around the middle men showing no true boss or Don of the gang. The main character is Henry Hill. It starts out with him as a kid being brought into the “family” and then the rest of the movie is his exploits or his life choices. One scene I chose is when Henry’s wife, Karen, found out that Henry was having an affair with another women. Henry was laying on the bed and Karen sat on him and pulled out a gun on him. Every time someone spoke the camera did a close up on the speaking character. When Henry talked it showed the gun pointing at him in the bottom of the camera. When Karen talked it showed her holding the gun and pointing it down on Henry. The camera showed the point of view from each of the characters. Putting the gun in the shot was more moving than without it I think. If the gun wasn’t in there the scene wouldn’t be a gripping as it was. With the gun in the frame you had on the back of your mind that Karen would actually shoot her husband over the adultery. As Henry started to talk his way out of it the gun started to lower and lower out of the shot eventually disappearing. Once it leaves the camera pans out to them both in the shot and Henry throws his wife off him and hits her saying he will kill her if she ever pulls a gun on him again. When Henry walks off she is crying and saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I will never do it again.” This fits in with the theme that the men were in control of the situation or relationships and the women were in it for the money so they couldn’t do anything to the men or tell the cops about the beatings they took or they would get killed. Another scene is when Henry is meeting his buddy Jimmy at a restaurant. The plot point is that all the rest of the soldiers in the gang are getting killed off after a job they