Martin Scorsese, who has been called "the most outstanding sociologist and film artist in America" by film critics, after filming the controversial film "The Main Street" describing the daily life of the Italian immigrants in New York, He also filmed this social realism film "Good Friends", which depicts the Italian Mafia in New York.
As early as after Francis Coppola finished filming "The Godfather" (the first episode), Martin Scorsese was interested in making a film about the Italian Mafia. Coppola's "The Godfather" (one to three episodes) is epic. He traced the life of Italian immigrants in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, how to live in this land, how to form a gang, to smuggle drugs, and later develop into organizing multinational companies, committing crimes internationally, and how to exert influence in political and religious institutions, etc. Wait. Coppola tried to link the evil phenomenon of the Mafia with American society and culture and analyze it from a social and political perspective. This result makes the film more typical. From an artistic point of view, "The Godfather" is indeed a generous romantic epic. However, behind all this, people could not help but ask: "Is this true?" Scorsese had already seen this, and he had repeatedly claimed that "The Godfather" was not true. After reading Nicholas Peleki's documentary biography Wisegay (Wisegay), he felt that this was a good opportunity to describe the Mafia from a sociological perspective. Scorsese believes: "People have a wrong understanding that the Mafia is killing people. In fact, the main purpose of the Mafia and even professional gunmen is not to kill but to make money."
Unlike Coppola's "The Godfather", Scorsese's film "The Good Partner" is not romantic at all, nor is it an epic at all. With the self-narration of an ordinary mafia element, he literally described the sinful and haunting daily life of the mafia gangsters. Scorsese did not analyze the Italian Mafia from historical, cultural, social, and political perspectives like Coppola. Scorsese believes that the New York-Italian Mafia are all gangsters. They have no clear purpose in life, so there is no more in-depth analysis. It is enough to show him truthfully.
The film was co-written by Scorsese and Peleki and directed by Scorsese. It was filmed on-site in Brooklyn, New York, and local residents were invited to serve as mass roles for Italian immigrants.
The protagonist, Henry Hill, grew up in the impoverished Italian district of New York. He was so fascinated that he regarded the underworld elements as his heroes. From passing messages to the Mafia, he later met Poly Ciceno and became his pawn. Henry was a handsome and witty young man. He became a mafia member because of his love for leisure, greed for work, and trying his best to live a "high-class" life. However, because his father is of Irish descent, even though his mother is a fellow of the mafia leader Pauli, he is still an outsider in the eyes of his accomplices. After becoming good friends with Jimmy, he seems to have relied on. Jimmy is a taciturn, scheming person, extremely cruel at heart. On the surface, he is a "good partner", but if something happens, he will betray his friends. In the second half of the film, when the three-person partnership robbery is detected by the police, Henry asks for help from Jimmy, and he just makes an idea for Henry to escape so that Jimmy can be freed. Robert De Niro successfully demonstrated the complex psychological activities of the mafia leader. Since he grew up in the Italian district of New York, he is very familiar with such characters. De Niro played Jimmy from his speech and manners to the details of his clothes. Scorsese also used a lot of close-up shots to highlight the rich expression of his face. Joe Paz, who won the Best Supporting Actor Award for playing Tommy, was also extremely successful in his performance. He used exaggerated gestures, English with an Italian accent, and a moody face to make a game of murder. The underworld professional killer is portrayed vividly. The difference between this film and The Godfather lies in the artist's perspective. Coppola has a high point of view in "The Godfather", he focuses on the description of the struggle between the leaders of the underworld, and the mutual use of the underworld with the political, judicial, and religious circles as the key description object. Therefore, Coppola used a lot of panoramic lenses and overhead shots to express some magnificent scenes. And Scorsese lowered the camera to the underworld figure himself. Even the Godfather Pauli Ciceno is different from Vido Corleone in "The Godfather." He didn't seem to have the style of Corleone, and he looked a little wilted on the outside, and he didn't look like a bigwig at all. He planned some big actions carefully, but he never showed up. He also ordered the commandment-to kill as little as possible. Once something goes wrong, whoever does it is responsible. When Henry found him after a mistake, he only took out a sum of money to let Henry go. Scorsese focused the lens on this man's selfish nature, without deliberately describing his relationship with the outside world.
The structure of the film can be divided into three parts. The first part describes the beginning of the Mafia's emergence, the partners worked together to plan successful actions time after time, and at the same time portrayed their way of life. The second part focuses on the chaos within the Mafia in the 1960s and 1970s. Not only did actions often fail, but the partners also mistrusted each other. The third part describes the mutual betrayal of the Mafia during its decline. The film uses Henry's self-narrative to string together these three paragraphs in chronological order.
This contrast before and after can also be seen from the artistic treatment of the film. The first half of the film was handled very cleanly and compactly. The artist uses a lot of fast-switching editing techniques, and sometimes the rhythm is too fast to breathe. However, Scorsese also used a portable camera to take some long shots. Two of the shots are very prominent: the first shot is the chaotic scene of the bar where the Mafia is used to activities. With Henry's voice-over, the shots pan to the partners introduced by Henry one by one, chanting nicknames and shouting. Binge drinking, showing the gang of gangsters' lifestyle of life and death. In the second shot, Henry invited his girlfriend Karen to a luxurious restaurant for dinner. Scorsese used a small hand-held camera to continuously follow Henry's actions. Henry and Karen came to the door of the restaurant and saw the long queue waiting to enter; they bypassed the crowd and went straight into the kitchen from the side door; the chefs greeted Henry one by one, and Henry joked and shook hands with them one by one; The foreman of the restaurant hurriedly greeted Henry and ordered a table to be added; Henry invited Karen to take a seat, and then greeted acquaintances in a big manner. The camera has been facing Henry, making people feel the protagonist's power and egotistical self-confidence.
The second half of the film is slow and heavy. There are a lot of shots that give people a sense of procrastination, and there are few quick cuts in editing. There are a large number of scenes used to describe the FBI and police investigations. It seems that the police are helpless with the Mafia, showing the weakness of the law. When Henry was about to be arrested, Scorsese used a wonderful documentary shot: first Henry stirred the sauce in the kitchen uneasy, preparing the condiments for cooking; then he hurried out of the house and started the car. ; Then he drove to deliver guns to his partners. He drove the car on the highway and found a police helicopter in the sky following him and monitoring his every move; he drove to a public telephone booth and called home To inform you that you have been monitored. Then, when Henry returned home and told his wife Karen, the two looked up at the sky: there were only a few clouds in the sky. Not long after the two drove onto the highway, they heard the sound of the helicopter's motor again. This set of documentary shots not only subtly shows the wits between the police and the bandits, but also portrays Henry's nervous, fearful and uneasy psychology, which paves the way for Henry to confess the inside story of the Mafia.
The sound processing of the film is also very distinctive. Scorsese makes extensive use of environmental sound. For example, the sound of the active bar of the Mafia is very noisy: laughter, yelling, and the noise of Italian and English mixed with the background music, highlighting the chaotic and noisy atmosphere , Successfully outlines the mafia lifestyle. In the restaurant, it is another kind of atmosphere. The waiters greet customers in French and Italian. The background is beautiful ancient music, showing a different atmosphere from the bar. Scorsese also used Henry's confession as a voice-over from beginning to end, coupled with Italian folk songs, not only gave people a sense of reality, but also created a sense of aesthetic alienation from the psychological perspective of artistic appreciation. In the angle of the camera, in line with Henry's voice-over, sometimes he shoots upside down, sometimes upside down, sometimes zoomed in, and sometimes pulled apart, making the audience feel that Henry is manipulating the camera movement. In this way, Scorsese deviates from the objective narrative form of Hollywood, and uses the emotional ups and downs of the characters to master the camera, spreading out the three major narratives.
Some film critics believe that the depiction of women in Scorsese's films is a failure. Except for Karen, who is more individual, other women are mediocre. Scorsese said that this is the reality. The Mafia is a society of men, so it does not deliberately describe those women. But to be fair, the description of women in this film is indeed not as brilliant as "The Godfather".
After the film was released, it caused a huge response. Interestingly, the Italian-American Mafia in New York, USA, has declined since the 1990s. Many leaders died and fled, and the party members were torn apart. They are no longer as rampant as they were in the 1960s and 1970s, even in the Little Italy area of Manhattan. It is shrinking, too. In their place were Asian criminal groups-especially the Yueqing Gang and Japanese underworld groups. So some people joked that Scorsese's film "Good Friends" seemed to have brought an end to the New York Italian Mafia. It may be more profitable to watch this film in comparison with the "Godfather" series.
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