Watched Goodfellas on Netflix instant tonight. It was masterful with an impeccable sense of timing. Plus, it creates a credible world. Here I'm not talking about a world, as in a world of practice and history (though it does that too), but a world as something alive on screen. Just the other night I watched the Glenn Miller story (also on Netflix instant), one of my old favorites. There's a moment in which June Alyson gets a phone call but before she comes running down the stairs you see her shadow standing still, awaiting her cue. There's nothing like that in Goodfellas where all of the characters seem to live lives on and off the screen, walking into frame and then out of frame, living and breathing where ever the camera turns, their moves choreographed to the camera like dance (e.g., Ray Liotta and Larraine Bracco's characters on their first date).
As good as Goodfellas is, it isn't as engaging for me as The Spirit. The Spirit has a sense of rawness and experimentation. And its sincerity and reckless ambition make it more than a dimestore freakshow.
1 comment:
This has gone far enough - how can the spirit be more interesting than goodfellas?! Ok, so some of the mastery of goodfellas may be a little annoying - that 1st date scene is an ultra long take ala orson welles, possibly TOO well-choreographed. But goodfellas does things that you have said are nearly impossible, like switch tone effectively. plus ray liotta delivers the single best performance ever by a b-movie actor. it's so good that scorcese made it again and called it casino.
-dc
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