Goodfellas Opening Analysis

Goodfellas Opening Analysis


The establishing shot opens with a close-up shot of a group of men driving in a car, with shallow focus to show that the driver is the main focus of the frame. There is non-diegetic sound of bumping and rustling, matched with dialogue of the driver asking what the sounds are.There is a brief ellipsis which cuts to a wide shot of the car pulled over with the men in the car at the back of it. The mise-en-scene of the dark and undisclosed location adds to the atmosphere, as well as the character's mobster attire. There is a zooming shot on the boot of the car, creating suspense.The next shot shows two men brandishing weapons which pans over to the driver walking towards the boot, which leads to an action cut of the driver opening the boot and revealing a wounded and dying man inside. The two men stab and shoot the man viciously, which is followed by a close-up of the driver's face. The frame freezes followed by the third person narrative of the driver saying ''As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster." This statement sets the premise of the film, and implies the murder of this individual was a regular occurrence to him.The protagonist's slamming of the boot is matched with the jazz film score, which plays throughout the rather minimal film credits. After the credits, there is an extreme close-up of a boy's eye, who we presume to be the protagonist as a child, followed by an eyeline match which pans across the street and zooms in on various different mobsters as the narrator explains their roles and why he as a boy wanted to be a gangster. The next shot shows the boy inside his house, with a tracking shot of his mother bringing us through the mise-en-scene of his cramped studio apartment. The boy then hurries off to his job, while a long-shot shows the mother yelling after him, with deep focus and sound perspective drowning out her voice slightly. This is followed by a sequence of tracking shots following the boy do errands while the narrator recounts his early experiences with the mob, all pieced together by various bridging shots, with upbeat music playing in the background. There is then a tonal shift as the scene is back in the boy's house, while the narrator tells us as to how his father was always angry because of the failures in his life. The father emerges into the frame, with the boy's mother out of focus to show how she has no control over the father's actions. There is then a series of shot/reverse shots between the father and son as the father beats the son for not attending school, followed by the narrator saying 'everybody takes a beating sometime'. There is a brief ellipsis, followed by a shot/reverse shot of the boy telling the mobster at the cabstand that he won't be able to do the job anymore because the postman was delivering letters about his lack of attendance. The mobsters then capture and threaten the postman as they saw the boy as vital to their operation, showing just how important to the mob the boy was.
This is followed by a tracking shot of the boy running with a mobster under his umbrella in the rain making phonecalls for the boss Paulie. The next scene is a panning shot, with the mise-en-scene implying it's a barbecue or lunch of what we can assume is Paulie's garden. The narrator speaks about how important and powerful Paulie is as the camera pans around Paulie and his different underlings and colleagues.