Amber's Analysis

  Goodfellas

 

 

For our main task we have to film the beginning of a non-fiction film. So to get ideas on this we watched a few beginning scenes from different films, and one of them was Goodfellas starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta.

The film starts with the production company logo, which in this case was 'Warner Bros', then the actor’s names who star in the film come up on the screen on a black background with white writing which makes them stand out. The names zoom across the screen with the non-diagetic sound of a car to make it effective. It then says in white on the black background ' This film is based on a true story' which makes the film more scarier to people watching it. The opening scene is of a car driving down a empty road in the middle of no where, and there are 3 men in the car all wearing suits which shows that they must be gangsters, there is a pull focus of the man sitting in the front of the car in the passengers seat which shows that he must be the main character. A tracking shot is then done on the moving car while it slows down, the 3 gangsters then get out the car, the red light from the car headlights is shining on them which immediately suggest blood and murder, then the camera slowly zooms in to the boot of the car. One of the gangsters then opens the boot and stabs and shoots the man inside. Then the camera focuses on Ray Liotta as a voice narrative says, ' As far back as i can remember I wanted to be a gangster’ and this introduces the character and shows that he didn’t accidentally slip into being a gangster, and that he had always wanted to be one from a very young age. The scene then flicks back in time to when Ray Liotta's character was younger. There is a narration by Ray Liotta over the action to explain about his life. In the background there is music that makes the scene more cheerful and happy. The film title comes up, once again on the black background but this time the writing is in red, which suggest blood, murder and violence. He then goes on to explain how the though of being a gangster when he was younger was better then being president of the united states which shows how much he wants to be one when he is older. On the bottom of the screen in white writing 'East New York, Brooklyn 1955' appears so people watching know when and where it was all set. The narrative over voice then goes on to explain how he had a part time job parking cabs for the gangsters and how he knew from then how he wanted to be one. Then the narrative voice stops as Ray Liotta’s childhood character’s father confronts him about not going to school and beats him up with a belt as the narrative voice says ‘Every once in a while you have to take a beating’ and this shows his state of mind and how much he wants to be a gangster.