Last week the kiddies watched Goodfellas as part of our discussion of the long take and the mobile frame. I was sure to show the Swingers homage, too, although sadly I was thwarted by university firewalls from sharing the one-take wonder that is the Spice Girls' "Wannabe" video [imagining the choreography and corralling that must have taken place to pull off that one makes my head hurt].
The conversation went OK. We talked about why Scorsese chose to shoot the Copa sequence as a fancy tracking shot, rather than with a series of edits. Was he just showing off? What do we learn about Henry as a character that we wouldn't otherwise? And what qualities might Vince Vaughn's Trent share with him? There were some nice observations about how the smoothness of the shot reflected the ease with which Henry navigates this world. [Please note, the cinetrix was very good and did not mention the wall of sound song selection and its over-the-top similarities to the framing choices, and instead merely pointed out how the chorus gives us a clue that this sequence actually represents Karen's p.o.v.]
For contrast, we looked at the scene where Karen is at the women's party with the other Mob wives, which offers a little of everything--reframing, tracking, pans, close-ups, jump cuts--while it tells us more about this strange new society she's being inducted into. We also tried to figure out what was up with all the freeze frames. Are they memories? Narrative pivot points? Why are they attached to Henry while voice over is something that's also available to Karen at times? One kid brightly invoked the scene where Henry realizes that Jimmy plans to kill him, which features not one but two. Good eye.
And the "Monkey Man" sequence toward the end provided a perfect example in today's class of how continuity editing can be used to compress time--18 hours in 6 minutes. So Goodfellas just keeps on giving. Plus, I forgot it features a very early appearance by Kevin Corrigan as wheelchair-bound Michael "Stir the sauce" Hill, too. Is that how he ended up getting cast by Vinnie "Henry's 70's crew" Gallo in Buffalo '66?
*Little do the budding cineastes realize the Stones are fast becoming one of the course's unintentional leitmotifs. I talked a little about the silly halftime show today, but I am really looking forward to how the students will parse Gimme Shelter in a couple weeks when right now they know Keith Richards primarily as the Captain Jack Sparrow-looking old dude. After seeing Shelter, they'll be yearning for Chinatown's downer ending.
