GoodFellas

Working with trusted accomplices, including editor Thelma Schoonmaker, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, actors Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, and brilliant first-time collaborators Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco, Martin Scorsese combines varied cinematic styles, camera techniques, and a precisely executed collage of popular music, adapting Nicholas Pileggi’s chronicle of real-life Mafia associate Henry Hill. Hurtling through some twenty-five years of “family” life, the riveting Liotta gives voice to Hill’s chilling and funny first-person account. As focused on quotidian details as on dramatic moments, Scorsese wanted the movie to have a documentary feel, “as if you had 16mm cameras with these guys for 20, 25 years.”