Goodfellas is a film I could write about endlessly, tackling everything from its cinematic creativity to how after a few unsuccessful attempts to make me a Martin Scorsese fan, this was the one that unlocked him for me. It remains the clear peak achievement for a director I plan to bring up eight more times. Rater than go on endlessly, I want to focus on the one dolly shot I posted an image from.
After moving to L.A., a friend showed me a DVD with the dailies for this scene. Take after take, and each one a little bit different. Sometimes, the bullet wound was endlessly gushing. Sometimes, young Henry grabbed a comical amount of aprons to help the bleeding man. In one take, Tuddy complaining about the aprons was violently angry, and then in another he’s laughing at the kid grabbing all the aprons. Take after take, each one a little different.
We hear about perfectionist directors who know exactly what they want to say with each scene and will roll endlessly until they nail the precise amount of blood and aprons and get the exact performance from Tuddy. That wasn’t what Scorsese was doing. He got the shot, but he wanted the options. He’s going to find the film in the edit. Rather than polish a single shot to perfection only to find in post that it doesn’t work, he’s going to see how this one moment fits next to what happens before and after.
