I’ve been having a vocational war in my head today which has
made it difficult to feel inspired or creative. Or wise. Or productive. I’m
mostly just talking to myself a lot.
Facebook still won’t let go of the red cups and I am DONE
with it so, for a few a days I’ll be on Twitter seeing what it has to offer my
creative genius.
As it turns out, Twitter wants me to talk about the movie Goodfellas.
Apparently, some guy named Vincent Asaro was found not
guilty of racketeering (don’t know what that is, but it’s something that mob
guys are always on trial for) and extortion
in connection with the 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport. This heist is
better known to movie fans as “the thing with those guys in that place”. It was
what caused Robert De Niro’s character, Jimmy Conway, to lose his shit and
start whackin’ people in the latter half of the movie.
I loving movie mob talk. It’s beautifully vague and captures
the imagination.
It was a huge heist…something like $5 million in cash and $1
million in jewels were just lifted from the airline’s cargo storage center.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice it was the largest bank robbery in
New York history. Except that they didn’t rob a bank, they got a key from some
guy and just walked into an old airplane hangar and stole a bunch of cargo.
At least that’s how it played out in the movie and that’s
good enough for me – for the purposes of this blog.
SO there were…oh, I don’t know…about 100 tweets about his
acquittal this afternoon and it got me thinking about the movie and how much I
love it. If I’m flipping through channels and I stumble upon it, I always watch whatever is left.
But I didn’t always feel that way.
In 1990, I went to see it on opening night. I had just
turned 17 and I could get into rated R movies without someone buying me a ticket.
This was the first one I decided to go to all on my own.
Did I mention that I thought it was supposed to be a comedy?
I don’t remember why I thought that. Maybe I thought because Joe Pesci was in
it there would be humor? He was hilarious in
Lethal Weapon 2. And that Ray Liotta guy, he was in Field of Dreams. He played Shoeless Joe Jackson, for crying out
loud.
Obviously this was a feel-good comedy.
Yes, a feel-good comedy provided you replace “feel-good”
with “excessive” and “comedy” with “carnage”. Excessive carnage. Mayhem. Mob
violence. I was in a fetal position before Henry Hill had even narrated himself
into Ray Liotta. They beat up that mailman while young Henry looked on and about
that time I looked at my friends like, “what is this crap?” They were fetal
too.
And none of us were laughing.
I toyed with the idea of walking out, but then I would have
looked like a kid which clearly I was
not because I was now old enough to purchase my own ticket to a rated R movie.
I had to sit there and tough it out. Peeking through my fingers – I readied and
steadied myself for each bloody, gruesome scene. It was seriously the most
violent movie I had ever seen up to that point.
Various scenes that caused me to cower in my seat:
When Henry beat up Karen’s neighbor with the butt of his
pistol and then asked her to hide it in her parents’ garage.
- When Tommy stabbed that guy in the neck from the back seat of the car.
- When they killed Billy Batts and cut up his body with a big kitchen knife they borrowed from Tommy’s mother.
- When Tommy shot Spider in the foot because he messed up his drink during a poker game. What the hell was that?
- And then, because all of that stuff had happened unexpectedly before I could cover my eyes with my hands – I spent the entire scene where Jimmy is trying to guide Karen down a deserted alley to look at some dresses or fur coats or something…Whatever, I was ready because I knew at any moment, some big guy with an ice pick or a sword or a set of nunchucks was going to appear and take her out in some ridiculous bloodbath.
But that turned out to be the one time nothing happened.
I have never been so happy to see a movie’s protagonist get arrested.
Once the FBI got involved, I was able to let my guard down and return to my
normal upright position.
As we left the theatre, we all agreed it was too intense and
we didn’t really like it. I pondered whether I would ever go see another movie –
any movie – again. What if all rated R movies were just guns, chef’s knives,
blood with a little cocaine thrown in for excitement?
And then the Oscars rolled around and Joe Pesci won a
freakin’ Oscar. And it was nominated for 5 more. Oh and the Brits LOVED it –
they gave them a whole bag of BAFTAs...FIVE. One for each dollar I spent on that 2 hours and 26 minutes of terror.
A couple of years later, I had the chance to watch it again
(on VHS). I can’t remember why I agreed to it. Anyway, it was much easier the
second time around – because this time there were no surprises. I knew that
there was going to be a lot of blood and sudden death and mob guys getting mad
about stuff that normal people aren’t bothered by. And that their anger would,
of course, cause them to kill the person who angered them. Because that’s mob
guy logic.
Maybe just knowing what
I was about to watch and not expecting a light-hearted comedy was all it took
for me to enjoy it. I actually appreciated the acting. I recognized the comic
relief (the dinner conversation with Tommy’s mother? The hostess party with all
the mob wives?) which was lost on me at 17. Oh…and I could follow the story the
second time around. That was helpful.
I’m not sure I was even able to discern the plot the first
time I saw it. At 17 all I saw was guns
and drugs and blood and cussing and then Henry Hill was standing in front of a
tract house talking about being a shnuck. And then it was over.
The story is actually pretty interesting and well-told and I
guess realistic. I haven’t spent a lot of time in the mob world to know if Mr.
Scorsese took liberties.
Anyway, learning to deal with movie violence in context came
with maturity – something I didn’t have at 17 – and it’s made me able to
appreciate other good movies that happen to
contain violence (Pulp Fiction, Saving Private Ryan) but tell a really good
story. The experience has also made me careful about what I let my kids watch.
If the subject matter distracts them from enjoying (or even comprehending) the
story, what good is it for them to watch it?
But back to Vincent Asaro…I wonder what will happen to him
now that he’s been acquitted. He was supposedly the mastermind behind that Lufthansa
heist in the first place. He can’t be tried again because of Double Jeopardy so
he shouldn’t need to clean up any loose ends.
No ice picks in the back of any necks.
But Asaro’s probably pretty miffed with the 60+ people who
testified against him – not to mention the two who cooperated with the FBI
resulting in his indictment. If Billy Batts got whacked for laughing at Tommy
Devito and Spider got shot in the foot for making him the wrong drink, I’m
thinking that wearing a wire while you’re chatting with your mob-boss cousin and
then ratting him out to the FBI will get you some sort of really creative
death.
Maybe a wood chipper?
Different movie.
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