Films › Directing
Goodfellas
Directed by Martin Scorsese, 1990
The Copacabana Steadicam shot dramatises status through geography, showing rather than stating what access means. Voiceover from two narrators, freeze frames and direct address are deployed without apology, and they never break the momentum. Scene length shortens as the drug paranoia takes hold, with cutting rate mirroring the character's state. Needle drops are period-accurate to the month, which is a directing discipline as much as a music choice. Editor Thelma Schoonmaker built the rhythm of the film around Scorsese's temp-tracked music choices, cutting picture to match the beat of songs already selected rather than scoring after the edit, an unusual and demanding workflow for a feature this scale. Michael Ballhaus executed the Copacabana shot after extensive rehearsal with the Steadicam operator to keep the geography of the club continuously legible through several room changes. The compression of scene length in the final act is a deliberate editorial strategy that any editor studying pace manipulation should analyze shot by shot.
What to watch for
Watch the final day sequence and note how the cutting rate itself tells you what the character has taken.
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