OF MOBSTERS AND MEN: Male melodrama, the visual landscape of masculinity and why Goodfellas remains a Scorsese masterpiece at 30

In 2015, New York Post reporter Kyle Smith famously stated that “women are not capable of understanding Goodfellas”. To Smith, Goodfellas is the ultimate “male fantasy picture”. Taking place in a world that “guys dream about”, where men can revel in hedonistic activities and ‘bust each other’s balls’ whilst drinking and smoking cigars. But for a film that ends with its protagonist reduced to an “average nobody”, separated from his wife and kids and forced to live a grim life under witness protection, can you really class that as a ‘male fantasy’? 

30 years on, Goodfellas remains one of Martin Scorsese’s most talked-about films. For some, like Smith, it’s a two and a half hour gangster-romp full of money, booze, women and guns – perfect male escapism. Under the hypnotic haze of hedonism, though, lies a complex male melodrama. With Goodfellas, Scorsese offers a searing critique of performative machismo. It’s a multi-layered masterpiece, presenting internalised masculine anxieties about identity through the mise en scene and carefully coding the gangster through distinctive visual style. Goodfellas traces a fine line between humour and violence and exposes the instability of masculinity – it’s a narrative that still seems entirely relevant in a world still dominated by toxic masculinity. So, is Scorsese’s film a ‘movie for men’ and what does that mean for its rich portrayal of the complicated masculine persona? 

An adaptation of the 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas depicts the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) from 1955 to 1980. Note the inclusion of Henry’s fall in this gangster romp: this is not a story of success. Simply looking at the structure of the film signals Scorsese’s intentions with Goodfellas.

Utilising a retrospective narration makes for a story of reflection, creating distance between Henry and his former self. His first-person voiceover, coming from an omnipresent position in the future, is sombre in tone. The knowledge of how his life ended up souring the dream world he once lived in. There is a sense of nostalgia here, tinged with bitterness. Henry aches for the naivety of his childhood gaze as he made his first steps into mob life. Though, upon reflection, he knows that this was not an admirable world and more of a ‘fantasy’.  

One of the ways in which Scorsese confronts the instability of masculinity is through the conflation of violence and humour and unstable tone. Goodfellas frequently juxtaposes scenes of violence with scenes of comedy and vice versa. For some scenes, the line between humour and violence is blurred completely. This results in an overall tone that is jarring and unsettling, exposing the instability of the masculine persona and its unhinged performativity.

This is most explicitly conveyed through Joe Pesci’s famous “funny how?” scene. Pesci’s Tommy sits surrounded by fellow wise-guys, recounting a story in a confident and comedic manner. The men around him laugh, scared of the threat that he imposes. However, this fuels an angry self-consciousness in Tommy. Henry off-handedly tells him he’s a funny guy, to which Pesci responds “Funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you?”. There is a sense of being emasculated if he’s deemed a joker. Tommy’s volatile behaviour exposes the fragility of the masculine persona – he is terrified of not being taken seriously. Then, to assert his dominance, he strikes out physically, holding his gun to Henry’s head. A phallic assertion of his violent dominance.

Male melodramas of the 1950s centred around the notion of ‘being’ or ‘becoming’ a man. Often, they confronted the specific traumas of the transition to manhood and the pressure to conform to a masculine ideal. Goodfellas is ultimately a film centred around identity. The protagonist forges his way into gangster life, carefully crafting his masculine persona based on the men around him.  The dichotomy of the masculine gangster being encompassed in a generic convention that is most often associated with femininity (the focus on emotion positions the melodrama as a film for women) undercuts Goodfellas categorisation as a ‘male fantasy picture’. Scorsese utilises the format of the male melodrama to tell a somewhat melancholic tale about the search for identity.

Scorsese uses the first fifteen minutes of runtime to create an idealised version of gangsterdom. Seen through the eyes of a young Henry Hill, then undercutting this naive outlook on gangster life with the subsequent deterioration of his success. Via his retrospective narration, Henry creates the image of the mythologised gangster. He claims that “being a gangster was better than being president of the United States”. Immediately, Henry affords gangsterdom with the utmost level of power and positions it as something admirable. However, using the landscape of Henry’s naive childhood perspective belittles this idolisation. 

There is a sense of nostalgia as Henry recounts his childhood years spent amongst mobsters. He works hard to mythologise the gangster as his present tense voice-over regains a sense of naivety as he glorifies those he grew up around. Scorsese truly hones in on the community aspect of gangsterdom. He uses a fledgeling Henry to create this space of family, care and safety. Frequently throughout the first few scenes of Henry’s childhood, we see big gatherings of associates eating lots of food. Culturally, food is seen as a signifier of love – it is a symbol of family and of being looked after. Meat cooks on a grill, tables are adorned with selections of bread and cheeses, prosciutto is piled high on plates. For all intents and purposes, Henry was well looked after and nurtured by the surly men he spent his young years fawning over. 

One of the many ways in which the gangster is codified is through costume. After all, suits are symbolic of traditional manliness. Throughout the cinematic gangster genre, clothes are equated to status, style and success. One scene sees a young Henry return home in a newly purchased suit. The camera pans down his body, detailing the tan two-piece and his overly shiny new shoes. “Oh my God, you look like a gangster!” his mother exclaims horrified. The shoulders are square and the suit is ill-fitting for a child, but young Henry has assumed the robust and jagged-edged silhouette of a gangster.

The outfit juxtaposes his childlike grin. He’s full of glee at his ‘manly’ appearance and this emphasises the ridiculous performativity of being a mobster. After all, these men are just playing dress-up and reciting a carefully choreographed performance of idealised manliness. Scorsese communicates this via the absurd image of a child in an oversized suit. 

Scorsese roots the visual landscape of Goodfellas in theatricality – the naivety through which Henry views the mobsters in his life as a child continues into his adulthood and this warped perception of gangster life is translated via the mise en scene. The film’s first introduction of Robert De Niro’s Tommy is incredibly performative.

Through young Henry’s perspective, we see him enter through a magically opened door, a smug grin on his face as he slips cash into every surrounding man’s pocket. Almost as if he is some sort of altruistic benefactor. The shots are almost in slow motion and very dream-like, with frequent cuts to close-ups of money in hands and the delicate tailoring of the expensive suit Jimmy wears. A rotating shot circles around the betting table that Jimmy now stands at, the visual language explicitly confirming this mobster’s power. The room literally revolves around him, whilst also mimicking young Henry’s idolised gaze. 

Similar visual language is utilised later in the film, once Henry has reached his early twenties. Once again, characters are introduced in a way that exudes theatricality. The camera aligns with Henry’s POV and weaves in and out of the tables at the Bamboo Lounge. We are introduced to each mobster he passes, who performatively utter a greeting or a catchphrase directly into the lens. Henry talks about the masculine characteristics of gangster life – taking anything you want and ‘beating up anyone who has anything to say about it’ – as if these physical acts are a perfectly choreographed routine, adding to the sense of performativity. Even the variety of items the mobsters deal with scream performative masculinity. Hunks of meat, whiskey, suits and packets of cigarettes are all visual signifiers of manliness. 

In his voiceover, Henry states that “Jimmy was the kind of guy who rooted for the bad guys in the movies”. Apply this to Goodfellas itself and you get the perspective of the male audience who glorify the film as a ‘male fantasy picture’ and idolise its characters. But this is not what Martin Scorsese himself does with Goodfellas. Frequently, through visual language and stylistic choices, Scorsese belittles the machismo of the mobster men on screen. He creates a paradoxical image of the gangster and reduces this world of crime, guns and booze to one of self-reflection and sorrow.

The film’s closing scene sees Henry Hill directly address the camera, saying that “now it’s all over”. Bringing the curtain down on his performance, he clearly has nothing left. A present-day Henry collects the newspaper from the doorstep of his bland, suburban home. He is dressed in a feminised, blue, bathrobe and as the front door closes, the sound of a jail cell slamming shut rings loud. His delusions of grandeur have left him imprisoned, “living the rest of [his] life as a ‘schnook’”.

If you’re wanting to revel in your testosterone-filled, overindulgent fantasies of ‘ball-busting’ and smoking cigars, then maybe this is not the film for you. But if you are looking to inwardly reflect on the shortcomings of the masculine persona and the instability of trying to uphold an idealised and outdated perspective of machismo, then yeah, maybe Goodfellas is the perfect ‘movie for men’. 

Words by Lilia Pavin-Franks

Recommended Reading:

Bruzzi, Stella. (1997) “The Instabilities of the Franco-American Gangster” in Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity at the Movies. 

Bruzzi, Stella. (2013) Men’s Cinema: Masculinity and Mise-en-scene.

Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve. (1992) Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire.

O’Rawe, Catherine. (2014) “Boys Don’t Cry: Weeping Fathers, Absent Mothers, and Male Melodrama” in Stars and Masculinities in Contemporary Italian Cinema. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137381477_4