Martin Scorsese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzpIB5TJ7LI

This was my first time seeing Goodfellas and the whole time watching I kept thinking “this is exactly like Wolf of Wall Street!” which I have seen multiple times. Both films follow the same basic formula. The protagonist provides a voiceover narration guiding us through their rise and fall from power, in Goodfellas it’s Ray Liotta’s gangster life and in Wolf of Wall Street it’s Leonardo DiCaprio’s wall street white collar crime. Both end up spiraling into drug addiction and both go down hard by the authorities. Both have the same frantic pace and energy and rock ‘n’ roll… hell it’s like they just took all the same character notes and switched settings!

But with regards to Scorsese’s use of rock ‘n’ roll, I felt the whole movie was made to feel like a drug high. As Ray Liotta recounts his life’s tale, he re-experiences all the good times of being a gangster. After all, what’s not to like? He’s got money, friends, women, and drugs wherever he goes. The film takes of from his childhood and introduction to the criminal underground and picks up energy, which is the whole purpose of rock ‘n’ roll anyway right? It’s supposed to make you want to turn up the volume and rock out. And isn’t the saying “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll”? Ray Liotta (I have a hard time remembering character’s names) is the epitome of this lifestyle. He doesn’t play by the rules, he has fun and does what he wants like a true renegade which makes him a likeable character until the trip goes out of control. Just like in Wolf of Wall Street, the Ray Liotta/Leonardo DiCaprio character takes too many drugs and ends up getting caught shortly thereafter (with Ray on coke and Leo on Quaaludes). 

The use of the second half of Layla by Eric Clapton works perfectly. The song is used when they discovered the freezer truck full of dead bodies and it's at this point that the fun times stop, The rush of the high is fading out just like the song which has a fast and energized first half but calms down and switches to piano for the comedown.