“What do you do?” Lorraine Bracco’s Karen asks Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill. “I’m in construction,” he replies.

The Copacabana tracking one-shot sequence from Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990) is one of the most memorable scenes in the history of cinema. Martin Scorsese decided to film the sequence in one unbroken shot in order to symbolize that Henry Hill's entire life was ahead of him. "It's his seduction of her (Karen), and it's also the lifestyle seducing him". The sequence was shot eight times. This scene is Martin Scorsese’s favourite scene he ever made!

Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi collaborated on the screenplay for Goodfellas. Over the course of 12 drafts, the reporter realized "the visual styling had to be completely redone. So we decided to share credit." They decided which sections of the book they liked, and put them together like building blocks. Scorsese persuaded Pileggi that they did not need to follow a traditional narrative structure. Scorsese wanted to take the gangster film, and deal with it episode by episode, but start in the middle and move backward and forward. Scorsese would compact scenes, and realized that if they were kept short, "the impact after about an hour and a half would be terrific."

Ray Liotta (1954 - 2022) has sadly passed away at the age of 67. Rest in peace to a legend. 🕊


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20 Screenwriting Tips from Martin Scorsese 👉    • 20 tips from Martin Scorsese  

5 tips for SCREENWRITERS from GOODFELLAS 👉    • GOODFELLAS - 5 tips for SCREENWRITERS  


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