Sound in a Scene From

Sound in a Scene from Goodfellas

Sound and narrative are combined in Martin Scorsese's 1990 Goodfellas, a film that depicts a world that is as repellant as it is attractive. Part of what makes the world of Goodfellas so attractive is that fact that Scorsese deftly uses sound as a way to captivate and to lure the viewer into each scene. Gerald Mast observes that "Goodfellas presents the work and home life of its gangsters in a realistic, understated manner…at 100 miles per hour and changing direction without warning" (534). The fast-paced narrative is not without its stop signs, however -- and these come in the stylistic manner of the freeze frame: a method that Scorsese uses abundantly in the film in conjunction with different sound effects to reinforce certain aspects of the world, the characters, and the story. This paper will analyze the transitional scene in the film when Henry Hill goes from young boy to young man and show how diagetic, non-diagetic, parallel and contrapuntal sound, and the L-cut are all used to convey precise ideas in the scene.

As Bobbie O'Steen observes, "sounds can interact with images in infinite ways" (191), and this is certainly true in Goodfellas. Robert Condren notes that the film's "soundtrack is a massive collection of more than 40 songs that is in itself a skeletal chronicle of urban popular music from the 1950s through the 1970s" (131). By using the classic hits of the time period depicted in the film, Scorsese is able to connect the viewer to a real time in American history and use his sense of nostalgia to probe deep and possibly forgotten emotions. Scorsese can even span a single decade using non-diagetic sound and the L-cut, which is what he does early on in the film in the transitional scene of Henry being accepted into the "gang."

The bond that develops between Jimmy and Henry is established when Henry is pinched by the police but "takes it like a man." Scorsese uses an up-from-below close-up of Jimmy and Henry to illustrate the connection that is made in the courtroom: Henry has passed his first real exam -- and now has a big brother who will look out for him.

They pass out of the courtroom and the whole gang awaits Henry at the top of the staircase, ready to welcome him as one of their own. Scorsese freezes the frame on a scene of welcome and celebration, implying that Henry has finally become one of the "guys" -- a part of the family. The music is cued -- Billy Ward and His Dominoes performing "Stardust," a love ballad that parallels the happy scene unfolding on the staircase outside the courtroom. Yet, like all love ballads it is not without its touch of melancholy, used effectively in the L-cut that immediately follows the celebration on the steps: Billy Ward croons, "Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song," as though already, with a quick cut, the honeymoon is over.

Indeed, Scorsese's L-cut allows an instant transition from innocence to experience, as the song is right away juxtaposed in the next frame to a world that has aged: the cars are later models, the world is less grand: a 747 touches down, bearing its load like an overweight lord of the sky. The sense of degeneration comes in the space of five seconds: the celebration is momentary but the family is for life. Here is how the sense is confected by Scorsese: mise-en-scene: steps leading up: Henry and fellow criminals congratulating him, assuring us with smiles that the only direction from here is up; the frame freezes -- the lounge act number is cued; Scorsese cuts to a plane descending -- already we are back on the decline -- the colors are muted, the narrator's voice is less enthralled, less jubilant, and the title card tells us we are at an airport in 1963. In other words, a decade has passed, and the operation has gone, in a sense, global -- or at least it has expanded out of the neighborhood -- the idyllic world of Henry's adolescence. The non-diagetic music of Billy Ward and His Dominoes, still playing in the background, has gone from parallel sound to contrapuntal sound. The romance is obviously gone: the landscape is cold, bleak, desolate -- just like the look in Henry Hill's eyes as the camera pans up to his now-adult face. Scorsese uses one song to explore all the elements of friendship, love, acceptance, growing up and decadence, through parallel and ironic contrapuntal sound juxtaposition.

The adult Henry we are introduced to (Scorsese pans up from toes to head allowing us to see his expensive new threads, from shiny shoes to expensive-looking pants, coat and shirt) is smoking the cigarettes he was selling as a kid -- still waiting (it appears, as Scorsese holds on Henry's gaze which is focused on something in the distance), but no longer it seems is Henry merely waiting on the sidelines for orders: he is now in the thick of the action -- waiting for his quarterback to give him the play. Hill provides voice over, to help explain the transition that the music helps to ironically effect: "By the time I grew? up there was over six billion a year in cargo going through Idlewild airport, and believe me we tried to steal every bit of it." Scorsese shows this by allowing the camera to linger on Henry before pulling back to reveal Tommy (whose face by comparison makes Henry look like a Good Samaritan) beside him -- before the voice over narrative picks up with Henry informing us that not only have the times changed but so have the operations.

The sound mix conveys the complex world that Henry is now part of. His partner's irritated tones form the diagetic sound. The non-diagetic music of Billy Ward dies out -- and is replaced by diagetic music which is not revealed, however, until another L-cut allows us to see where the music is coming from: a stage in the gang's club. Scorsese gives us a tracking steady-cam shot of the interior of a booked wall-to-wall club with which he allows Henry the narrator to introduce a dozen of the assorted gangsters of this new world, which craftily weaves non-diagetic narration into a diagetic dialogue: each gangster, as he is named by Henry in his narration, turns to greet the camera. Again, diagetic sound mixes with non-diagetic sound: the voice over continues to provide explanation, while the characters in the scene say hello, and the lounge act singer on the stage is heard playing source music, taking over with diagetic sound where Billy Ward's underscoring leaves off.

Yet, the source music somehow fails to capture the magic and romance of the non-diagetic underscoring. As O'Steen asserts, "dialogue and action fall short in their capacity to convey not only particular feelings but also the experience of feeling itself" (206). Thus, Scorsese effects the feeling we are supposed to have by switching from underscoring to source music -- bringing the viewer into the immediate sensory world of Hill's adult-life, which is deflating. The discrepancy is meant to leave the viewer with the feeling that the world they now inhabit is posh, tacky, shallow, empty, worldly, and in a way grotesque -- but it is theirs, and Henry is now, obviously, as Scorsese shows with a first-person camera perspective, a part of it. They are the mayors of the palace: they take what they want -- and no one can do or say anything about it. Yet, the sounds convey an idea that suggests otherwise.