There’s a moment at the beginning of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster classic “Goodfellas” that always pulls my heart out. Scorsese’s film is brutal, clear, and unsympathetic, yes. But Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, the spectator’s teacher in the criminal world, injects a note of tenderness that is even more effective at coming out of the mouth of a smooth sociopath. (The film is based on the true crime book “Wiseguy” by Nicholas Pileggi; the real Hill achieved some celebrity after the release of the image.)
It is during the voiceover when Henry remembers as a child envying the sages who passed by the pizzeria and the taxi rank across the street from his house. The guy who runs the pizzeria is Tuddy Cicero, brother of Mafia Deputy Chief Paulie Cicero, for whom Henry will soon be working. Narrator Henry says the gangster’s full name and pauses. Then, in an exhalation that has low but strong notes of love and nostalgia, he adds: “Tuddy.”
However, it is revealed that Tuddy is finally such a ruthless, cold-blooded gangster. He is the one who puts the bullet in the back of Tommy DeVito’s (Joe Pesci) head in the fraudulent ceremony in which Tommy will become a “man made”. But here’s Henry Hill by Ray Liotta, clearly still in love with an idol of childhood and life he shared with man. Liotta, who died this week at the age of 67, fills Scorsese’s film with dozens of equally revealing touches.
While researching “Made Men: The Story of‘ Goodfellas ’,” my 2020 book on film, I asked several times about this moment in the film. The pause and repetition of Tuddy’s name were not in the drafts of the script I saw. It was Liotta’s touch. No one I spoke to remembered whether Liotta suggested it during voice-over recordings or just added it himself. In any case, it works. Perhaps too well, for people who believe that this representation is a guarantee. In a film that relentlessly examines the appeal and transgressive emotion of amorality, Liotta’s portrayal of Hill is the hook that attracts the viewer.
If you watch Hill on TV or hear any of his appearances on Howard Stern, you probably get the impression that Henry Hill was what your grandmother might call a schnook. Although he committed both gang-related and domestic violence, it was not intimidating. Edward McDonald, the prosecutor who incorporated Hill and his family into the witness protection program, and who plays himself in “Goodfellas,” told me that Hill was more of a mob jester than any kind of master criminal.
But Scorsese’s film is not just about real-life gangsters, it’s also about how we mythologize them. “Muscular movie stars” is how Hill characterizes his crew. And Liotta was a perfect Henry, able to turn a penny from a dry charm into a deadly rage. In one of the famous follow-up plans for the film, when Henry accompanies his future wife, Karen (Lorraine Bracco), to the Copacabana nightclub in New York through a side entrance, Liotta invented all the pieces of business lovely that a guy like Henry would use: I advise a porter here, call a cook there, run your appointment by the elbow lightly, pretend it’s what you have to pay when the waiter flies off wings and place a personal table next to the stage. Liotta received suggestions from Hill himself, and more from Hill’s audio tapes talking to Pileggi. But Liotta’s research on Hill’s world and the inner work she did was crucial.
The role came at a time when he could have headed for a career as a character actor. He was unforgettable in Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild,” as an ex-boyfriend of Melanie Griffith, whose possessiveness explodes into still shocking violence. And in “Field of Dreams” he played a reincarnation of the dishonored ball player, Shoeless Joe Jackson. At times, the wrinkle in his eyes reminded the viewer of the man’s corruption, but his depiction was primarily of a marvelous love of the game that he could now play forever in a cornfield in the Midwest. turned into a stadium.
When “Goodfellas” was announced, more than one of its eventual cast members told me it was the movie all the actors in New York and Los Angeles wanted. And Liotta was no exception. Everyone liked it except producer Irwin Winkler. He did not see the charm of the actor. In his book “A Life in Movies,” Winkler recalls that Liotta came to his table at a Santa Monica restaurant and asked for a word. “In a 10-minute conversation, he (charmingly and confidently) explained to me why I should play Henry Hill,” the producer wrote. When I interviewed Winkler, he said, rather shyly, “Did you hear the story that I didn’t want Ray?” I said yes to Winkler and said, “I don’t see anyone else doing that.” Winkler replied, “Neither do I.”
As it turned out, I couldn’t interview Liotta himself for my book. The first conversations with his publicist were promising. She may have spent some time with him while in New York promoting “Marriage Story” at the New York Film Festival; then it was not. We were both represented by the same agency; no dice. It was in a movie where a few of my friends were members of the crew. I can’t go. And while I was working on the book, I heard several stories from an intense and serious actor who, in deciding that he was not going to do anything, stuck to it.
He had talked about “Goodfellas” in other interviews, including an oral story published in GQ in 2010. Filming had its challenges: he suffered the death of his mother halfway through and felt at least a little excluded. by male co-stars like Robert De. Niro the Pisces. Going through De Niro’s papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, I came across a Liotta greeting card, and inside was a handwritten note: “Bob, now I can tell you how much travel it is. it was working with you. You’re the best. Hopefully we can do it again. But I really mean do it! ” Liotta’s eagerness is palpable. The two returned to work together at Copland.
But “Goodfellas” was unplayable. Because it showed its range and is a reference film. Liotta’s characteristic role is one that any actor would expect to be remembered.
Glenn Kenny is a critic and author of “Made Men: The Story of ‘Goodfellas’.”