Analysis Of Henry Hill In Goodfellas

What Scorsese did differently was that he made male protagonists vulnerable again, just like they were in the old mobster movie days, but in a bit more realistic way

Scorsese produces movies in a way that, according to Kolker, he „Determines our point of view and our emotional and intellectual attachment to the film. We are therefore, scarcely allowed any separation from what the central character is seeing.“ (218). He even does this directly by breaking the fourth wall twice in Goodfellas, and therefore making us feel as though we are the acomplices in all the things that were happening in the film. And we all know that it is very hard to judge ourselves effectively. Furthermore, Scorsese shows us how Henry Hill in Goodfellas lives the life of a gangster and finally gets away from it succesfully. Something that most of the audience would readily accept. Kolker says that: ―Henry speaks for the viewer. Like him, we love the gangster life. At least we love looking at representations of it. And we applaud its failure because it comforts us with the paradox that the life is desirable, untenable, and unattainable‖ (214), and Nicholls sees Henry as a tourist in the mafia world, since he never completely fit in that world (123). Henry Hill could also represent us, the viewers directly, and our need to experience that world for a short period without any of the risks of the mafia world. This could be seen as the pure example of scopophilia, where the viewer is „taking other people