Goodfellas

A revealing look at the making of Martin Scorsese’s iconic mob movie and its enduring legacy, featuring interviews with its legendary cast. When Goodfellas first hit the theatres in 1990, a classic was born. Few could anticipate the unparalleled influence it would have on pop culture, one that would inspire future filmmakers and redefine the gangster picture as we know it today. From the rush of grotesque violence in the opening scene to the iconic hilarity of Joe Pesci’s endlessly quoted “Funny how?” shtick, it’s little wonder the film is widely regarded as a mainstay in contemporary cinema. In the first ever behind-the-scenes story of Goodfellas, film critic Glenn Kenny chronicles the making and afterlife of the film that introduced the real modern gangster. Featuring interviews with the film’s major players, including Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Made Men shines a light on the lives and stories wrapped up in the Goodfellas universe, and why its enduring legacy has such a hold on American culture. A Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Sight and Sound Best Film Book of 2020

"At the age of twelve, my ambition was to become a gangster. To be a wiseguy was better than being President of the United States. To be a wiseguy was to own the world." —Henry Hill When Henry Hill entered the Witness Protection Program, he was certain that his criminal days had finally come to an end. He was wrong. For over twenty years, Henry Hill lived the high life as a powerful member of the Lucchese crime family, a life immortalized in Martin Scorsese's classic film GoodFellas. After his arrest in 1980, Hill disappeared into the Witness Protection Program. With this book, Henry comes clean about his last twenty years, filling in the gaps about his recent past as well as setting the record straight on his days as a wiseguy. At once hilarious, unpredictable, scandalous, and arresting, Henry Hill's tale will destroy everything you thought you knew about the Witness Protection Program.

Widely acclaimed as America's greatest living film director, Martin Scorsese is also, some argue, the pre-eminent Italian American artist. Although he has treated various subjects in over three decades, his most sustained filmmaking and the core of his achievement consists of five films on Italian American subjects - Who's That Knocking at My Door?, Mean Streets, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, and Casino - as well as the documentary Italianamerican. In Gangster Priest Robert Casillo examines these films in the context of the society, religion, culture, and history of Southern Italy, from which the majority of Italian Americans, including Scorsese, derive. Casillo argues that these films cannot be fully appreciated either thematically or formally without understanding the various facets of Italian American ethnicity, as well as the nature of Italian American cinema and the difficulties facing assimilating third-generation artists. Forming a unified whole, Scorsese's Italian American films offer what Casillo views as a prolonged meditation on the immigrant experience, the relationship between Italian America and Southern Italy, the conflicts between the ethnic generations, and the formation and development of Italian American ethnicity (and thus identity) on American soil through the generations. Raised as a Catholic and deeply imbued with Catholic values, Scorsese also deals with certain forms of Southern Italian vernacular religion, which have left their imprint not only on Scorsese himself but also on the spiritually tormented characters of his Italian American films. Casillo also shows how Scorsese interrogates the Southern Italian code of masculine honour in his exploration of the Italian American underworld or Mafia, and through his implicitly Catholic optic, discloses its thoroughgoing and longstanding opposition to Christianity. Bringing a wealth of scholarship and insight into Scorsese's work, Casillo's study will captivate readers interested in the director's magisterial artistry, the rich social history of Southern Italy, Italian American ethnicity, and the sociology and history of the Mafia in both Sicily and the United States.

Academy Award–winning director Martin Scorsese is one of the most significant American filmmakers in the history of cinema. Although best known for his movies about gangsters and violence, such as Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Casino, and Taxi Driver, Scorsese has addressed a much wider range of themes and topics in the four decades of his career. In The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese, an impressive cast of contributors explores the complex themes and philosophical underpinnings of Martin Scorsese’s films. The essays concerning Scorsese’s films about crime and violence investigate the nature of friendship, the ethics of vigilantism, and the nature of unhappiness. The authors delve deeply into the minds of Scorsese’s tortured characters and explore how the men and women he depicts grapple with moral codes and their emotions. Several of the essays explore specific themes in individual films. The authors describe how Scorsese addresses the nuances of social mores and values in The Age of Innocence, the nature of temptation and self-sacrifice in The Last Temptation of Christ and Bringing Out the Dead, and the complexities of innovation and ambition in The Aviator. Other chapters in the collection examine larger philosophical questions. In a world where everything can be interpreted as meaningful, Scorsese at times uses his films to teach audiences about the meaning in life beyond the everyday world depicted in the cinema. For example, his films touching on religious subjects, such as Kundun and The Last Temptation of Christ, allow the director to explore spiritualism and peaceful ways of responding to the chaos in the world.Filled with penetrating insights on Scorsese’s body of work, The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese shows the director engaging with many of the most basic questions about our humanity and how we relate to one another in a complex world.

The Goodfella's Guide to New York is a truly facinating guide to New York's notorious mob haunts. It is unlike any other guide book, and it also gives an excellent real life New Yorkers view of restaurants, bars and tourist attractions to visit.

Examines the film Goodfellas, starring Robert de Niro, Ray Liotta, and Joe Pesci, directed by Martin Scorsese.

The enthralling story of Henry Hill's life as a gangster and notorious participation in the Witness Protection Programme, made into the hugely acclaimed Martin Scorsese film _________________________ 'Absolutely engrossing' - New York Times 'The best book ever written on organised crime' - Cosmopolitan 'A riveting account of organised crime as a way of life ... extraordinary' - Publishers Weekly _________________________ 'At the age of twelve my ambition was to be a gangster. To me being a wiseguy was better than being president of the United States. To be a wiseguy was to own the world.' GoodFellas is Henry Hill's own story, telling the fascinating and sometimes brutal details of the day-to-day life of a working New York mobster - the violence, wild spending sprees, his wife, his mistress, his code of honour. From the small-time scamming of his early years, his first arrest at the age of sixteen and initiation into the dealings of his wiseguy friends and bosses, Henry Hill tells of the good times, dodgy dealings, indulgences, and the insularity of the mob-controlled neighbourhoods. But things start to go too far. To save his own life, Hill turns into a Federal witness, and the mob is to this day still hunting him down for revealing their involvement in hundreds of crimes including arson, extortion, hijacking, the six-million dollar Lufthansa heist (the most successful cash robbery in US history), and murder.

Philosophy of Language is an accessible yet detailed introduction to the major issues and thinkers in the subject. Thematically structured, Philosophy of Language introduces the work of leading thinkers who have contributed to the discipline, including Frege, Russell, Strawson, Grice and Quine and also examines key distinctions that arise, such as sense and reference, sense and force, descriptions and names, semantics and pragmatics, extensional, intensional, and hyperintensional contexts, and the problems which these distinctions involve. Cogent and thorough analysis throughout is supplemented by student-friendly features, including chapter summaries, questions for discussion, guides to further reading, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. Closely reflecting the way the philosophy of language is taught and studied, the structure and content of this introduction is ideal for use on undergraduate courses and of value for postgraduate students.