Years & Movies: 1990

Martin Scorsese's gangster drama "Goodfellas" was recognized as the best film of world cinema of 1990 according to FilmGourmand.

Martin Scorsese also co-wrote the script for the film "Goodfellas". The second co-author of the film's script was the writer, formerly a crime reporter, Nicholas Pileggi, the author of the documentary novel "Wiseguy", published in 1985. In this novel, Nicholas Pileggi described in sufficient detail the life of the famous mobster Henry Hill, who later became an FBI informant. Based on Hill's testimony, more than 50 very dangerous and influential members of the Lucchese mafia clan were convicted.

The background of the formation of this creative community is interesting. In the early 70s, Martin Scorsese decided to try himself in the genre of a gangster action movie and made the film "Boxcar Bertha". Scorsese's friend, actor ("Rosemary's Baby") and the director ("A Woman Under the Influence") John Cassavetes called the film "a piece of shit" after watching it and advised Martin not to make films on topics in which he is not versed. Then Scorsese, rather to prove his worth in the genre of a gangster thriller, made the film "Mean Streets", which in all respects turned out to be more successful than "Boxcar Berth". Nevertheless, after "Mean Streets", Scorsese vowed to shoot gangster action films. And, we must pay tribute, he kept his vow for more than 15 years.

However, as soon as Scorsese read Pileggi's novel "Wiseguy", which had just been published, he called the writer and said that he had been waiting for this novel all his life. To which Pileggi replied that he had been waiting for Scorsese's call all his life. And it was decided to immediately start working on the script. However, man assumes, and God disposes. It so happened that it was at this moment that the issue of financing the filming of the film long cherished by Martin Scorsese - "The Last Temptation of Christ" - was resolved. Work on the film based on Pileggi's book had to be postponed. Again, we must pay tribute, the writer reacted to this delay with understanding.

As soon as the work on the film "The Last Temptation of Christ" was completed, in 1988, Scorsese and Pileggi returned to the script of the future film. Each of them prepared their own version of the script, and after comparing them, they came to the conclusion that they were almost completely identical.

Working on the film, Martin Scorsese sought to maintain maximum authenticity. In order to achieve this reliability, in particular, real gangsters were attracted to participate as extras. In order to receive remuneration, they provided false bank details for the purposes of conspiracy. But, curiously, they all somehow received their reward.

According to the estimates of Henry Hill, the real prototype of the main character of the picture, the reliability in the film was approximately 90-95%. However, it could not be otherwise, because, according to the same Hill, Robert De Niro called him seven or eight times a day during the filming, clarifying the smallest details, up to how his hero held a cigarette or how he squeezed ketchup out of a bottle. Hill himself was able to note only a few insufficiently reliable, in his opinion, details, including very insignificant ones. In particular, according to him, the real Tommy DeSimone (in the film Tommy DeVito) was much more massive, fatter, than the actor Joe Pesci.

An interesting detail: Henry Hill advised De Niro, and before that, Nicholas Pileggi at the stage of working on the script, not for free at all. He received 550 thousand dollars for his consultations. Which, however, he considered "a mere trifle" compared to the money that he "earned" as a gangster.

But Ray Liotta was categorically forbidden to communicate with Henry Hill by Scorsese. The director worked with Liotta for the first time, was not very familiar with him and feared that he would fall under the influence of a gangster. Liotta had to be content with listening to tape recordings of conversations between Henry Hill and Nicholas Pileggi. There were so many of these recordings that even the wife of Nicholas Pileggi, also a screenwriter, Nora Ephron ("When Harry Met Sally ...") was enough to create the script for the film "My Blue Heaven".

The desire for maximum reliability caused, in particular, such a feature of the film "Goodfellas": the word "fuck" and its derivatives are used in the film on average more than 2 times per minute. Because of this, the management of the Warner Bros. film company. was seriously feared that the film would be released on screens with very serious restrictions, which would negatively affect its financial results and the $ 25 million spent on the production of the film would not pay off. If the film gets to the screens at all. But, thanks to the high assessment of film critics, it was done. However, at the request of the censorship, it was still necessary to cut about ten frames containing excessively bloody scenes of violence. And the film was given an R (restricted) rating, which means that people under the age of 17 are allowed to attend the screening only accompanied by adults. And the lexicon of the film, which was not seriously edited, was recognized as the most profanity in the history of cinema at the time of the film's release.

The premiere of Martin Scorsese's film "Goodfellas" took place on September 9, 1990 at the Venice International Film Festival, where the film was nominated for the main prize - the Golden Lion. However, by the decision of the jury of the film festival, chaired by the famous American writer Gore Vidal, the Golden Lion was awarded to Tom Stoppard's film "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead". But Martin Scorsese was awarded the Silver Lion as the Best Director.

In early 1991, Martin Scorsese's film "Goodfellas" received 5 nominations for the American Golden Globe Film Award. But it did not win in any nomination. In the most important categories - Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Director - Motion Picture - the Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave preference to the film "Dances with Wolves" and its director Kevin Costner. Approximately the same situation was repeated at the Oscars. However, the American Film Academy awarded Scorsese's film one Oscar out of 6 nominations - for Best Supporting Actor (Joe Pesci). "Dances with Wolves" won again in the most important nominations.

Martin Scorsese's film "Goodfellas" has achieved better results at European film forums. The British Film Academy nominated the film for its BAFTA award in 7 categories and awarded the victory in 5 of them. Among these 5 BAFTA awards were the most important - for Best Film and Best Direction. Moreover, in the competition for the Best Director nomination, Martin Scorsese beat Giuseppe Tornatore, the director of the film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso", and Woody Allen, the director of the film "Crimes and Misdemeanors".

The French Film Academy also nominated Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" for its César Award for Best Foreign Film, but awarded a victory Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society". The Italian Film Academy also nominated "Goodfellas" for its David di Donatello Prize for Best Foreign Film, but two other film adaptations of classic literary works were awarded here: Jean-Paul Rappeneau's "Cyrano de Bergerac" and Franco Zeffirelli's "Hamlet". But the Danish Film Academy awarded Martin Scorsese's film its Bodil Prize for Best Non-European Film.

Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas", as mentioned above, received rave reviews from the most respected and influential film critics. The authoritative American film critic, James Berardinelli, rated the film with a maximum 4 stars and in his review described the film as follows: "Goodfellas is as compelling and absorbing as any crime drama I have ever seen. The script shows all the facets of these characters; they are all fully developed individuals capable of great good and great evil. The moral ambiguity of their lifestyle is treated with a shrug. Goodfellas is not about Mafia dons, but about those who exist on a lower level. It's about the bonds that are formed between compatriots in crime, and how betrayal is the most heinous offense imaginable. The mob is a fraternity - an all-boys club where everyone looks after each other."

The famous Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefyodov, who highly appreciated the merits of the film, notes as the main one "the consistent and complete immersion of the audience in the atmosphere of an obsessive, addictive, incredibly attractive existence of young criminals."

The guru of American film criticism, Roger Ebert, a well-known fan of Martin Scorsese, devoted two reviews to the film, both rating the film with maximum 4 stars and including it in his list of "Great Movies". In the first review, from 1990, he noted that "No finer film has ever been made about organized crime". In the second review, from 2002, Ebert gives a kind of explanation to this thesis: "It is an indictment of organized crime, but it doesn't stand outside in a superior moralistic position. It explains crime’s appeal for a hungry young man who has learned from childhood beatings not to hate power, but to envy it."

The Russian film critic Alex Exler drew attention to this direct interdependence between the behavior of the authorities and the attractiveness of the crime, no matter in which country, in his review: "This is a film about how it really looks like. There is no deliberate bloodiness here (although it is clear that these guys have their hands up to the elbows in blood, and Scorsese does not hesitate to show it), there is no conscious thickening of colors. Scorsese actually talks about what he saw as a child, living in the Italian quarter of New York. And when you realize that this is about how it all really happens, it becomes scary. Because your son will also have to choose who he will be with: with a dad who fights for a piece of bread (even if not the most stale, but still a piece of bread, and not a sheep's saddle with truffles), or with guys who drive Mercedes 600 and spend more in an evening in a nightclub than a dad earns for several months of hard work....it does not matter at all where exactly this story took place (by the way, it is based on real events). Because such things happen everywhere, including in Russia. In the early nineties (just when this film appeared), I somehow had to watch the reaction of one of my neighbors - it was a pretty smart and athletic kid who got his bearings in time and joined exactly such cool guys, the nascent Russian mafia - so he watched this film with unspeakable delight, periodically saying: "Damn, it's about me! God, how close it all is! How familiar it all is!"..." Alex Exler concludes his review with the words: "A wonderful film - we can say, a classic of the mafia genre-valuable precisely for its vitality and authenticity. I think that it should definitely be viewed...When I get tired of watching that sucks, which is now being released in wild quantities on the screens, I put a cassette with this particular film."

Ordinary moviegoers rated the film no less highly than professional film critics. Firstly, it should be noted that the producers' fears about the problems with the payback of the film did not come true. Despite very strict age restrictions, the film grossed more than $ 46 million in the United States alone, that is, it paid off almost twice. Secondly, 83% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated Martin Scorsese's film "Goodfellas" from 8 to 10, and 27% of users of these sites rated the film at the maximum - "ten".

With that said, the rating of Martin Scorsese's film "Goodfellas" according to FilmGourmand was 10,879, which allowed it to take the 16th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

In addition to Martin Scorsese's film "Goodfellas", the following films were included in the "top ten" best films of world cinema in 1990:

- Dances with Wolves. Director - Kevin Costner, USA. Movie's Rating - 9,835; 56th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Cyrano de Bergerac. Director - Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France. Movie's Rating - 9,232; 119th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Awakenings. Director - Penny Marshall, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,327; 394th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Home Alone. Director - Chris Columbus, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,026; 685th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Miller's Crossing. Directors - Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, USA. Movie's Rating - 7,974; 741st Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Edward Scissorhands. Director - Tim Burton, USA. Movie's Rating - 7,939; 813th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Deja vu. Director - Juliusz Machulski, Poland. Movie's Rating - 7,807; 981st Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Yume 夢 (Akira Kurosawa's Dreams). Directors - Akira Kurosawa, Ishirô Honda, USA. Movie's Rating - 7,805; 984th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Back to the Future Part III. Director - Robert Zemeckis, USA.

10 most "cinegenic"*, in our opinion, events of 1990:

- Presidential elections in the USSR. The first and, as it turned out, the last presidential elections in the USSR were held in a purely Soviet way. Three candidates for this post were nominated by the same party-the CPSU and the same group of deputies "Union". Only participants of the Congress of People's Deputies were allowed to vote on the election of the President of the country. Of the three nominated candidates, two recused themselves. As a result, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the first and, as it turned out, the last President of the USSR on an uncontested basis. 59% of those who had the right to participate in the elections voted for his candidacy.
- A stampede in Mecca. There was a stampede in the pedestrian tunnel connecting Mecca and the tent city of Muslim pilgrims performing the Hajj, which resulted, according to official data, in the death of 1,426 people. Most of the dead came from Southeast Asia. This was the largest mass tragedy related to the Hajj in 20 years.
- Black January. Soviet troops have been deployed to Baku to suppress anti-Soviet protests. As a result, 130 people were killed and about 700 injured. As a result of the pogroms organized by the Azerbaijanis against the Armenian population, 50 thousand Armenians were forced to flee Baku.
- The reunification of Germany. The eastern and western parts of Germany were reunited into one state. The Berlin Wall has been demolished.
- The collapse of the USSR. The republics of the USSR, including Russia, adopted declarations of sovereignty.
- The Gardner Museum robbery. Two robbers disguised as police uniforms entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (USA). After neutralizing two security guards, they took out thirteen exhibits with a total value of $ 100 to $ 300 million. So far, neither the kidnappers nor the stolen goods have been found. Empty frames still hang in the place of the stolen paintings in the museum.
- The rise of Yeltsin. Boris Yeltsin was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet (Parliament) of Russia.
- The beginning of the Gulf War. In connection with the invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi army and its subsequent occupation, a Multinational Force led by the United States was created by a UN decision, which began to concentrate in Saudi Arabia in order to strike Iraq.
- The arrest of the "Rostov Ripper". Serial killer Andrey Chikatilo, accused of 56 murders committed between 1981 and 1990, was arrested and put on trial in Novocherkassk. 52 murders were proved at the trial, on the basis of which Chikatilo was sentenced to death, carried out in 1994.
- Storming the Stasi headquarters. Thousands of German citizens, having learned about the ongoing process of destroying the files of informants of the Stasi (Ministry of State Security of the GDR), broke into the headquarters of the organization in Berlin.

* -With "cinematic" in the present context, we mean events that either have already found their reflection in world cinema, or deserve to become the basis of the plot of a future film.

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