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Nasty story told /

well by Scorsese

GOODFELLAS. With Robert De Niro,
Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco.
Directed by Martin Scorsese. At
Famous Players theatres.

“It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.”

That immortal line from the Godfather
series of films came to sum up the perception
of the central tenet of organized crime in
America. The words were associated with

killing, gangland style, and they offered a

curious kind of comfort: I may be doing you
in, but it has nothing to do with any
shortcomings on your part; in fact, I even
like you. Pow!

Thus uttered, the sentences created anew
myth about a subculture while liberating
audiences from B-movie concepts of
gangsters. Killing for profit became almost
justified because it operated under a kind of
code of honour, and almost sanitized the
Mafia’s heinous acts.

Reinstating the psychopathology into the
goings-on of the underworld seems to be the
task of GoodFellas, director Martin
Scorsese’s contribution to what threatens to
be a re-growth of a genre. (The current
Miller’s Crossing is also about gang war-
fare; Godfather Part III is imminent. We
suffered through The Untouchables a few
years back.)

In GoodFellas, people do kill for personal
gain; but they also murder on the slightest
provocation, proving that the line between
the different motivations for murder is slim
indeed, if not non-existent. You’ve got to be
truly crazy to do what these guys do.

Scorsese grew up in a Brooklyn neigh-
bourhood like that depicted in this film, the
latest in a kind of series about the privations
and degradations of life in New York and its
boroughs (others include Mean Streets and
Taxi Driver). Violent and profane, the
writer-director’s films have none the less
garnered critical acclaim for their social

Queen Ida
band plays

- Concert: It’s a late notice, ‘but
those folkies who get this in time will
know that former Pentangle members
Bert Jansch and John Renbourne
appear together at the Vancouver
East Cultural Centre on Tuesday,
Nov. 6, 8 p.m. The two guitarists
blend folk, jazz, blues and even clas-
sical for a unique sound that has in-
fluenced acoustic music for three
decades. Presented by the Vancouver
Folk Music Festival.

Also by the festival is the upcom-
ing concert of Queen Ida and the
Bon Temps Zydeco Band. Cajun
music extrordinaire at the Com-
modore Ballroom in Vancouver on
Friday, Nov. 16, 8:30 p.m. (when the
doors open). Tickets are $18 at the
festival office (879-2931) or Ticket-
master (280-4444).

Records: The folk music festival
holds its fourth annual recorded music

Sale, this year entitled, apocalyptical-
ly, “the death of vinyl.” It looks like
it’s curtains for those 12-inch disks in
the era of CDs and cassettes, say the
organizers, who point out many of the
records will be unavailable in the fu-
ture. Discounts range between one-
third to one-half off. At the festival
office, 3271 Main St., Nov. 15-17, 10
a.m.-9 p.m.

realism and first-rate acting, on the way
making a mega-star out of Scorsese’s long-
time friend, Robert De Niro.

A cinematic rendering of journalist
Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguy, Good-
Fellas relates the true story of a man who
moved up through the underworld from the
time he first began running errands for the
local mafia as a teenager in the mid-Fifties.
Portrayed effectively by relative newcomer
Ray Liotta, he is less the crazed killer than a
star-struck kid: “As far back as Ican remem-
ber, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster,” he
remarks in the voice-over. Gangsters always
dressed nice, had more money than anyone
else, and they never had to wait in line.

Ina grisly two hours, 15 minutes running
time, GoodFellas takes us along as Henry
Hill rises through the ranks. He meets many
heavies, but settles into a kind of partnership
with the notorious Jimmy Conway (De
Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). Both
have personalities that would make them the
hit of any party. Both, ultimately, are
revealed as psychopathic.

Scorsese’s method is deceptive. Good-
Fellas begins in an almost comic tone, utiliz-
ing a fine sense of irony that almost makes
light of a car full of gangsters having to pull
over and finish off the bloodied individual
in the trunk. But what begins as a romp turns
serious as the corpses mount. Blood may be
blood, but when it’s spilled over trivials such
as a verbal insult, or when people who are
supposedly long-time friends begin show-

ROBERT DE NIRO, RAY LIOTTA IN GOODFELLAS ... violence is not glamourized.

ing up on meat hooks, the laughs choke in
our throats.

Only those who enjoyed the slaughter in

_amovie like Platoon could find their jollies

in the violence of GoodFellas. Scorsese is
uncompromising when it comes to depicting
blood-letting, and his dialogue is invariably
salty; but we are not allowed to become
inured.

As with his other films, Scorsese does not
judge his characters; they rise or fall through
their own words and actions. In North
‘America, that usually makes for effective
cinema, at least with discerning audiences.
If there is an objection.to be made, it is that
GoodFellas never presents an alternative to
the protagonists’ appalling standards (not
only the violence: check the decor of their
homes and the nightclubs they frequent).

Confined to a faceless suburbia under an
assumed name by the film’s end, Henry is
remorseless about his past deeds. His sole
regret is that he now has to line up like
everyone else, and we almost sympathize;
his life did seem, colourful compared with

this bland, another-day-another-dollar exist-
ence. . ~

GoodFellas makes the point through
simple depiction that run-down neighbour-
hoods create anti-social habits in people. But
other people come out of those same areas
with the will to work for social change. Since

. this is Henry’s story, we never get to see

them.

The strength of this film is its expose
quality. With all the harping these days about
the alleged superiority of capitalism, Good-
Fellas, and Mean Streets and Taxi Driver for
that matter, remind us of its social cost.

And we can’t forget the acting. De Niro,
star of many Scorsese films, is back in fine
form after several unchallenging roles in
ho-hum Hollywood fare. Few actors can
match De Niro for character depth; peering
over his glasses as he directs a woman
towards what we fear is her assassination, he
can appear simultaneously a harmless, mid-
dle-aged businessman and the ruthless killer
behind the mask.

—Dan Keeton

IT’S A MATTER OF SURVIVAL. By
Anita Gordon and David Suzuki.
Stodart Publishing Company, 1990.
Available at People’s Co-op Book-
store, Vancouver. $29.95.

In the past two centuries the industrial
revolution has resulted in massive appli-
cations of technology on a world scale.
Concurrently, there has been an unprece-
dented growth in population. In dealing
with the problems arising from this
growth, humankind could be destroyed by
ecological disasters.

So warn Anita Gordon and David
Suzuki. In It’s a Matter of Survival, they
maintain that if we are to save ourselves,
we must reject the following ideas: nature
is infinite; growth is progress; science and
technology will solve our problems; all of
nature is at our disposal; we can manage
the planet.

The book grew out of a major, five-
hour, five-part radio series carried over
CBC Radio in 1989. Gordon was the orig-
inator, executive producer and co-writer
with Suzuki of that highly rated series.

Suzuki is a scientist, a popular broad-
caster on radio and television and writer
of a nationally syndicated newspaper
column on science, technology and the
environment.

The environmental horrors described
in this book are very real. The authors cite:

¢ The destruction of forty hectares of
tropical rain forest every minute, resulting
in the extinction of at least two thousand
species annually.

Suzuki's environmental warning
sound, but ignores corporate guilt

¢ Acid rain that is sterilizing lakes and
forests.

¢ The destruction of the ozone layer;
carbon dioxide and methane loading that
is causing global warming.

¢ The accumulation of massive
amounts of toxic chemicals in air, water,
soil and food.

¢ The annual loss of billions of tons of
agricultural topsoil and the consequent
steady decline in total food production
since 1984,

The explosive increase in human pop-
ulation that is adding a quarter of a million
people daily.

Perhaps some readers will say, “But we
have been speaking and writing about
these problems for years.” True, but only
up to a point. In this book the authors
demonstrate their unique skills as pop-
ularizers of some very complex problems.
Also, they bring us the informed opinions
of a wide circle of experts, again in pop-
ular language.

Gordon and Suzuki label the privately
owned automobile as public enemy num-
ber one. To them, it is incompatible with
the well-being of the planet and human
survival. In 1987, there were close to 12
million automobiles registered in Canada,
demonstrating that the majority of Can-
adians have accepted the automobile as a
necessity.

‘The book offers the following alterna-
tive: fuels with low carbon content, more
buses, electric trains and bicycles.

In dealing with the poverty of the un-
derdeveloped countries, the authors main-

tain that “any positive growth in the de-
veloping countries will have to be counter-
balanced by a reduction in the wealthier
countries.” Thus instead of sustainable
growth, and instead of diverting a good
part of what is being spent on armaments
today towards helping the under-
developed countries, we are offered the
no-growth alternative.

In describing how they would achieve
their objectives, Gordon and Suzuki sub-
mit the following formula: through love,
belonging, family, community and shar-
ing a love of nature. We cannot quarrel
with these values, but we can hardly agree
that in themselves they are enough to save
us from ecological disaster. For example,
the fight to protect Howe Sound from the
pollution caused by pulp mills brought the
environmentalists into sharp conflict with
the corporate structure that dominates the
Canadian economy. There can be no
serious struggle for a better environment
in Canada unless we are prepared to curtail
the power of that corporate minority.

The book doesn’t come close to this
question except for a mild quote from
Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate. On
the other hand, it gives the Soviet Union
and Europe bad marks on environmental
questions. In the opinion of this reviewer,
that only goes to prove that we have a right
to expect more and better from socialism.

This is an informative book, both for
the average reader and for the activist.

—Jack Phillips

10 « Pacific Tribune, November 5, 1990