(Every week, in the Retro Rental, James Rocchi recommends a film on disc, download or streaming inspired by what’s being released that week, goings-on in the world, or, really, anything …)
The trailer for David O. Russell’s American Hustle arrived recently in a flurry of thin hair and wide lapels, capturing an ’80s-era FBI sting with quick edits, music cues voice-over and plenty of swagger. I of course haven’t seen American Hustle, but the thrust and rush of it all felt a lot like Scorsese — or, at lease, Faux-sese — that it sent me back, without much shoving, to Goodfellas, another story of criminality, personality and divided loyalties.
Hurl Goodfellas on and one of the things that’ll strike you is how — much as we are now farther from 1983 than Marty McFly was from 1955 — more time has passed since the 1990 release of Goodfellas than had passed between the narrative’s starting point of 1970 and the film’s arrival in theaters. Time’s arrow moves in but one direction. And, similarly, the ABSCAM sting American Hustle fictionalizes is exactly 21 years distant, as well, with the FBI’s bribery-and-bad behavior operation wrapping up in 1982.
20 years may be just a respectful amount of time to pass before turning fact into film — The Queen and Frost/Nixon screenwriter Peter Morgan recently noted that he had a 10-year rule for turning reality into cinema — but it’s also an interesting stylistic coincidence. Plus, the voice-over from Amy Adams really echoes Lorraine Bracco’s similar narration about Henry Hill’s repellent attraction. Add in the Hustle trailer’s use of Johnny Mathis and ELO songs that are, respectively, from 1957 and 1971, you can’t help if someone in the marketing department is trying to make Hustle look more retro than it actually is.
But considering that Hustle in trailer form did make me go back to Goodfelas, I owe it some thanks. Re-watching Goodfellas makes you appreciate the style even more — the shots and freeze-frames are all more leisurely than you might think, and the color palate is still a thing of wonder from the blood-red gleam of the lights as a trunk reveals a brutal cargo to the flat, washed-out look of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta in a career-highlight performance) in sun-scorched exile far from friends, family, prestige and real red sauce.
The other thing that comes through in re-viewing Goodfellas is that like many Scorsese films, it’s a moral story that’s told through amoral behavior. Henry vows “I always wanted to be a gangster,” early on, and the film takes us along with him — even as Henry learns that the world these men (and, yeah, they’re all men) live in isn’t about respect, honor and privilege; it’s about brutes and monsters asking where their money is and more than willing to kill so they might avoid actual labor and paying taxes. Some films are so good they transcend their genre; others, like Goodfellas, are so good they re-define their genre.
Not to knock Kevin Costner’s journey across the great plains, but the fact that Dances with Wolves earned Best Picture Oscar honors while fellow nominee Goodfellas did not is once again a reminder that the Academy Awards often fail to honor true excellence in filmmaking because they’re too busy honoring expensive production design and cheap sentiment. It remains to be seen if David O. Russell’s American Hustle will be his film or his riff on Scorsese films, but the one thing that becomes painfully clear is that if you’re going to set yourself up alongside Goodfellas, you’re going to have to hustle to even catch up.