The FilmNerds Blog

The Movie: Husbands and Wives

Spoiler Level: Medium

The Setup: It’s movie gossip history at this point, but the fallout between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow in the early 90′s was quite a hot topic, and went a long way in alienating the general public from the respected auteur. Much of the publicized tension pointed to this film, their last creative endeavor after a series of classics that include Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Purple Rose of Cairo. The 80′s were a creative high water mark for Woody Allen, culminating in Husbands and Wives, a stripped-down, hand-held faux documentary that watches two relationships crumble. The film boasts several fantastic scenes and at least two great ones, including the opening sequence, in which married couple Gabe (Allen) and Judy (Farrow) are shocked by an announcement by friends Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis).

Why It’s Great: Allen begins the film with a close up on a TV interview, in which nuclear physicist Nicholas Metropolis quotes Einstein: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” Allen’s Gabe quickly retorts, “No- He just plays hide and seek.”

With that the game kicks off, as we meet Gabe and his wife Judy, the camera bouncing between them. They are, from the start, separated by their scattered New York flat, and the camera struggles to place them together. Allen’s writing in the scene is phenomenal, as almost every line is a set-up for the rest of the story.  Gabe reveals his attention has been nabbed by a sexually alert student of his. Judy dismisses his comments as typical and reverts to minutiae.  The film starts in earnest when Jack and Sally enter and clinically reveal that they are splitting up. They position that this isn’t a tragedy, that “this is positive for us”.  It doesn’t take long for the news to take its toll on Judy.  She quickly turns from swearing privacy and respect to lashing out against the apparently transgressing couple, their “closest friends”.  For Judy, Jack and Sally’s relationship is a reflection of her own, and the cracks soon appear.

Every performance in this scene is perfect, which is absolutely necessary when the traditional rules of cinema are disregarded. This is proof that great performances can, and must, lead a film. My personal favorite performer in the whole film is Pollack’s Jack, whose romantic fate is the centerpiece of the other great scene of the film. Let’s not discount technical merit, however. Director of Photography Carlo DiPalma uses a selective set and practical lighting perfectly to make sure his camera never casts a shadow, and isn’t afraid to let things wander. At several points in the scene, the camera is visibly lost, holding on a column or an empty frame for a moment before finding an elusive character. The erratic focus pulls are marvelous as well; notice that Judy is left soft several times throughout the scene, before she physically exits the whole affair.

Husbands and Wives is a game of hide and seek, between people and their feelings, and between people and other people. For more, check out Roger Ebert’s great review from the time of the film’s release.

The Movie: Kill Bill, Volume I

Spoiler Level: High

The Setup: The Bride (Uma Thurman) is hell-bent on a mission to kill the five assassins who ruined her life and nearly killed her and after acquiring a samurai sword from the legendary sword maker Hattori Hanso, The Bride sets off to take out perhaps her most powerful enemy, Japanese-Chinese-American gang leader O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). In an astonishingly and perhaps unprecedentedly violent sequence (perhaps the subject of another Great Scenes post one day), we have just watched The Bride hack her way through 88 members of O-Ren’s gang and with the remaining survivors screaming in pain in the background, The Bride makes her way onto O-Ren’s rooftop garden for a final showdown.

Why It’s Great: Like so much of Kill Bill, the showdown with O-Ren is a scene that both works in perfect harmony with the rest of the film and stands alone and apart from everything else that comes before and after it. Tarantino is almost taking us through a door into another movie when The Bride slides back the doorway to reveal the snow-covered gardens on the roof of the House of Blue Leaves (indeed the visual effect very much makes it appear as though she is walking into a movie screen).

At the 1:46 mark, Santa Esmerelda’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” takes over on the soundtrack, a curious musical choice considering that in its entirety, it’s a rather cheesy, Latin-tinted disco-pop hit. Tarantino though is able to see through the context of the song itself and pick out the admittedly dramatic instrumental break in the middle of the song and turn it into the perfect musical accompaniment to his Sergio Leone-esque moment of dramatic tension that serves as the climax of Volume I (and some would say, the climax of the entire two-part story).

The posturing and tension-building continues in almost unbearable fashion and at the 2:56 mark, a quick slash from The Bride hacks off a piece of O-Ren’s sheath and as the horn section fades in on the soundtrack, the look of terror crawls across O-Ren’s face as she realizes for the first time that she may not win this fight. It’s not until almost a minute later that the tension is finally broken and while the rest of the scene is far less about stylized tension and more about resolution and payoff, I believe that solid minute of anticipation is perhaps the high point of Quentin Tarantino’s career as a filmmaker. It’s a representation of everything he’s about as a filmmaker, a post-modern mash-up of genres (kung fu, spaghetti western, exploitation) set to a soundtrack that would be entirely out of place in any of those genres and somehow it not only all works together but it manages to create a sincere, nail-biting moment of emotional tension that rivals even those great showdown scenes that came before it (like the end of “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” discussed earlier here on The Great Scenes).

I’d also be remiss not to mention the performances of Lucy Liu and Uma Thurman, who are both the unquestionable stars of the entire Kill Bill saga (As a villain, David Carradine’s Bill doesn’t hold a candle to O-Ren). They both do a nice bit of acting in this scene that has a lot of emotion going on without a lot of words being spoken to spell it all out for us. These women were both friends and perhaps still feel a little of that friendship towards one another. At the same time, there is no denying the situation they are in. The Bride is there to kill O-Ren or die trying. Despite the fact that she has already dispatched with the first name on her “Death List”, there’s a real sense that in this epic tale of revenge, O-Ren is the first and biggest step on the road to vengeance for The Bride. Unlike the other foes we meet in Volume II, O-Ren is given a rich backstory and is shown as not just a pesky villain to be eliminated but a worthy anti-heroine in her own right. The meeting of these two characters couldn’t be preceded with any more anticipation and although the ending is satisfying, the anticipation is the real star of the show here.

The Movie: Network (1976)

Spoiler Level: Low

The Setup: Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is a veteran anchor for the UBS Evening News.  Due to a combination of declined ratings and a hint of depression, Beale announces on national TV that he will kill himself live on air the following evening.  This prompts his resignation followed by a reinstatement by the network when the corporate heads realize that this altered personality of Howard Beale is actually improving their ratings.  They set Beale up as modern-day prophet; someone to tell it like it is in a very harsh way.  The network assumes the shock value of this side-show gimmick will increase the ratings, but Beale has a real impact on the people of America.  Upon learning that CCA, the UBS parent company, will be bought out by another even larger company in Saudi Arabia, Beale goes off on a rant on live television and demands that his audience send telegrams to the White House in protest of this deal.  Up to this point, the big dogs at the top have both benefited from and gotten a kick out of Beale’s depressed and manic state of mind.  However, Beale has gained enough support and influence from his viewers that his most recent tirade could seriously put a hold on this Saudi Arabia deal.  In an effort to put a stop to Howard Beale, he has been summoned by the CCA chairman, Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), who dramatically and fiercely lays it out for Beale in this brilliantly executed monologue.

(Click image to view scene)

Why It’s Great: This monologue alone earned Ned Beatty a Supporting Actor nomination.  Beatty breaks the world down for us in savagely depressing terms and alleviates all of our hopes, leaving us in despair with his very colorful, very dramatic monologue.

The lighting and framing of Beatty in the shot is suggestive of a vision of God.  The desk lamps are aligned so that it resembles a dream-like tunnel of light leading straight up into the heavens.  It’s reminiscent of a runway to the cosmos as Arthur Jensen gives us a smack down by filling us in on the cold hard truth of “the natural order of things today”.

Peter Finch, the posthumous Best Actor winner, is virtually silent during the entire scene.  This scene is the linchpin of the film.  There’s a decisive and dark turn at this point.  It was suggested earlier in the film that Beale had a vision from God.  Here it is quite literal that Beale is playing the part of a prophet that has been struck by a vision and given a message.  His face is eerily lit and he wears the reaction of one frozen with awe.  He has heard the voice of God and must carry out His message to the world.

The Movie: Good Will Hunting (1997)

Spoiler Level: Low

The Setup: Will Hunting (Matt Damon) and his pals visit a Harvard bar (with equations and sh*t on the walls) to pound some beers and, with some luck, meet some smart ladies looking to slum it for an evening. Will, a troubled janitor with a genius-level IQ, seems perfectly happy wasting his life and potential with his childhood friends working paycheck-to-paycheck at dead-end jobs and picking one senseless fight after another. As we find out later in Gus Van Sant’s film, Will’s demons reach far into his past, prompting a stubborn child to live an ordinary life with nothing to prove to anybody but himself.

When Will’s buddy Chuck (Ben Affleck) spies a couple of “Harvard honeys” and decides to “bust a move,” he’s interrupted by a ponytailed, pseudo-intellectual bully named Clark (Scott Williams Winters) who uses his Harvard “wits” to embarrass the less-educated Chuck in front of the girls (one of whom, Minnie Driver, is clearly familiar with and doesn’t like Clark). As soon as the flustered Chuck asks if there is going to be a problem, Clark continues his unprovoked beatdown before Will cuts into his douchey monologue to help his friend, impress the girls and, for lack of a better term, pwn would-be smart guy Clark.

Why It’s Great: Damon and Affleck’s Oscar-winning original screenplay rarely pops more than here in this scene, where the viewer becomes a part of the action. Clark is no match for Will, who surgically cuts this jerk down to size, serving up an ass-kicking wealth of knowledge and giving the guy what he deserves. We feel like we’re in that room watching this unfold just like everybody else. This little puke (and his puny posse behind him) gets sent back to the study group from which he came, moving along to a diner later one hoping to forget about the little incident across the street (and they don’t get off that easy either).

At this point in the movie, we know Will is a smart guy, much more so than his buddies, but we haven’t seen him bring his true A-game yet. Director Gus Van Sant seamlessly lets Damon slide into the frame in front of Affleck to hijack the conversation along with Clark’s forced recital of whatever text he read minutes before entering the bar. He likely read that and decided he’d use it on the first flunky “outsider” that stumbled into one of his beloved Cambridge bars. Too bad it backfired.

Instead, he learns the hard way not to use cruelty as a means to make yourself and others laugh. This privileged punk just get the laughs or, more importantly as we learn later, the girl. Damon and Affleck’s dialogue is laser-sharp and cracklingly entertaining. By the end of it, when will tells Clark how instead he might have spent his tuition money, you just want to scream, “OHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” which I’m sure was a popular reaction in theaters.

We later see Will forced by an MIT professor (Stellan Skarsgård) to attend various job interviews in which he’s barely interested. He’s often guilt-tripped into thinking he’s somehow wasting his gift by working as a mechanic or construction worker and drinking through the morning in dingy bars. But Will never wavers in his belief that not only is he not wasting his talent, but he doesn’t owe it to anybody to leave his hometown and pursue anything greater. That’s partially true.

In this scene, we see how Will applies his potential to real life. With it, he protects his friends from elitist snobs who look down at that. Utilizing it that way means more to Will than any governmental position might. The moment wins one for Will and Chuck’s crew, as well as the audience, who are completely and immediately on their side. It also stresses the value of education to young people who see the scene. It might encourage them to visit their public library, even when they have $1.50 in late charges.

We happen to like them apples quite a bit.

Movie: Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

Spoiler Level: None

The Setup: Up and coming playwright David Shayne (John Cusack) is making every compromise he can stomach, including casting a mob boss’s girlfriend, to get financing for his new play God of Our Fathers. One compromise Shayne doesn’t want to make is the casting for his leading lady. He’s decided to go after the aging star Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest), a once revered actress who has begun to descend into alcoholism and obscurity. In this scene, Wiest receives the news from her agent that she’s been offered a lead role by an unknown playwright, an invitation she isn’t immediately thrilled about.

Why It’s Great: Few career “character actresses” have ever had as impressive a run as Dianne Wiest had from about 1985 to about 1998. During that period, Wiest became a go-to gal for slightly offbeat female roles and found particular success working with Woody Allen, winning her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for playing the kooky Holly in Hannah and Her Sisters. Her performance as Helen Sinclair in Allen’s period Broadway comedy remains likely her most memorable role to date, spawning a cult catch phrase (“Don’t speak!”) and reminding American audiences that Allen was still capable of making a broadly appealing comedy.

Wiest has more fiery and more quotable scenes than this but her introduction to us here as she fusses at her agent Sid (Harvey Fierstein) gives us a perfect look at the brilliantly garish facade that Helen has created for herself. That facade slowly breaks down as the film goes on but she’s at her most outrageous when she’s boozed up and refusing to acknowledge that she isn’t the star she once was. Delusional egomaniacs like Helen are slam dunk opportunities for Allen to drop in some of his brilliant and hilarious dialog:

“Look, I haven’t had a drink since New Year’s Eve.”
“We’re talking Chinese New Year?”
“Naturally. Still that’s two days, Sid, you know how long that is for me?”

It’s classic, Marx Brothers-style patter like that which makes Bullets Over Broadway a favorite for many Allen fans like me. While Allen’s writing style is known for being ultra-modern and self conscious, he’s always had an affinity for classic, Vaudevillian comedy writing and Bullets Over Broadway, along with Allen’s other period work, provides the perfect showcase for Allen’s primary talent, which is joke writing.

Movie: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

Spoiler Level: None

The Setup: Winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Kramer vs. Kramer chronicles the emotionally brutal battle between the recently divorced Ted and Joanna (Dustin Hoffman & Meryl Streep) for custody of their young son. The movie fearlessly examines the realities of the contemporary dysfunctional family. Much of its success can be attributed to Hoffman, who won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a career-obsessed New York ad-executive who becomes a single father when his disgruntled wife (Streep) spontaneously leaves him.

In this scene, Billy (Justin Henry) tells Ted that he thinks his mom left because of his own bad behavior. Hoffman’s breathless explanation exists – in my opinion – as one of the many great scenes in the picture – one that could definitely be considered as Hoffman’s Oscar clip.

Why It’s Great: Many could argue that the scene that precedes this one should indeed be considered as Hoffman’s Oscar clip. Just prior to this clip, Ted (Hoffman) and Billy have an angry confrontation that evolves from Billy’s defiance of Ted’s command that he not touch the newly-bought Chocolate Chip-flavored ice cream until he finishes his Salisbury steak dinner.

Ted lets things cool down. He has a drink and does the dishes before deciding to look in on Billy, who has fallen asleep. Billy wakes up and suggests that the reason his mom left was because of his own bad behavior. Ted must then come up – on the spot – with a way to alter this child’s potentially damaging line of thought… and do it in a way that an eight-year old can clearly understand.

In fact, Ted prefaces his speech by saying “I don’t know whether this is going to make any sense.”

However, what he says makes perfect sense; not only to Billy, but – more importantly – to himself. Ted uses this opportunity both to help his son cope with their difficult situation, and to personally confront the reality of why his marriage fell apart. Ted becomes so moved by his own revelation that he hides his tears by burying his face in Billy’s pillow when he hugs him, and subsequently turns off the light.

Hoffman delivers his heartfelt monologue at a volume that’s just above the level of a whisper, which makes the scene wholly unique and that much more powerful. You also have to credit the young actor Justin Henry, whose delivery of the line “I love you” at the end of the scene, provides a touching bookend that nearly transcends the preceding exchange itself.

In a long and illustrious career filled with myriad great scenes, this definitely ranks as one of Hoffman’s best, and absolutely validates his Oscar win.

Movie: Amadeus (1984)

Spoiler Level: None

The Setup: Amadeus is the story of the meteoric rise and sudden death of the greatest composer that ever lived, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told from the perspective of his now elderly and increasingly insane former rival Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). In this scene, Salieri reminisces about the moment when he first laid eyes on one of Mozart’s compositions in its written form. Despite Mozart’s slovenly appearance and abhorrent, childish behavior the music he had written strikes Salieri as possibly being divinely inspired.

Why It’s Great: This month, I wanted to take a look at a few great scenes that I believe could serve as “Oscar clips”, moments that highlight an Oscar-winning performance and demonstrate in just a few seconds just how worthy the performance was of taking home the gold. Abraham’s turn as the hate-filled, tortured and conflicted Salieri is a performance for the ages but nowhere in the film is Salieri’s unique combination of disgust and admiration portrayed better than here. Abraham’s Salieri is a deeply religious man, having sworn an oath of celibacy to God in return for the gift of being able to compose beautiful music. While Salieri’s devotion to God has led him to only marginal success, he sees a man who clearly has no morals or scruples of any kind appears to have been chosen by God to be the composer of the most divinely inspired music ever created.

If you deconstruct the story to its basic elements, it’s really a version of the parable of the Prodigal Son, the second part of the story that people don’t usually talk about. When the irresponsible and selfish son loses all his money and returns home, he’s greeted with open arms and a banquet while his brother, who has remained loyal to the family and was responsible with his money, is given no special treatment at all and becomes enraged. In the end, Salieri is a compelling figure because his promise to God is actually proven to be an act of selfishness, a bargain which Salieri made not because it pleased God but because he believed he would benefit from it. It’s a story that could be told of athletes, businessmen or really any group of people who like to believe that their success is the result of being favored by God. In the end, when their luck changes or a bigger and better talent comes along, they are often left feeling abandoned by the very same power they once believed favored them over all others.

Amadeus is a story about the descent from feeling proud and pompous to abandoned and forsaken and the toll that fall takes on Salieri. It’s one of the darkest and most tragic performances in movie history and F. Murray Abraham cemented his cinematic legacy by knocking the role out of the park.

Movie: Pulp Fiction (1994)

Spoiler Level: Low

The Setup: Almost none needed, as this scene is itself a setup for perhaps the most intense chapter of Quentin Tarantino‘s masterpiece, “The Gold Watch”. I only information first-time viewers would have going into this scene is that Butch, played here by child actor Chandler Lindauer, will grow up to be a boxer (Bruce Willis) who we see earlier in the film being told to throw a fight by gangster Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames).

Why It’s Great: As a piece of a labyrinthine, interconnected plot, this scene serves just one function: to convince us that Butch’s gold watch really is important enough for him to risk his life over later in the film. Within the greater context of the movie, the watch is nothing more than a MacGuffin, an arbitrary object used to drive the plot of movie forward. The fact is, Tarantino could leave out this scene and we wouldn’t be confused about anything that’s going on in the entire ensuing chapter. But rather than just tell us that Butch’s gold watch is important to him, important enough for him to risk his life to retrieve it, Tarantino uses one simple, quick monologue to illustrate in graphic detail why Butch does what he does.

But of course, function is only part of the equation here. As with so many moments in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s primary aim here is to just simply write. The Tarantino of 1994 was a home run hitter and this scene, while serving a minor functional purpose, was a lob right over the plate for Tarantino, an opportunity for him to showcase his ability to suck you right into the screen where he can easily manipulate you with surprising twists, gruesome details and story elements that feel both fantastical and strangely realistic all at once.

It’s a scene that was almost certainly written specifically for Christopher Walken to perform, as Walken had at that point already delivered Tarantino’s most praised piece of dialog to date, the infamous “Sicilian scene” from True Romance (possibly the subject of a future Great Scenes post) and he’s the perfect choice to deliver this scene. Walken sets aside the intimidating hardness he had become known for at the time and draws upon his most sympathetic qualities as an actor. He shows a great deal of sensitivity, something we’re not really used to seeing from Walken, and he almost appears to be channeling Jimmy Stewart with his ‘awe shucks’ sincerity.

The dramatic pause at around the 3:16 mark is the moment when Tarantino truly has the audience reeled in. At that point, even the most cynical, objective film snob has suspended their disbelief and is entranced by Walken’s story. You can feel the audience leaning forward in their chairs at that moment waiting to see where Tarantino is taking them. It’s an opportunity that’s difficult to come by for any screenwriter or director and Tarantino certainly doesn’t waste the chance to take the audience somewhere completely unexpected.

Movie: The Great Dictator (1940)

Spoiler Level: Low

The Setup: Charlie Chaplin’s first true talking picture addresses the rising menace of fascism by making a complete mockery of the men who led the movement. Chaplin stars in a double performance as both a kindly Jewish barber and ruthless (and ridiculous) fascist dictator Adenoid Hynkel (an obvious parody of Adolf Hitler). In an unpredictable mix-up, the barber and Hynkel are confused for one another and Hynkel finds himself locked away in a concentration camp while the barber is mistaken for the dictator and immediately rushed to a crowded rally, where he is expected to make a rousing speech to the nation.

Why It’s Great: This week, the nation was buzzing about a certain world leader using his podium to plead for understanding, kindness and a show of humanity toward one another. My brain immediately jumped to this scene, one of the most moving monologues in moving history that is both highly universal and highly political in its message while still never coming off as preachy.

Chaplin’s character may be making the speech under a particular set of circumstances to the people of a fictional country but it’s clear that once we cut to the close-up of Chaplin at the microphone (0:58 second mark), Chaplin is essentially no longer in character. He has turned to us, the audience, or more specifically the world of 1940, to deliver a very real and very urgent message. Germany had just invaded Poland and France and it was clear to all that Hitler was hell-bent on bringing the world to war once again.

Chaplin had a good understanding of what war did to people and he spent the entire length of the First World War determined to make movies that gave people joy and hope in a dark time. Chaplin’s Little Tramp features were all designed to once again give hope to those who were suffering through the hard times of the Great Depression. With tyranny and evil appearing to creep toward world domination, never had the world needed hope more than in 1940 and Chaplin’s plea here feels more emphatic than his classic plea to “smile” at the end of Modern Times. This was no longer about being happy in the face of adversity. It was time to stand up to something that was threatening the chance of peace for anyone on the planet.

I think what strikes me the most about Chaplin’s intensely socially aware movie moment is that unlike so many attempts at socially aware screenwriting today, Chaplin never uses the moment to suggest that he is somehow morally superior to the average moviegoer. On the contrary, Chaplin argues here that intellectual superiority is perhaps a disadvantage when it comes to being a decent human being.

“Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little.”

Instead, Chaplin suggests that it’s within every man, woman and child on earth already to be a basically good person and that it’s only the greed and malice of a handful of people that drives any of us to be hateful to one another. Chaplin’s plea is not only way ahead of its time but would probably be considered ahead of its time were it delivered today. I suppose that makes it timeless.

Movie: Goodfellas (1990)

Spoiler Level: Low for the movie, High for the scene itself

The Setup: It’s an average night out at the favorite local hangout of low level mobsters Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). With a crowd of friends and fellow mobsters gathered around, the big-mouthed Tommy is holding court, telling tales of his toughness and getting plenty of laughs from the group. When Henry tails out of one of his laughs with a muttered “Really funny…really funny.” Tommy appears to misinterpret Henry’s comment and the tone of the room quickly shifts.

Why It’s Great: It’s one of those scenes that has become so familiar, so oft-parodied in pop culture (particularly Saturday Night Live‘s “Joe Pesci Show” sketches) that it has almost lost its meaning but it’s important to remember what it felt like to watch this scene for the first time. Right around the 1:12 mark, the tone of the scene takes such a remarkable and tense turn that only a film about extremely violent men could take. It’s easy to be lulled into finding these guys likable. Tommy might be a bit of a bully, we tell ourselves, but he’s overflowing with charisma, impossible not to be charmed by.

At the end of the day, as Martin Scorsese and company so clearly point out to us in this scene, these aren’t guys you want to hang around with on a Saturday night. They are killers, sociopaths who are capable of absolutely anything at any given moment. The six seconds of silence we experience along with Henry before the tension is ultimately very cautiously broken are terrifying precisely because despite the fact that Tommy is joking around, anyone who has spent any amount of time around him (including us as the audience) knows that he’s entirely capable of turning an innocent comment into a violent encounter. Even after the laughter returns to the table, we’re briefly thrown into a moment of tension again as Tommy playfully pulls out his very real gun to mock-threaten Henry.

The scene so perfectly articulates the dichotomy Scorsese seemed so interested in exploring with Goodfellas, the idea that these men could be both functional members of their community and savage murderers, it’s almost hard to believe that the scene wasn’t originally in the screenplay when Scorsese signed on to direct the film. According to a recently published Q&A in GQ magazine, the scene was one of a handful in the movie that actually came from some in-character improvisation sessions that Scorsese conducted with his actors. Pesci created the basic dialog of the scene based around an actual encounter he had with a wiseguy that took a similar uncomfortable turn.

It’s only fitting that Pesci himself wrote the scene because as rich and interesting a film as Goodfellas is, Pesci’s Oscar-winning performance will forever stand out as the single-most memorable feature of the film. He’s been more outrageous in other roles (Casino) and funnier in other roles (My Cousin Vinny) but in Tommy, Pesci creates a truly layered and complex character that takes what could have been a very good movie about mobsters and turns it into something special.