The Martin Scorsese project Goodfellas, was an iconic one indeed, as it starred the late Ray Liotta starred alongside Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro. The film fearlessly showcased the glitz and glamor as well as the brutality of the mob world.
Thus one particularly bold scene in the movie that depicted Tommy delivering seven knife stab blows to Batts, with nothing censored, left the audience in shock. This led the masses of viewers to walk out of the theater upon their viewing. Consequently, the director was compelled to cut the scene to appease the audience’s sensibilities.
Martin Scorsese Had to Edit This Scene Out From Goodfellas After Audience Walked Out of the Theater
During the screening of this gore-filled movie, Goodfellas, a specific scene proved to be so intense that it prompted a mass of viewers to leave the theaters. The raw impact of the scene was such that audiences found it difficult to continue watching.
A chilling murder scene of Billy Batts showed Tommy inflicting seven brutal blows with a knife. Speaking at the Montclair Film Festival fairly recently the director, Martin Scorsese revealed,
“It was a nightmare. People were furious. They stormed out of the theatre. It turned out to be the mob humour and the extent of the violence. The glamour of evil. That’s what they got mad at. I said: ‘But that’s what it looks like to young people growing up, and at the end, you see in the last half hour of [‘Goodfellas’] that they pay for it’. But the point is that sometimes evil is glamorous, and it is something that can be enjoyable [to watch] … sin is easy. Forgiveness is hard.”
Faced with this overwhelming response, the director was left with no choice but to remove that particular scene from the movie. This decision was made in order to ensure that the audience could engage with the film without being overwhelmed by its graphic content. On the bright side, the removal of the scene did not affect the movie in any way.
Martin Scorsese on How He Planned Those Intricate Shots
In an interview with Gavin Smith, the director revealed the meticulous artistry behind his filmmaking, explaining how he intricately and delicately planned each shot. His intention was to skillfully capture the glamour amidst the evil, revealing the nuanced balance between sophistication and wickedness on screen. He said,
“It’s the way things go. They’ve got to move fast. I was interested in breaking up all the traditional ways of shooting the picture. A guy comes in, sits down, exposition is given. So the hell with the exposition — do it on the voiceover, if need be at all. And then just jump the scene together. Not by chance.”
He continued,
“The shots are designed so that I know where the cut’s going to be. The action is pulled out of the middle of the scene, but I know where I’m going to cut it so that it makes an interesting cut. And I always loved those jump cuts in the early French films, in Bertolucci’s Before the Revolution. Compressing time. I get very bored shooting scenes that are traditional scenes.”
Further explaining how he planned each and every shot of this movie he said,
“In this film, actually the style gave me the sense of going on a ride, some sort of crazed amusement-park ride, going through the Underworld, in a way. Take a look at this, and you pan over real fast and, you know, it kind of lends itself to the impression of it not being perfect — which is really what I wanted.”
The director’s insightful revelations shed light on the artistic precision that went into portraying the duality of human nature in the film.
Goodfellas is available on Apple TV for rent.
