Goodfellas Why Scorsese Changed Main Characters’ Real Names

Goodfellas: Why Scorsese Changed Main Characters’ Real Names

In the course of bringing Goodfellas to life, Martin Scorsese relied heavily on authenticity except when it came to the names of the lead characters.

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Goodfellas Why Scorsese Changed Main Characters’ Real Names

The 1991 Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas told a true story, but the director changed a number of the real-life gangsters’ names. In Scorsese’s movie, Jimmy Burke became Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), Tommy DeSimone became Tommy DeVito, Paul Vario ended up as Paulie Cicero and so on. One key exception to this was the name of the protagonist of the film, Henry Hill (Ray Liotta).

Goodfellas was a cinematic retelling of Hill’s actual life in the mobster world, which saw him rubbing shoulders with prolific mobsters like Burke and DeSimone. Part of why Goodfellas has been so acclaimed is due to how thoughtfully-crafted it is. There are layers of meaning behind every shot, editing technique, and performance. Considering that, there must be a reason why Martin Scorsese opted to change the names of real-world figures.

Part of this is because Goodfellas is based on the 1985 book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, which was an account of Henry Hill’s time as a gangster. Pileggi’s book captured the imagination of Scorsese and, after committing to creating a feature film adaptation of Wiseguy, Scorsese and Pileggi proceeded to pen the screenplay for Goodfellas. Through this creative process, Goodfellas radically reshaped its source material through storytelling devices like a non-linear narrative. One of the many ways Goodfellas eventually carved out its own identity separate from its source material was by creating new names for the prolific mobsters Henry Hill interacted with.

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Another reason for the changing of these names was to allow for greater creative flexibility on the parts of Scorsese & Pileggi. While characters like Jimmy Conway were inspired by actual people, giving them fictitious names allowed the screenwriters’ room to bring newly-created personality traits and events to the table rather than be slavishly devoted to reality. This choice also afforded creative freedom to the actors portraying these characters. Performers like Joe Pesci apparently improvised heavily on the set, in the process bringing further dimensions to characters like Tommy DeVito. The opportunity for Pesci to deliver those elements could have been restricted if Goodfellas had opted for a more realistic approach to characters like DeVito/DeSimone.

Above all else though, this creative decision reflects Martin Scorsese’s drive as a filmmaker to create compelling drama, even if that means eschewing aspects of reality. This fixture of his works was especially evident in his 2019 film The Irishman. In response to the notion that The Irishman was factually inaccurate, Robert De Niro, in an interview with IndieWire, stated “We’re not saying we’re telling the actual story, we’re telling our story.” That sums up how Scorsese approached the people in Henry Hill’s life when making Goodfellas. Creating fictional personas for folks like Jimmy Burke may not have been accurate to reality. But it did allow creative freedom for Scorsese, Pileggi and the cast of Goodfellas to tell their own story.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/goodfellas-movie-martin-scorsese-gangsters-names-change-reason/

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