Comparison Of Goodfellas And Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan

The force of reality that plays a factor on a person is what drives decisions that are ultimately made and the results that follow. Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan are films in which genres play a big role in what is directed, but the things that make the film so valuable to the eye are the stories being told, how those stories are shot, and the performances by the actors and actresses that give us the sense of reality and surrealism.

Goodfellas, the remarkable masterpiece by none other than Martin Scorsese, is known to be one of the best gangster films of all time. Due to the intentional choice of having New York City as the main setting, Scorsese included his childhood experiences while adapting the book

Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi into a film. Scorsese uses a technique in the beginning of the film that was not attempted by other directors, and it is known as a non-linear narrative that in the case of Goodfellas starts in the 1970s, then returns to the 1950s childhood of his protagonist Henry Hill, just to show the feeling of initiation being brought into play. As the film progresses, not only do we see time periods being displayed briefly on screen, but we see the change of eras through clothing and costume changes. These changes also showed characters rise out of poverty, and in the case of the mob, it was the power over the others that was shown.
When talking about camera shots in Goodfellas, there is no way we cannot refer to the perfect Steadicam shot of Henry walking through the streets with his date, into a kitchen after going down a flight of stairs, then into a lounge area.

This shot is not just a Steadicam shot, but also a tracking shot from the back of the characters. The physical movement of the camera following the characters who are also moving through the certain settings is flawlessly done. Scorsese also immerses audiences with pauses while he uses freeze frames. These frames near the start of the film indicate to audiences that those scenes were critical influences that would eventually turn Henry Hill into a ruthless

mobster.
Scorsese as a director has been working with actors for his entire career.

Becoming the actor’s director is not an easy task, and doing just that was no joke for him. In Goodfellas, the club scene with Joe Pesci and the rest of the mobsters is great to analyze for a strong emotional performance out of an actor. Throughout the film, Pesci’s character is a rather “funny” comedic inclusion to the mob. Taken directly from the film’s script, the following quote by Pesci emphasizes very well how he tried to mess with other characters through his personality, while also keeping a completely straight face. “You mean, let me understand this … cuz I … maybe its me, maybe I’m a little fucked up maybe. I’m funny how? I mean funny, like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? Whattya you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny?” Scorsese would direct actors in the film to time their dialogue accordingly to create more suspenseful

scenes.
Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky’s work of art that stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, worked wonders through its chronological sequences of a woman’s life and the struggles that come through competition. As this story goes along in New York City, the maturity that comes with age is shown to us cinematically. The psychological nature of the characters in this film is quite astounding, and because of this, some critics have analyzed the film through a psychiatrist’s view to see the amazing vision Aronofsky brought out to audiences. In an ABC News article, the writers interviewed psychiatrist Nadine Kaslow from Emory University and she said “What was a hallucination and what was real? When people are psychotic, it’s difficult, even as a therapist, to know what’s real and what’s not.” These words are quite heavy since the whole film doesn’t give us an understanding of what scene is Portman’s character Nina hallucinating in and when reality is actual. In the same article from ABC News, Dr. Steve Lamberti, a professor of psychiatry at University of Rochester Medical Center, talks about how the movie does its job keeping audiences interested, but also from a psychiatrist’s viewpoint does not display schizophrenia in its true form. He says about the film “does present a reasonable portrait of psychosis.” The definition of psychosis taken from the article is “a loss of contact with reality that usually includes false beliefs or delusions, and seeing or hearing things that are not there.” This definition plays hand in hand with schizophrenia, but the film in its entirety does not justify that Nina suffered from the disease. In the film, as Nina suffers through the anxiety of competition, being anorexic, or being overly compulsive to everything, these diseases all become known. The article states that with the film’s portrayal of Nina going through all this, it does not necessarily mean they can all happen at once in actuality.
The way the camera is used to visualize the vision of Aronofsky is very subtle and focuses on what is important, and as we learned, what is in the middle of the screen rather than outside or near the edge of the frame. Aronofsky employs a lot of tracking shots, and one is when Nina returns home the night before her performance. The camera follows her to her room, and as she closes the door, she escapes the present reality. The ability for the camera to show us this just through a shot is for us to delve in and understand the true theme of the film.
Natalie Portman, as portrayed through Nina in the film was asked to do so much for this film just to get into character. As talked about in an article by Collider, Portman had begun doing ballet training an entire year before shooting for the film had begun. As much influence as this had on her performance in the film, Aronofsky still said that he did not ask for a method actress out of her, and rather do the scene and go back to reality. Method acting, such as the flawless performance by Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, requires not just an immaculate emotional performance diving into the character’s world for the entire shooting of the film, but also taking the loss of reality for that period. Most films like Black Swan or Natural Born Killers present us with actor performances that may seem like method but are just absolute.
To compare Goodfellas and Black Swan means going through the story, camera, and direction of acting. Both Scorsese and Aronofsky portrayed a violent nature in these films, but each of the two did this exclusively. The story of the mob killing anyone against them such as the law enforcers or enemy mobsters followed the history of the mafia. In Black Swan, the life of a ballet dancer and the struggles they go through, either psychologically or physically is unrestrained in its own way. Both films dove into the lives of their protagonists, Henry Hill played by Ray Liotta in Goodfellas and Nina played by Natalie Portman in Black Swan.
The camera was used very similarly in both films, such as the tracking shots putting us right into the lives of the characters. The scene of Henry walking through the street, then the kitchen, and ultimately ending up in the lounge is just as influential as the scene of Nina walking through her front door, through the hallway, and ending up shutting the door in her room. These two scenes alone are mirrors of the story being told to us by the directors.
Getting a performance out of an actor like Joe Pesci that can captivate audiences and create a scary feeling is unbelievable by Scorsese. Pesci in his true form is a very entertaining actor, as seen in the Home Alone franchise. Scorsese getting him to play a heavy role of a mobster and still joke about it, was astonishing. On the other hand, Natalie Portman and her performance of a ballet dancer going through womanhood seemed pure, but Aronofsky’s direction created a spine-chilling portrayal by Portman.