Three actors we will take a look at are from the FX series Sons of Anarchy. The series is about a young man Jax Teller who is president of the MC Sons of Anarchy. He is stuck between trying to be a father and fulfilling his father’s legacy as president of his motorcycle club. First is Katey Segal, who I would classify as a Wild Card actor. She plays Gemma, the mother and Queen Bee so to speak on the series. She is also known for playing the role of Peg Bundy on Married with children. In married with children, she is a ditzy red head housewife who is portrayed as white trash in a sense. In Sons of Anarchy she is anything but Peg Bundy from Married with Children. She is an intelligent woman who throughout the series manipulates many situations and is in a way in control of what happens with the MC through her sneaky ways and manipulation. This is why I would classify her as a wild card Actor. She can play different roles and they are believable. You don’t get lost thinking of her in old roles.
Next is Charlie Hunnam the star of the show. He is the club President and son to Gemma. He has a conflict between being a father and being president of his MC and ensure their survival and do whats best by the club.
I would classify Charlie as a Personality Actor in a sense. He often plays the role of a Bad boy. He also played in the Boondock Saints and was a troubled young man who was a bad boy as well.
Lastly we look at Ryan Hurst. Ryan is definitely as wild card actor. He has played many roles. He played in Saving Private Ryan as a member of the military, Remember the Titans as a high school football player, and of course in Sons of Anarchy as best friend to Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) who is killed in jail. He plays many different roles and he can change his look and become almost unrecognizable.
Saving Private Ryan
I think Ryan will always be placed in the Wild Card Catergory because he is so versitile. He can play so many roles that when I hear his name I know I want to watch that movie.
One film that fully utilizes all three categories of sound is a movie I decided to watch this evening, Odd Thomas. In the beginning we don’t see a whole lot of dialogue from character to character. It begins with a different kind of dialogue called voice over which catches us up on who Odd Thomas is and fills us in on the special abilities he has to see the dead and help them with their unfinished business so they can be at peace. We also learn Odd’s family history and his current dating situation. This helps us know the background information so we can get to the plot of the movie quicker.
The sound effects in Odd Thomas are of a wide variety. Sound effects can range from something small like footsteps or a door creaking up to huge car crashes and skyscrapers falling to city streets. In Odd Thomas we have small effects like common background noise at the mall as well as the sound effects of demons crashing through the floor to create a gateway to hell. The big sounds we experience during these scenes are meant to cause the audience an adrenaline rush and enhance the visual effects we are seeing.
Finally we also have songs used to enhance the mood of the audience. We have slow songs when we should be prompted to become somber in a sad scene which is sometimes played by an orchestra who I believe has the greatest range to make us feel a certain way at the correct time.
There is a lot of creepy sounding music in order to establish an odd theme which is the goal,hence the name Odd Thomas. It also assists us in recognizing the genre this way.
Goodfellas
Produced By: Irwin Winkler
Director: Martin Scorsese
1990
Robert Deniro
Ray Liotta
Joe Pesci
In the film Goodfellas there were multiple lighting techniques used. If we take a look at the begining of the movie, where Henry Hill is telling us about his childhood and how he came to be a wiseguy, we can see how when Henry tells us about the things he saw as glamorous in high-key lighting. The scenes that convey Henry’s joy to us are filled with sunshine and a lot of light, which is meant to make us see the characters as thriving and happy. The scenes that Henry describes to us that have to do with dirty work are shown with low-key lighting. I think the usage of this low key lighting for these scenes was beneficial because it gives you a feel of secretism. During these scenes the characters speak low and are close to the people they are speaking to so the lighting contributes to the theme as if to say, there are many things that are kept secret about the way the wiseguys operate.
We also see the use of low-key front lighting as Jimmy Conway is being introduced into the movie. Jimmy is introduced as a dangerous man that everyone knows and respects. The usage of front lighting as well as low-key lighting here creates a sort of spotlight for Jimmy. It brings to your attention the fact that everyone pays attention to Jimmy Conway, that he is always the important man in the room. The low lighting in addition to the front lighting prompts you to think about the unspoken reasons why Jimmy is the important man in the room. It gives him an ominous effect.
If natural lighting or too much bright and high key lighting would have been used it would have taken away from the theme of Goodfellas. Goodfellas is based on the true life story of Wiseguy Henry Hill and the Italian mob’s gritty and grimy underworld. High key lighting would be ineffective to convey messages of secretism, and the scandalism of the wiseguy crew.
References;
Goodykoontz, B & Jacobs, C (2014) Film: From watching to seeing (2nd) San Diego,CA: Bridgepoint Education Inc.
Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta & Lorraine Bracco
Goodfellas was named 1990’s best film by the New York & Los Angeles Times as well as by the National Society of Film Critics. It was also nominated for six academy awards including best picture & best director. Goodfellas was based on the true life bestseller “Wiseguy” by Nicholas Pileggi.
Goodfellas is the story of Henry Hill, a boy who grew up in Brooklyn from the 1950’s into his 40’s. As Henry grows up in a low income neighborhood their family struggles with money as he watches the Italian crime family rule the streets of Brooklyn. Henry becomes involved with the crime family from an early age in order to gain power, wealth, and respect. Throughout Henry’s life he pledges allegiance to this family but too much is never enough and he finds himself faced with his own life or death.
Act 1: The opening line for Goodfellas is from Henry Hill. Henry tells us that “as far back as he can remember, he’s always wanted to be a gangster”. Henry narrates this first act of the film from his standpoint. Henry grew up with an Irish father and a Sicilian Mother. One of his brothers was in a wheelchair and they did not have a lot of money. A fact that kept his father angry most of the time. Henry fell in love with the mob family as he watched them rule the streets of Brooklyn from one of their many hangouts, the cab station, run by Tony Sicero “Tooty”, brother to mob boss Pauly Sicero. Henry falls in love with the sense of family the mob seems to have and the way they are able to do whatever they want right or wrong and nobody stops them.
By the time Henry was 13 he was making more money than most adults. By 15 he was parking cadillacs for the mob even though he could barely see over the steering wheel. He then began doing small jobs for the mob like setting cars on fire and running messages around with Tony Sicero because Tony didn’t believe in phones. Next we see Henry in his late teens and early twenties. He is introduced to Jimmy “The Gent” Conway. Jimmy is a very deadly man who was first locked up at the age of 11 and doing hits for the family by age 16. Jimmy was a “jacker” he spent most of his time robbing truck drivers of their cargo. Jimmy got his nickname “The Gent” because he was so polite in his robberies and sometimes gave the drivers a cut of the robbery. This made him appear very gentlemanly to the victims. Often times the drivers would let him know what loads they had coming in and where they would be. Jimmy paid cops to look the other way. Henry was arrested during the sales of some of the stolen goods and got off the hook easy because again the connections of the mob kept them out of harms way. Nobody wanted to pay the price of crossing the Italian mob. After Henry receives praise from Jimmy Conway for keeping his mouth shut you can see the look of pride on his face. Henry is now finding it nice to “belong” in this group of men.
Act 2: Henry goes on a blind date with a girl named Karen, who is the friend of Tommy’s girlfriend. He is delegated by Tommy because his girlfriend won’t date and Italian guy alone, she wants to bring her friend along. Tommy is the hothead of the group that is always fast to react, keeping his bravado and pride intact. Henry is rude and short with Karen the entire date and seems totally uninterested. He drops her off at home without so much as a goodbye. Still a second date is set up between the two couples and Henry stands Karen up. Karen won’t stand for it and tracks Henry down on the side of a street where she tells him what she thinks of him. Henry likes the fistiness of Karen and begs Karen to allow him to take her out on another date.
This is where the story begins to be told from Karen’s viewpoint. Henry takes Karen out to eat at a restaurant that their organization runs and so everyone at the restaurant knows who he is. He is tipping every employee he sees $20. You can tell he is showing off as the director takes us through the entire back of the restaurant with Karen and Henry. This is called a long take and enables us to see what Karen must have been thinking while she walked with Henry through the back of the place. Had the director not taken us on this journey it would have taken away from the sense of glamour you feel to think what it would be like to be treated so special. When we forst start to see what Karen is thinking we can tell she is questioning Henry and whether or not his career is something of moral value. You can see her Jewish family’s influence on her thought process. There are a couple of instances where Henry is a hero to Karen saving her from her assultive neighbor and taking care of her monetary needs.
Karen clearly pushes her worries about Henry being a reputable man to the side as the next scene is Karen & Henry’s wedding. You can literally hear her thoughts change from concern about their life, to making excuses as to why behavior that would have not been previously condoned are fine by her. She starts making excuses for his behavior and soon enough learns full on what life for a mob wife is really like a Henry gets more and more deeply involved in the crime life. Their life together is now a whirlwind of lies and deceit, full of murder and covering up for murders. Henry is involved with the murder of a “Made” guy and Henry is now keeping secrets from Paul Siceroe who he once looked up to and idolized.
Act 3: Here we go back to Henry narrating the story for us. Henry and the guys get “ratted” on and they all go to jail for various amounts of time. Henry’s family gets no help from any of the other members of the crime family and he makes more drug connections while inside prison for four years. When he comes out Pauly warns him that he does not want him messing with drugs or setting up any outside businesses as they are still on thin ice with law enforcement. Henry does not listen and even has Karen doing drugs to the point you can tell the difference in their characters.
Henry ends up getting arrested again because he is doing shady deals with people who are outsiders of the family. After Henry is released he decides he needs to dissapear with his wife and children however he cannot accomplish this because while he was getting arrested in the raid, Karen flushed the last of the dope down the toilet. Henry then goes to Pauly asking for forgiveness for going behind his back and needing his help with money. Pauly only gives him $3200 and things get shaky between Henry and the family. Henry sees that he will be killed or he will have to rat on Pauly and Jimmy in order to go into the witness protection program. This is the fall of Henry. He testifies in court against Jimmy and Pauly for the various crimes over the years. Pauly is sentenced to many years in federal prison where he dies of heart complications. Jimmy Burke (Conway) the actual man Jimmy Conway’s character is based on died in a N.Y. hospital in April, 1996. (Associated Press 1996) Karen and Henry divorced after 25 years of marriage.
In this film you can see Henry go from the bottom then rise to the top through the crime family where he has everything he dreamed of as a boy. Then we watch him go right back to the bottom when he loses his self control. He loses all the Power, respect, and family that he wanted so badly once he decided to enter the witness protection program.
This film was presented in chronological order showing Henry from a child up to when he was arrested in his 40’s. I believe that this is the best possible way for this story to have been told. It would have not been easy to understand if this story had been told non linearly. With the events going in order we are able to capture the wonder Henry had for the mob family from a young age. Seeing Henry’s awe and desperation to have what they had, I believed foreshadowed the fact he would have trouble.
Goodfellas is the story of Henry Hills long road to empower himself with money & respect only to lose it all due to greed and end his story right where he started, just being an average guy who had to wait in line at the bakery on Sunday mornings and where nobody knew his name.
second look at goodfellas 
