'Goodfellas' Opening Sequence influence

'Shutter Island' is our most recently made influences for this film. Directed by Martin Scorsese, a very well known director for his gangster thriller epics, 'Goodfellas' and 'Casino'. Despite these films being a different part of the Thriller genre, their openings both display some of the forms and conventions of Thriller.

This is so effective because of the casual situation in the car, the calmness on Ray Liotta's face when driving, and then just normal conversation when they talk about the potential that he has a flat tire. The reason why i find this sequence so successful for introducing a film is just because of the shock at the end, it hits you hard and it is only a minute and twenty seven seconds long. Joe Pesci's stabbing is almost comically it's done that casually without any tension build up or eerie music leading up to the violence. Even the music contradicts the violence because up-beat and happy at the ending. I thought the opening to this film is probably one of the most impressive Gangster openings made in modern cinema, purely because of it's shock factor in the end and being able unsettle an audience a minute and half in. It would be hard to take an element of this thriller and place it in our thriller as we are doing a Psychological thriller not Gangster. However I wanted to put it on my blog as when we were writing our Thriller, their were several points where we wanted to do something violent or just shocking right at the start, not exactly stab someone, but something uncomfortable to watch, that sets the tone of the move, for example our vomit scene 15 seconds in.