Lorraine Bracco, the star of Martin Scorsese’s crime epic Goodfellas, and whom you might also know as Dr. Melfi in The Sopranos, reveals what it was like to shoot one of the film’s most important, and most iconic, sequences: the “one-take” tracking shot which finds Henry and Karen entering the Copacabana nightclub and slowly becoming taken with the glitz, glamour, and special treatment that crime and money can bring.
In the film, Bracco gives life to Karen Hill, Henry Hill’s (Ray Liotta) romantic counterpart, during his quest to become a Mafia figure in the mid-1950s. Bracco was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in one of the six nominations the film got in 1991. The actor spoke with Jessica Shaw on The Spotlight with Jessica Shaw, on SiriusXM, and commented on the film’s remarkable tracking shot that finds Karen and Henry walking through the Copacabana club thanks to a side entrance reserved for special guests. During the sequence, the pair walk down corridors and through the kitchen until they arrive at a reserved table with the best view of the stage.
The sequence is undeniably impressive, and entices Henry, Karen, and the audience with the lifestyle that working in the Mafia brings. During the interview, Shaw asked Bracco, “How anxious were you the day, or I don’t know, days that you filmed that, that you were going to get to like minute, you know, two minute, 58 seconds and somehow do something wrong?” To which she responded:
“Well, if I remember correctly, I think we did about 18 takes. So, I was always just panicked that I would forget my one line at the end of when we sat down. I was always, I was like, ‘Well, my God, what’s that line? What’s that line?’ But, yeah, it was, you know, first of all, I have to thank Ray because Ray was the greatest partner you could have making a Martin Scorsese movie. He was on it. He loved it. He was alive. He really pushed me in a really great way to be the best that I could be. He really did. And so I just followed him basically in that scene and it was fun. It was great fun.”
Is Goodfellas the Greatest Mafia Movie Ever Made?
Yes, it may seem like blasphemy to put Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather below the film by Martin Scorsese. Both films are rich but extremely different in narrative style and even in the stories they depict. While Coppola’s movie shows Michael Corleone’s inevitable rise to power, Goodfellas is the depiction of willful chaos in the eyes of a guy who just wanted to be a gangster above anything else.
Now that we have got that out of the way, it’s irrefutably unfair that, while Goodfellas remains Scorsese’s most prominent film, it failed to get recognition from award organizations who, at the time, decided Kevin Costner’s Western epic Dances with Wolves was better (we’ll forgive Best Adapted Screenplay, but Best Director and Best Picture?).
In Goodfellas, Scorsese enters the pinnacle of his distinctive style of storytelling. Not only is the film an achievement in technique (the tracking shot is impressive because it means something to both the characters and the audience and is not just about a director showing off his skills), it tells a deeply compelling story about guilt, betrayal, masculinity, and the dangers of aspiration above all else. Boasting stellar performances from an A-list cast that includes the late, great Ray Liotta alongside Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Paul Sorvino, Goodfellas is a pitch-perfect gangster classic.
Goodfellas
is available to stream on AMC+.
You can check out the Copacabana scene from
Goodfellas
below.