Everyone who's seen Goodfellas is intimately familiar with the iconic long take that follows Henry and Karen from the city street to the main room of the Copacabana. On the page, the scene plays out on a very basic level: Henry goes here, then they go here, this happens, then they're here. There's no descriptors, no camera movements, no helpful direction from the script in any way and yet on the screen, without a single line of written dialogue, we're fully indoctrinated into the world of Henry Hill in both tone and theme as experienced by Karen.

In this entry, I'll explore how Martin Scorsese used a last-minute decision to transform an otherwise bland paragraph into one of the most iconic visual experiences in cinema history.

FROM SCRIPT: How It Reads

Goodfellas (1990), written by Nicolas Pileggi & Martin Scorsese

EXT. COPACABANA – NIGHT WE SEE HENRY deftly steer KAREN away from the Copa's main entrance and down the basement steps. A HUGE BODYGUARD, eating a sandwich in the stairwell, gives HENRY a big "Hello." WE SEE HENRY walk right through the basement kitchen, which is filled with CHINESE and LATINO COOKS and DISHWASHERS who pay no attention. KAREN is being dragged along, open-mouthed, at the scene. HENRY starts up a stained kitchen staircase through a pair of swinging doors and suddenly KAREN sees she is inside the main room. The harried MAITRE D' (he is surrounded by CUSTOMERS clamoring for their tables) waves happily at HENRY and signals to a CAPTAIN. WE SEE a table held aloft by TWO WAITERS wedging their way toward the stage and plant the table smack in front of what had until that moment been a ringside table. As HENRY leads KAREN to their seat, she sees that he is nodding and shaking hands with MANY of the OTHER GUESTS. WE SEE HENRY quietly slip twenty-dollar-bills to the WAITERS.

THE SCENE: How It Looks

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TO SCREEN: How It's Improved (Or Not)

Clearly, a colossal improvement. The shot has become so well known that we can't imagine Karen's introduction to the gangster world as playing out any differently than in one long, continuous take. And ironically, the scene was never meant to play out like that; Scorsese was forced to improvise when the club wouldn't give him access through the front door. And it was a shot that cinematographer Michael Ballhaus was opposed to doing, yet it works so perfectly.

While we've spent plenty of time with Henry up to this point in the film, including sitting through a disastrous first date with Karen, this is the future Mrs. Hill's first authentic introduction into Henry's world and the long take helps us as the audience experiences it unfolding as Karen would. It's clear from following Henry that he knows his way around, and his interactions with those he meets along the way let us know that he's a frequent visitor. But it's once the couple enters the main room that the prestige of Henry and his gangster life really draw Karen and the audience in. As Henry enters, tables are moved to create a spot just for him and his girl in front of the stage, older patrons buy him expensive champagne, and the entertainer flashes a smile to Karen. In this one continuous shot, we do not see Henry adapting to his world; we see the world adapting to Henry.

And that's exactly the message Scorsese intended the shot to convey. As he saw it, the long take was meant to not only establish Henry as a respected character in this world, it was also meant to foreshadow that the entire world was this young man's oyster, that doors were opening for him everywhere he went. Without unnecessary expository scenes about how much people loved or respected Henry, without any needless voice over from Karen talking about her powerful boyfriend, we see with our own eyes Henry's influence and implications. Scorsese shows instead of tells, and that (as we all know) is the number one rule of storytelling.