Goodfellas: The Pre-Existing Song Soundtrack as Original Musical Score Timothy Sexton College

Whether making gritty dramas or black comedies or even a Biblical epic, legendary film director Martin Scorsese consistently proves over and over against he possesses an absolutely unerring instinct for knowing when his film requires a score, when it will work best with a collection of songs as the soundtrack, or when to split the difference and create a combination of the two. Goodfellas is likely not the one film that most perfectly pairs existing songs to serve the role of commentary in distinctive ways, but the manner in which it exploits the power of pre-existing hit songs does succeed in making its background music a soundtrack that comes closest to serving as full-scale substitute for an entirely original composition of a musical score.

The single most memorable use of a song in the film for many viewers is certain to be the performance by The Crystals singing “Then He Kissed Me” during the justly famous tracking scene from the sidewalk into the nightclub. The breathtaking visual complexity of long unbroken shot foreshadows in a way that more that verges on the ironic just how much Karen is going to be willing to sell her soul to become a part of Henry’s not exactly savory world.

If that is not one the most memorable use...