goodfellas opening

In the opening scene to the film “Goodfellas”, we can instantly tell what kind of film it will be because of their stereotypical gangster voices. Also the fact they have various weapons in this scene also tells us that the film includes violence (which is a convention of the genre) . From the opening we can also tell who the main characters are because the camera is focused on these 3 men for the whole opening scene

when the 3 men are in the car the camera man has not made any unnecessary  changes to the camera angle , by doing this he has created a relationship between the characters and the audience so now the audience are focused on these 3 characters ( mainly the man in the drivers seat)

the audience can also tell that this is a film about the mafia because the words “new York 1970” appear on the screen , this is significant because many people know that in new York at the time there was a large drug trade involving many different gangs.

The car the men were driving would have been extremely expensive at the time so we know that they are probably successful with their business. this makes the audience want to be more like these men.

this scene conforms to the stereotype that men are violent and reckless because there is a death and weapons are used.it also follows some of the conventions of action films because we are meant to look at the 3 men in the front of the car for a long time and the audience is supposed to feel closest to them so they act as a good and main role whereas the person in the boot of the car is only on it for a few seconds so the audience don’t have long to sympathise with them. also because the man in the boot of the car isn’t American and the film was set in USA it makes the audience feel less sympathy for him
the target audience for this film would be 18 to 25 year olds we can tell this because there are guns and violence and a death in the first opening scene of the film