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\nFirst off, I need to point you to my friend Glenn Kenny’s New York Times<\/i> piece on Ray Liotta<\/a> in his definitive role, playing gangster Henry Hill in Goodfellas<\/i>. To quote another pal, Stephen Silver, Glenn literally “wrote the book” on Goodfellas<\/i> (aka Made Men<\/i>), and it’s great to read his granular observations on Liotta’s iconic – no exaggeration – performance. (I love the observation on a moment in the Voiceover: “Tuddy”. You almost never hear a voiceover narration that allows for moments like that. I always loved that moment but never put it into words, so I thank Glenn for providing me that moment of recognition and tribute. Yes! “Tuddy.”) But there are so many other great observations. Liotta “accosting” Irwin Winkler, and pitching himself for the role. It’s hard to picture anyone other than Ray Liotta in that role, but … everyone wanted that part. They cast a wide net. Liotta, who was already “out there” in the business, had to convince Winkler. And he did. <\/p>\n \n \nFor a lot of people, our first encounter with Ray Liotta as the menacing ex-boyfriend in Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild<\/i>, whose entrance, gliding into the frame on the dance floor, is unforgettable. In a flash, the entire movie changes. Something new … something wild … untameable … has entered the film. I know I thought, “WHO is THAT.”<\/p>\n \n He brought with him a legitimate sense of menace, a legitimate – not artificial – sense of cool, sociopathic cool, with all this STUFF churning underneath. He was like a wild animal. A wild animal you do not want to mess with. Liotta always had those two poles working within him – sweetness and wildness, unpredictability and vulnerability … Jennifer Lopez said he was the classic “tough guy who was mush on the insides”. That kind of thing can be a cliche. With him, it was organic. It arose naturally. He understood. <\/p>\n \n \nEven if Goodfellas<\/i> hadn’t come along, he would still be remembered for Something Wild<\/i> and Field of Dreams<\/i> – more so for the latter, since it has entered the pantheon of American classic films (and it did so almost immediately). There are so many pitfalls in the material, pitfalls of schmaltzy sentimentality and self-righteous posturing (it falls into one of those pitfalls in the scene when Annie dresses down the book-banning PTA, and her exhilarated response … to herself … in the hallway after. My issues with her performance do not stop me from recognizing what is so radical about the conception of that character. I had no idea this was a controversial “take” until I wrote this piece<\/a>. Supporting your husband’s dreams is so RETRO, apparently.) One of the ways Field of Dreams<\/i> could have drowned would be if the golden glow of memory infiltrated every corner of the film. But it doesn’t go that route, and it starts with the casting of Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Liotta’s performance. (Along the way, choices were made to undercut the sentiment. James Earl Jones’ cranky recluse: he means business. There’s also the other ballplayers: trash-talking, harsh, hard-bitten guys – they don’t feel like idealized ghosts of the Ideal of Baseball. They’re real baseball players: some of them dumb, all of them cocky, razzing Ray for how his wife calls him to dinner, etc. Very smart choice.) <\/p>\n Ray Liotta is truly “Other” in Field of Dreams<\/i>, embodying the disorientation of what it must be to be a ghost – echoing with regrets and unfinished business – suddenly sucked out of the ether and plopped into a perfect baseball field. He moves slowly at first, but he moves like a panther. A panther can stroll around and laze-about on a tree branch, but within all of that languid indolence is the potential for bursts of speed, for explosive power. The way Liotta runs to catch the ball, holding up his glove, and keeps running a little bit … almost like he himself is in slo-mo. He’s savoring it. He’s in awe of it. He feels the pleasure of it and he can’t quite believe it is happening. All of this takes an actor who can communicate not just with his face, but with his whole body, his every nerve ending. He doesn’t run or leap or slide: but the potential is within him at every moment. <\/p>\n Undercut, undercut, undercut. Liotta undercuts so powerfully that when the big moment comes – when there’s a big closeup and he says, “No. It was you, Ray” – with this simple tone of acknowledgement for all that Ray has done … the moment can handle it. Nothing is betrayed. Up until then, Liotta plays Shoeless Joe Jackson like a quietly ravenous animal, barely aware of Ray, at least not as anything other than the guy who owns the field. Shoeless Joe is into the grass, the glove, the sound of the bat, the dark expanse around him, the memories of playing, the sensory pleasures of it (boy does Liotta do justice to the little monologue he has: “I’d have played for nothing’<\/i>.”) “No. It was you, Ray” … said like a kind father, making sure his son knows how special he is … can only exist because of all of the undercutting that came before. Shoeless Joe Jackson is tender. Liotta has space in him for both toughness and tenderness. <\/p>\n \n \nI feel like Glenn said what I needed to say about Goodfellas<\/i> – and expressed stuff I couldn’t have put into words – “Tuddy…” – but I must mention two other things: Just two nights ago, on my De Niro kick – still – I watched Copland<\/i>, or re-watched. I saw this one in the theatre. Liotta is so frazzled here, and he looks truly unwell – pasty and clammy and wild-eyed – as though the character lives his whole entire life like Henry Hill lived his May 11, 1980.<\/p>\n \nIn Copland<\/i>, Liotta’s “Figgis” does some horrendous and selfish things – one in particular – but, unlike Henry Hill, he is clearly tormented by it. It’s why he is such a wreck. The man has a conscience, which he has tried to bury underneath drugs. But the conscience finally cannot be ignored, and it all comes to a head in the great moment on the bridge, when Figgis, driving like a bat out of hell, to put as much distance between himself and Garrison, NJ as possible, suddenly starts screaming, as though someone else is in the car with him. “STOP IT. NO. STOP IT.” He slams on the brakes. There’s no one else in the car. It’s his conscience he’s hearing. Fabulous moment.<\/p>\n \n \nAnd finally, I must mention a film that hasn’t been getting much chatter ever since the news dropped that Liotta died. 2009’s Observe and Report<\/i> was one of the best films of that year – but perhaps too dark and ambiguous for modern audiences who LOVE moralistic lessons, who yearn for films to telegraph who is Good and who is Bad, etc. Observe and Report<\/i> harkens back to 1970s anti-hero ambivalence, with Seth Rogen’s dangerously gung-ho security guard taking “the law” of the shopping mall into his own hands. Ray Liotta plays a cop increasingly frustrated by this rent-a-cop getting in his way. <\/p>\n \n \nLiotta’s sense of exasperation increases by the second, until he finally is a raving MESS, trying to rein this douchebag in. Liotta is really the only person “outside” of Rogen’s deluded sense of self: everybody else in the film is roped into – or seduced into – believing Rogen’s bullshit. Liotta sees right through it. He’s a hot-head, but he’s a professional, and he is the only one who really perceives that this security guard is off the RAILS. (I wrote a long and, yes, rambling piece about Observe and Report<\/i><\/a>, where I “went off” on a couple of things that bug me about current cultural discourse – which has gotten so much worse since I wrote the piece in 2009. So these comments MORE than stand. Long story short: see Observe and Report<\/i> if you haven’t already.) <\/p>\n Liotta was rough around the edges but he could clean up nice-nice. Those rough edges were in the eyes: those icy eyes, which could be drained of humanity, or filled with humor, tenderness, passion. He was present, but he was present in the context of the character. There’s a difference. He gravitated towards reality. Watch again Field of Dreams<\/i>, and his miraculous instincts … his instincts kept him away from sentimentalizing the character. The movie did all that work FOR him: on the ground, WITH him, it was all reality. (The mean loud cackle about not inviting Ty Cobb. All that.) <\/p>\n He could make you understand Henry Hill’s perspective, and – even more shocking – he forced you to wish Henry well. You’re on his side. And then you stop yourself short, shocked: “What the fuck am I supporting???” <\/p>\n Only a great actor can make you do that.<\/p>\n \nTwo more pieces on Ray Liotta:<\/big><\/p>\n My friend Charlie wrote a gorgeous piece for Esquire<\/a>.<\/p>\n Glenn Kenny wrote a scene piece, this time for The Decider<\/a>, about Something Wild<\/i> and Field of Dreams<\/i>, two of the pre-Goodfellas<\/i> performances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First off, I need to point you to my friend Glenn Kenny’s New York Times piece on Ray Liotta in his definitive role, playing gangster Henry Hill in Goodfellas. To quote another pal, Stephen Silver, Glenn literally “wrote the book” … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/tumblr_f18724e0d809c42a7a16ed882b6f555e_8b1a3080_500.gif\")
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