Wise Guy

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He was visualising the movie, where the camera would be, what he would be focusing on, while we were writing the script. He already sees the movie in his head." Needless to say, Henry and his pals are amoral scumbags, and Hill is a sociopath whose justification for his crimes is that his needs outweigh everyone else's, and he dismisses anyone who is hardworking, honest or trusting as weak and just asking to be ripped off. Pileggi was married to fellow author, journalist, and filmmaker Nora Ephron from 1987 until her death in 2012. [2] Partial filmography [ edit ] Year

Whilst reading it, it is soon very obvious why Martin Scorsese was so attracted to this story, indeed I can almost imagine his excitement, as he works out how to structure key scenes and who to cast. Pileggi began his career as a journalist and had a profound interest in the Mafia. [2] He is best known for writing Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (1985), which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas (1990), and for writing Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas and the subsequent screenplay for Casino (1995). The movie versions of both were directed and co-written by Martin Scorsese. [3] Pileggi also wrote the screenplay for the film City Hall (1996), starring Al Pacino. He served as an Executive Producer of American Gangster (2007), a biographical crime film based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas. He also authored Blye, Private Eye (1987). [4]GoodFellas' is an amazing tale, and a wonderful evocation of a bygone era but is one of those rare occasions where the film is all you really need. When Pileggi came out of the men’s room, Hill said, "Come on, let’s get out of here!" Straight away, Pileggi saw why Hill was so keen to leave. "I looked over and I realised Henry had hit the Maitre D' in the head with a wine bottle. The guy was bleeding." "What happened?" asked Pileggi, as they drove away. "The guy gave me some lip," said Hill, by way of explanation. Pileggi co-wrote the pilot of the CBS television series Vegas, which first aired in September 2012. [2] Personal life [ edit ] The book “Wiseguy” is about Henry Hill a member of the Lucchese crime family.The book itself tells a different perspective of the “Mob”. Its seen through the eyes of Nicholas Pileggi the author but told to by Hill himself . It displays an interesting outlook,Mob movies books characters have fascinated the world for so long and its the belief that their is another world more exhilarating and exciting fast paced and the common person is just looking to escape the real world into a book or another life.

Goodfellas ( originally titled Wiseguy) is a terrific true crime book that just stops short of romanticizing the life of a gangster. The book is about working class Italian and Irish gangsters in Brooklyn, starting from their early days in the 1950s to their fall in the 70s and 80s, told through the eyes of a foot soldier - Henry Hill and his wife Karen. Hill didn’t feel sorry about the crimes he’d committed, so much as the high life he’d left behind. "He was grieving for the life he’d lost – he loved being a gangster," says Pileggi. "He loved being with those guys. They were his family." This was his main source of regret. "He felt awful because he had to give up the life he really wanted to live. He could no longer be a gangster." He grew up with those people - he knows the culture better than any other movie director out there," says Pileggi. "Marty knows it, Marty grew up with it, Marty lived it. I had the same experience - I knew those people, so there was an intimacy with that material that gave Marty tremendous freedom."Wiseguy even has some advantages over its still-more-brilliant offspring. A two-and-a-half- hour biopic must necessarily simplify and omit events. In Henry Hill's case, a lot of those events are interesting. So what sort of man was Henry Hill? "He was a hustler. He wasn’t a mean man, he wasn’t a violent man – not that he wouldn’t commit violence – but he was hyperactive, and always into mischief." He was also very clever, with a genius for thinking up moneymaking scams. Hill was no Godfather, but he’d spent his whole life in the Mafia. For Pileggi, this was a big attraction. "I thought, 'It’d be great to do a story from the point of view of a middle level guy, or even a low level guy.’" That’s why the really tough guys went along with him – he was always looking to make money for them." What made Wiseguy such a thrilling read was Hill’s incredible memory. He was a natural storyteller, with a novelistic eye for detail.