The 'Gangster' in Cinema

One of the most technically-challenging long-shots in cinema is in Goodfellas (1990):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhX89LiOGbI&feature=youtu.be&t=71&fbclid=IwAR0zn7GdO1B5Pq-VtJ-wqi0Hoi2EYHOT912AzUd6Zlme5BSwnRQnJkQH-rY
Why did Scorcese deem such a challenging shot necessary?Gangster cinema, like The Great Gatsby, is a dark take on the American Dream. Ambiguous heroes ruthlessly pursue their own advancement. Though, Perhaps F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece articulates America's fascination with the criminal best.  '[P]ersonality is an unbroken series of successful gestures', F. Scott Fitzgerald writes as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby. Perhaps the entire shot, which ends with a close-up of a corpse's freezing face, represents the character's life, from start to finish, following the gangster's way of life- one in which an 'unbroken series of gestures' is the cornerstone of longevity and success. Style becomes substance for both the gangster and the film director.
Perhaps the on-screen gangster is a solvent, an antidote to the anomie of civilization: complex societies demand humility at the expense of individual expression. The gangster, in contrast, gives free reign to his most violent and primal urges, so long as he abides by the 'gangster code' of this alternative society. Though as the scene seems to articulate, all things come to end, and those who live by the code, die by it as well. 

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