Interesting Camera Movement: Tracking

One of the most interesting camera movements in film is from the movie Goodfellas. Scorsese does an amazing job following the character Henry, who is with Karen. They enter the nightclub and you can immediately tell the camera movement is attempting to keep up with Henry. It is a sequence shot, but the camera movement is tracking. This is a tracking shot because we are following the characters, and feel like we are directly behind them. This camera movement in this specific scene is so powerful. From this scene alone we see how in control the character Henry is. He calmly and confidently leads Karen through the kitchen, joking and laughing. This tracking movement shows just how in control and comfortable Henry is during this part of the film. It is one of my favorite camera movements of all time, its awesome!