Martin Scorsese, super genius (appreciation thread)
 

OK, somehow in all this time I don't believe we've ever had a thread devoted specifically and exclusively to Marty Scorsese.

https://i.imgur.com/ik0qIV1.png

It's no secret I think he's THE best director around. For me, he hasn't made a "bad" film yet - excluding his Roger Corman entry to Hollywood. He's one of the few filmmakers you can say that about, and he's been making movies for thirty or so years. Some are better than others, of course, but it's remarkable how many are masterpieces of some order.

Personally, I'd rank his filmography thusly...


1. GoodFellas (1990)
GRADE: A+++
2. Taxi Driver (1976)
GRADE: A+++
3. Raging Bull (1980)
GRADE: A+++
4. After Hours (1985)
GRADE: A+
5. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
GRADE: A
6. The Age of Innocence (1993)
GRADE: A
7. The Irishman (2019)
GRADE: A
8. The King of Comedy (1983)
GRADE: A
9. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
GRADE: A-
10. The Last Waltz (1978)
GRADE: A-
11. Casino (1995)
GRADE: A-
12. Mean Streets (1973)
GRADE: A-
13. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
GRADE: A-
14. Silence (2016)
GRADE: A-
15. The Aviator (2004)
GRADE: A-
16. Cape Fear (1991)
GRADE: B+
17. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
GRADE: B+
18. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
GRADE: B+
19. Gangs of New York (2002)
GRADE: B+
20. Hugo (2011)
GRADE: B+
21. "Life Lessons" segment of New York Stories (1989)
GRADE: B+
22. The Departed (2006)
GRADE: B
23. Shutter Island (2010)
GRADE: B
24. Kundun (1997)
GRADE: B
25. New York, New York (1977)
GRADE: B
26. Italianamerican (1974)
GRADE: B
27. American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince (1978)
GRADE: B
28. The Color of Money (1986)
GRADE: B-
29. Boxcar Bertha (1972)
GRADE: D+

*updated to include Killers of the Flower Moon

I didn't include his student films, though I've seen them all too (except for the apparently vanished Street Scenes - not even Scorsese himself has a print). The student projects are certainly worth seeing, especially for budding filmmakers, as It's Not Just You, Murray and Who's That Knocking at My Door? definitely show the promise that was about to explode onto contemporary American cinema.

I think GoodFellas, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are his three masterpieces among masterpieces. After Hours and The King of Comedy are his two best but least-known great works. Sadly more people know The Last Temptation of Christ for the "controversy" around it and haven't even bothered to see it for themselves. The Age of Innocence was somehow largely overlooked in the early '90s and richly deserves to be rediscovered. Kundun and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore also have the potential to reach so many people, but maybe all three of those movies are relatively ignored because they don't seem to fit into the Scorsese canon...at least as most people perceive it? The Last Waltz is the greatest concert film ever made, and weather you know or like the music of The Band and Dylan and Clapton and the rest of the guests or not, watch the film and you'll probably become and instant fan. Mean Streets has been a bit eclipsed by his later work, but it's a gem waiting to be uncovered, and an amazing "debut" film (not counting the Corman exploitation quickie Boxcar Bertha, which even manages to signal some of the visual strengths that would quickly become his trademark). New York, New York was bashed, I think unfairly, by critics upon release and never had a chance to find it's audience. Cape Fear is Scorsese's Touch of Evil, a master having so much fun playing with genre. The Color of Money for me is his least ambitious and ordinary movie, but that being said his stylistic touches are brilliant, the performances are a treat, and even the "least" of Scorsese's work is better than most directors' "best" stuff.

Anywho, what else to say? As a filmmaker I find him an expert craftsman, a complex and emotional storyteller, a master of mood and tone and music, a visual virtuoso who's style doesn't overwhelm the characters but magnifies them, he coaxes consistently flawless performances form the actors he works with, and all with an intensity and power that can still have surprising moments of humor - that's right, he's funny...like a clown...he amuses me.

Apart from his filmmaking, he's also the perfect ambassador for the craft and magic of the movies. He has been a tireless agent for the preservation and restoration of film since the '70s, a true champion of the medium. His passion for the art is palpable and contagious, one could say it even borders on mania. He has a depth and width of knowledge that is astounding, like an idiot savant of all things cinematic.

Put simply, he is The Man.


So that's my opening ramble. What are everybody's thoughts on Scorsese? Their likes and dislikes. Rate what you've seen, confess what you haven't. What were you blown away by, what made you scratch your head, what have you not even heard of?

*and for anyone who considers themselves a fan of the man, try your hand at my quiz on this site, HERE.

http://www.movieforums.com/community...1&d=1400871156

I think we could close this thread now and it would be perfect. I think the love letter that I just read is enough for any thread of Scorsese. None of us will outdo it. It covers everything. We don't need more posts in here. Know what I mean?

I've always considered Scorsese a genius hard to access. That said, it isn't because he is hard to access at all, but because it has been very difficult for a younger person to get a hold of, especially in a town like this. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't become a film buff when I was about twenty, and living somewhere other than here. That way I would have instant access to films that I can't get now, and I wouldn't have the painful, painful wait that is a result of knowing that these films do indeed exist. Do you know, again, what I mean?

Seeing Il Mio Viaggio In Italia opened my eyes to the utter, as Holden puts it, mania of the man, and it was probably the most refreshing thing I've ever seen, just in terms of realising that even the greatest living filmmaker wants to learn more, see more, and feel more. He has no misconceptions about his greatness. He really just loves movies. Film buffs usually make very good film directors. So maybe I have a chance. Down here, at least, my love for cinema is unparalled.

I rate what I have seen as following:

01. GoodFellas
02. Raging Bull
03. Il Mio Viaggio In Italia
04. Gangs Of New York
05. A Personal Journey

How disgusting is that? Honestly. That is so bad. But I am trying to redeem myself, I've got Taxi Driver on order, and I'm going to rent Casino this Friday. But to find The King Of Comedy or Mean Streets in a place like this, that's nearly impossible. I can wait, but I really don't want to.

Ultimately, I am glad that Scorsese didn't win the Academy Award for Gangs Of New York. He was without a doubt the best director, but there was something wrong about him winning it for Gangs, and in my opinion, winning it all. I felt that in winning, he might be lowered to the level of, well, other Oscar award winning directors. This was he stays a living legend. In a league with Hitch, and Kubrick, and Kurosawa. And I like that.

Mmmmm, that's what I forgot to rate as well, the two documentaries he made more recently: My Voyage to Italy (2001) and A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies (1995). The second of those Martin takes co-directorial credit, but even so, it surely counts.

I'd grade them both as A's. My Voyage to Italy hasn't been released on video yet, but I saw it last year theatrically as part of the D.C. Film Festival. It's a terrific companion to Italianamerican (1974), the film where he interviews his parents in their home. A Personal Journey... is a treat too, having a film buff wonderfully ramble, tracing and interpreting his own love of movies, from Duel in the Sun to Unforgiven, from Ford to Kubrick, from Melodrama to Noir. Yeah, good stuff, and an interesting idea. It never attempts to be comprehensive, rather exactly as the title states, his personal experience with the magic of American cinema.


Yeah, I'd be frustrated as all Hell if I had only seen three of Scorsese's narrative films. At least you've seen two of his very best in GoodFellas and Raging Bull. I have 'em all on video naturally (excluding Gangs of New York and My Voyage to Italy), and all letterboxed now too, except for "Life Lesons", and the early documentaries and student films that were not shot in widescreen of any kind. Heck, I even have "Mirror, Mirror", Marty's episode of Spielberg's anthology TV series "Amazing Stories" (1985-1987), on LD - a horror story of a Stephen King-type author being stalked by a phantom, starring Sam Waterston, Helen Shaver and Tim Robbins.

I've seen pieces of Taxi Driver and Cape Feare on television, but it's commercial television, and they've watered them down for Saturday movie prime time slots, and so I refuse to watch them. Which sounds, well, crazy, but the way I see it, they deserve to be seen untouched.

I've got Raging Bull on DVD, and I'm waiting for GoodFellas to come out with a better edition, some time this year, I believe.

Great thread. I love nerd-talk like this.

Personally I think my favourite three Scorsese films are:

1. Raging Bull
2. Goodfellas
3. King of Comedy

I think, like Holden said, that King of Comedy is probably Scorsese's most overlooked movie. But to me it is more a triumph for De Niro than for Scorsese. Here I think De Niro shows exactly why he's one of the best actors that has ever lived. To play a guy that annoying and yet in the end winning the sympathy of the audience. And Scorsese bringing it all together so nicely.

Taxi Driver is of course a very very cool film and a milestone in film history. But it's too much of a classic for me to have a personal relationship to it. I think I've seen it ten times since I was a kid or something and when I had developed the kind of interest for film that I have today, the film was just not interesting on that "analyzing level" anymore. I guess I knew the film too well. But it's supercool and De Niro is so awesome.

The worst Scorsese film according to me (I honestly have to say that there's a few I haven't seen yet) is Bringing Out the Dead. I really don't like that film at all. I saw it one time and didn't like it. I tried to watch it again to give it another shot a year later or so but couldn't even manage fo finish it. I think it's a b-version of Taxi Driver, but maybe I should try one more time to see it. I've heard a rumour saying that it's really not Scorsese that's directed it - which I don't know what to do with. But it certainly doesn't show his virtousity seen in his other work.

I haven't seen Gangs of New York yet, but I will as soon as I get the opportunity.

Once again, great thread, Holden. And thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

I really enjoyed Bringing Out The Dead [what a moron I am; I've seen Bringing Out The Dead too. It's my number three on the list]. This is what I wrote after seeing it for the first time:

Perhaps my "favorite" Scorsese movie, or at least the one I've watched the most times, is After Hours (1985). It's also one of his lesser-known.



After Hours is an extremely dark comedy, a Kafkaesque nightmare of guilt and big city paranoia. The story centers on Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne), a bored computer programmer in some nondescript Mid-town NYC office. His apartment is as drab and empty as the rest of his life. One evening while reading alone at a coffee shop, Paul meets Marci (Rosanna Arquette), a sexy blond. They have a breezy, flirty talk about Henry Miller and art and whatever. She makes mention of a friend's loft in SoHo where she's staying, finds an excuse to drop the phone number into the conversation, and then she's gone. On a whim and the whiff of possible romance, Paul calls her as soon as he gets home. She invites him out into the night, and though it's late and a weeknight, he accepts, and so begins his odyssey.




What follows is a dark, twisted, hilarious series of misadventures, as things spin further and further out of Paul's control and he seems stuck in the Hell of downtown after midnight and before sunrise. The movie is populated with a multitude of intriguingly bizarre characters, played to the hilt by an eclectic cast. Griffin Dunne (An American Werewolf in London) is the perfect protagonist to put through this kind of urban torture, a neurotic version of the everyman. Rosanna Arquette (Desperately Seeing Susan) simply is Marci, the hot-and-cold, always weird, but extremely sexy girl that coaxes him into this whole mess. Among the other odd denizens of the night are Teri Garr (Young Frankenstein, Mr. Mom) as a bee-hived waitress ("Do you like the Monkees?"), Cheech & Chong as a couple of roaming burglars, John Heard (Big, Home Alone) as a friendly bartender, Will Patton (No Way Out, The Postman) as a leather-bound tough guy, Catherine O'Hara ("SCTV", Best in Show) as an ice cream truck driver, and Linda Fiorentino (Men in Black, The Last Seduction) as the moody, half-dressed sculptress of Plaster-of-Paris bagel & cream cheese paperweights. Every role, no matter how small, is perfectly cast, from the cab driver to the bouncer outside the club to the token seller in the subway. The cab driver shoots a look of anger and annoyance that is so genuine, I cringe and laugh everytime I see it - a look I recognize instantly and all too well from personal experience.




Every situation, every character, every line, every camera move is so nuanced that you MUST watch the flick multiple times to begin to take it all in. The tone is patently unnerving. Scorsese is a master of...well, many things, including editing a film so that the audience becomes emotionally locked into what is happening on screen. In After Hours, that means you are empathetic witness to a nightmare. It's a really amazing movie, and a whole lot of fun. As Paul gets stuck deeper and deeper into he Hellish quagmire of the SoHo district, you can't help but feel for the guy - and laugh at him too. The entire plot is patently unlikely, but that's not the point. This is the stuff that surreal nightmares are made of, not pithy anecdotes. As the night rolls on and the tension builds, it becomes more and more hilarious. Well, it's hilarious if you find suicide and blood-thirsty mobs to be breeding grounds for comedy. Did I mention the mob is being led by a Mr. Softee Ice Cream truck playing a tinkling jingle? This is grotesque dark humor at its finest.

It's a wonderful script by Joseph Minion (Vampire's Kiss), who was an NYU student at the time. Longtime Marty collaborators Thelma Schoonmaker and Michael Ballhaus are along for the editing and cinematography chores, and Howard Shore (The Silence of the Lambs, SE7EN, The Lord of the Rings) adds a playfully haunting score. This is some of Schoonmaker's best work, right up there with Raging Bull and GoodFellas. Scorsese and Ballhaus really have some fun with stylized, exaggerated camera movement, so much so that you may want to take a Dramamine before you watch.

After Hours received very mixed reviews back in 1985, but it did nab Scorsese the Best Director at Cannes, a nomination for Dunne at the Golden Globes, and it won Best Feature at the very first Independent Spirit Awards. This is a brilliant movie that too-few people seem to know very well today, but it's one I force upon folks constantly. Usually whenever I do so, they are blown away, and even want to watch it again immediately.




*Newly released on DVD as of 2004, it's one of my very favorite movies, and actually makes a nifty double feature with another NYC odyssey of sexual guilt and paranoia, Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Nicely said Holden. After Hours is up there with Mean Streets as the Scorsese film I most anxiously await to see, and has been for nearly a year.

The King of Comedy was pretty badly trashed by critics and audiences alike upon its release back in 1983. This is one of the many instances where both groups missed the boat.



Perhaps it was sold incorrectly, giving the impression that it was supposed to be a "comedy", which it really isn't - though it certainaly has hysterical moments. But then, so do Taxi Driver and GoodFellas. Maybe Rupert Pupkin was just too bizarre a character, and DeNiro's performance too unfamiliar? And maybe the very topic and tone seemed too far-fetched and surreal at that time? Whatever the reasons, folks were seeing a classic movie unfold before their eyes, but weren't able to process it as such yet.



The King of Comedy is the story of Rupert Pupkin (DeNiro), a sorry would-be stand-up comedian who longs for his big break into the business. He doesn't have the courage or desire to actually play clubs, pay his dues, learn his craft by trial and error. Rather Rupert wants success and fame today, fully-formed, a megastar in one shot. He believes he could achieve this by appearing on "The Jerry Langford Show", a Johnny Carson "Tonight Show"-type program that films in New York City (just as Carson's show did before the move to L.A. in the early '70s). As the movie opens, Rupert creates a chance encounter with Langford, who is played extremely well by Jerry Lewis. He awkwardly fumbles through his wish to be a comedy star, and Jerry actually responds with fairly good advice. It's clear to us he just wants to get rid of this creep, but he also does so in a helpful if measured way. However, rather than shine some reality onto Pupkin's dream, this encounter sends him hurtling further down the path of fantasy and obsession.



What follows is a mixture of fantasy and reality as Rupert's subsequent attempts to interact with Jerry and appear on his show become more and more sad and dangerous, eventually boiling into a kidnapping plot where extortion may be Rupert's passport to television stardom. The rest of the cast includes Diahanne Abbott (DeNiro's real-life wife at the time, and already a smaller supporting player in Taxi Driver and New York, New York) as a girl from High School he always had a crush on and who he involves unwittingly in his schemes, Sandra Bernhard in her first screen role as another obsessed fan of Langford's - though hers is centered on delusional romantic desires and not showbiz ones, and Fred DeCordova (Johnny Carson's real-life producer) as the fictional show's producer. All the performances fit perfectly, including surprisingly good and textured work by Jerry Lewis, in the first real attempt at drama in his mostly clownish career. Scorsese cast and uses him expertly, drawing on his known persona and somehow intuiting he would be able to go toe-to-toe with Bobby DeNiro on screen in dramatic scenes. But this is a really showcase for DeNiro, and with this character he shows another more pathetic side of a Travis Bickle type.



The tone and the mixture of realities is perfectly done by Scorsese and company. The climate in 1983 should have been ripe for this satire, for the social trends that were being explored, but the effort was judged as a failure then. Remember this was only a few years after Mark David Chapman gunned down John Lennon outside his Manhattan apartment, and two years after John Hinkley shot President Reagan in Washington, D.C. - to which the clearly insane and disturbed Hinkley tried to explain by his own obsession with Jodie Foster and Scorsese's Taxi Driver. DeNiro was already a double-Oscar winner by now and a huge and respected movie star, so he understood the darker side of fame quite well. It was DeNiro who was keen on the project initially, in the late '70s, but Scorsese didn't see a way into it for himself. But after Raging Bull and a continued accumulation of fame of his own, Scorsese "got it" and it went into production.

One of the many sticking points for audiences, then and even now, is the ending. Without going into much detail for those who haven't seen it, let me just say that if after watching The King of Comedy your main response is "Was it real or a fatasy?", then you have COMPLETELY missed the entire point of the film. The point is that it could just as easily be either, that in American society as the filmmakers saw it, either was equally likely - which is a scary and sobering conclusion.



It's a movie that is way ahead of its time in many ways. The script was written before celebrity stalking and fame at any price had become as minstream, and even though the film's production was certainly colored by the shootings of Lennon and Reagan and therefore of it's time, reading old reviews and juding by the complete lack of box office interest, it would seem the level of obsession explored in The King of Comedy was deemed too abstract and impossibly silly. In today's climate, it seems quite common and understandable, and like Sidney Lumet's Network (1977), it's an over-the-top satire that has been eclipsed decades later by our bizarre reality.

The King of Comedy is another of Marty's masterworks, but like After Hours too little known (though the presence of DeNiro makes it a little more high profile than the megastar-less After Hours). It was thankfully released on R1 DVD in December of 2002, finally letterboxed (even the old LD was full frame) and with a few extras: unfortunately no audio commentary track this time (Scorsese was much too busy readying Gangs of New York), but it does include two deleted scenes, a brief but good 15-minute new retrosepctive documentary, and the theatrical trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wVhCCo02P4

My dream packaging for a deluxe LD, well now a DVD, would be an After Hours Special Edition, with an audio commentary track featuring Scorsese and Dunne, at least a 45-minute-long documentary featuring interviews of cast and crew, and a limited edition Plaster-of-Paris bagel & cream cheese paperweight.

I can dream, can't I?

Unforunately so. :D
I quite enjoy Scorcese's work, and I'd really like to see you take on most of his films this way. While it would be a large investment of time on your part, just remember that I am not you, and therefore have very little interest in how you spend your time as long as I get to enjoy reading your views on film.
After Hours was a film I rented on a whim long before I was mature enough to understand or appreciate it, but uponrepeat viewings, I view it as one of the most intentionally awkwardly funny movies of all time. Espescially in the strangely reminiscent (of Dudley Moore at his best, I believe) performance of GriffinDunne, who stumbles and wanders his way through this city only to realize that the obstacles presented to him impossible to escape.
As for The King of Comedy, one scene always comes to mind that encompasses the finer points of the film for myself. Rupert is in his bedroom conducting an interview of himself with a cardboard cut-out of Jerry Langford. Rupert even included another celebrity guest who sat next to him as he traded jokes with the cardboard Jerry.

Super genius? Most certainly.

Yeah, the bits of Rupert Pupkin in his basement "practicing" his talkshow banter are so awkward and pathetic, they're absolutely brilliant. The best of them is as he tries to make his tape for Jerry, and he keeps getting interrupted by his nebbish Mother pestering him from upstairs: "What are you doing down there?....Lower it!". Priceless.

http://www.movieforums.com/community...1&d=1403880156

And of course Mrs. Pupkin, who is only heard as a voice in the movie, is played by Scorsese's own mother, Catherine Scorsese. She and/or his father, Charles, appeared in many of his movies. Rupert's nagging mother was her best role up to that time (not counting the documentary "Italianamerican" where he interviews his folks), but of course her shining moment comes years later in GoodFellas, as the Joe Pesci character's mother ("Why don't you settle down, find yourself a nice girl?"). Charles wan't used as prominently, his most visible part coming in Raging Bull and GoodFellas as always present Mobster sidemen. One or both have at least cameos in the majority of the flicks, until Mr. Scorsese died after The Age of Innocence, and Mrs. Scorsese after Casino. Catherine famously cooked large authentic Italian dinners on just about all of his sets for cast and crew. A number of her recipes were even printed in a book.


Marty himself has cameos in many of his movies, especially up to The Color of Money. His most sizeable part with dialogue is the jealous husband in Travis' cab in the middle of Taxi Driver (he also has a true Hitchcockian cameo earlier in that movie), but he shows up quite a bit. Others include The King of Comedy, where he plays the director of the television show interacting with guest host Tony Randall before the taping. In After Hours he's only there for a blink, operating the spotlight in the rafters of The Club Berlin, after Paul is "mohawked". More recently he was the voice of one of the dispatchers in Bringing Out the Dead, and the wealthy home owner Amsterdam catches Jenny pulling the maid scam on in Gangs of New York.


Scorsese's daughter Cathy, from his first marriage, has a cameo in The King of Comedy, as the fan who wants Rupert's autograph at The Friar's Club. Good Lordy, I may know too much about the man's movies: thus, the restraining order! Well played, Mr. Marty, well played. For now....

.
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My shot.

I have a very suprising affection [suprising in terms of not expecting to feel so affectionate] for Raging Bull (1980), and it is a film that I can watch again and again over a short period of time, and still find new things to be amazed with every time.

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/im.../039_64829.jpg

I bought Raging Bull on DVD without having ever seen it. All I knew was that it was a Scorsese picture, that it was there, that I could buy it, and so I did. At first I was unimpressed. It is a hard film. Hard to take at first. Jake La Motta [Bobby DeNiro] is one of the most obnoxious jerks in cinematic history. The first time I watched the film I found it hard to sympathise with him, and I wondered if my money had been wasted. Of course, it hadn't. Not by a long shot.

The second time I watched it I noticed a Hell of a lot more [and I sympathised a lot more; the prison scene kill me now]. The fact that Raging Bull is extremely funny, for example [that is something about most Scorsese films that you don't pick up in one viewing. These things are tragic, sure, but they're hilarious too]. There is no funnier lines in the film than when Jake tells his wife that in burning the steak "it defeats its own purpose" and Joey lamenting [after having punched Jake in the face per request], "Your cuts are opening up and everything." It is laugh out loud. You don't feel it that first time 'round, because the film is so overwhelming.

I don't think there is a better scene from the 80s than the scene in which Joey tells Jake how to tune the TV. There is so much about that scene that cements the genius of Scorsese for me [more so than even the fight sequences]. You've got two brilliant actors going at each other, you've got Cathy Moriarty in her near perfect performance, you've got some amazing editing from Thelma [so very subtle]. You've got that shot that lingers on the staircase before slowly panning back to Jake, who actually looks like a the raging bull that he is. Then you've got the dialogue exchange, "D'you f_ck my wife?" which results in the best reaction in the entire film, the result of Marty telling DeNiro to say, "D'you f_ck my mother" without letting Pesci know. It is just a masterpiece of a scene. It transcends film direction for me. It is just there. Perfectly formed.

I don't really need to discuss the fight scenes because enough people have already spoken for them, and they don't need me to add redundant praise. All I feel about the fight scenes is summed up when I mention the shot of the referee [you know the shot], as he passes through a hellish and almost liquid whisp of smoke. They lit a fire underneath the camera for that. And that one shot sums up the technical genius of the film, more than one of the best opening credit sequences in history, more than the drop of blood on the ropes. As the referee passes through that mirage you just know that Scorsese had seen this thing in his mind so long before [the story of his reasons for making the film are well known; the book, the hospital bed, the salvation] , how innovative he is, and how [to put it simply] passionate he is. To go to the lengths of lighting a fire under the camera. It doesn't sound like much, but it is. To want to do that. To think, "I'm going to light a fire under the camera for this one shot". That says something to me. For me, Raging Bull is the masterpiece. GoodFellas is the favourite, but Raging Bull is the masterpiece.

Raging Bull is a difficult movie to take in. The level of uncomfortability and even disgust in watching such a repugnant man abuse the people around him on the spiral downward as he loses it all, it's overwhelmingly powerful, especially on initial viewing, so much so that I'm sure many an audience member has sat there thinking 'why should I care about this scumbag for two hours?'. Even though the highlights (and lowlights) of Jake's professional boxing career are hit, it doesn't play like a typical biopic, and certainly not a typical sports biopic. The level of brutality and honesty in Raging Bull is jarring, but it's also refreshing and amazing...once you allow yourself to become interested in a wholly unsympathetic character.

And talk about the tour de force performance of his generation, DeNiro as LaMotta is revelatory! The massive weight gain gets so much of the attention, but while it is an odd and impressive feat, it's only the physical manifestation of the complete transformation Bobby D. went through to play this role. It's a scary all-out performance that could have easily been overwhelmed by the technical bag of adjustments in lesser hands.



And all the acting, including DeNiro's masterwork, is so full of nuance and small moments revealing character and truth, it's easy to miss the texture and depth of it on first viewing. But the movie is so much ABOUT those seemingly small things, and the moment where Jake and Joey break from each other while fiddling with TV reception is a pefect example (as editor Schonmaker explained in a documentary for the UK DVD, perhaps the example...and one she can't even watch without laughing aloud at). Cathy Moriarty was only 19-years-old when this movie was made (nineteen!!!!), and Pesci had already given up on a stalled acting career after years of frustration. Both are so perfect, it's astounding at times to watch.



Like DeNiro's massive weight gain, the brilliant fight sequences do tend to get too much of the attention at times. They are spectacularly stylized, painstakingly created and each one unique, but to focus much on them does lose sight of the extraordinary body of and arc of the movie. It also toys with potential audience's expectations. Anyone either consciously or subconsciously expecting to see some varitaion on Rocky (1976) going in will be stunned and probably even outright bored by Raging Bull.

To that point in his career, Scorsese's love of the Italian neo-Realist cinema hadn't crept in so completely to the fabric and tone of one of his projects. Mean Streets overtly owes more to Cassavetes, and Taxi Driver to Film Noir, but Raging Bull is clearly more aligned with Visconti. This is yet another stumbling block in mass audiences accepting the film (especially in America), that it unfolds so slowly in comparison to regular Hollywood fare, and is almost completely about character rather than plot. And an unappealing character at that.



There's a nice R2 Special Edition 20th Anniversay DVD that includes a thirty-minute retrospective documentary. DeNiro isn't interviewed, which is a shame, but it does have the real Jake LaMotta, and some good insights by a couple critics and Thelma Schoonmaker in particular. The Criterion LaserDisc has an audio commentary track with Scorsese and Schoonmaker that is probably my favorite of all such recordings. Unfortunately nothing approaching a special edition has yet been made for U.S. DVD or VHS.



And to drag up the subject of Oscar snubs for just a moment, it is exasperating to think that Robert Redford and Ordinary People were given top honors over Marty and Raging Bull. I like Ordinary People just fine, it has some really terrific work by Hutton and Moore especially, but as good as it is, it still plays like the best made-for-TV weeper ever made, and to have it elevated by the Academy over a movie as complex and difficult and as masterfully created and artistically true on every level as Raging Bull....it's just depressing (in the awards injustice sense, of course).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2UKuKxCJqc

This is such a geek thread for geeks. I'm loving it.

The Special Edition 20th Anniversary DVD is that which I own, and yes, it is a shame that neither Scorsese nor DeNiro is interviewed in the documentary [entitled The Bronx Bull], but Thelma Shoonmaker, as you say, is worth the price of admission alone. It is interesting also [though not as interesting as the two men who made this picture would have been] to hear the critics reflect on the film; the initial poor reception and, of course, the Oscar snubs, which are some of the more obviously and blatantly unjustified snubs in Academy Award history in my opinion.

I love DeNiro as LaMotta ["Honey, let's be friends!" gets me every time], though in the same manner one can focus too heavily on the fight scenes, I find that the other performances can often be lost when compared to his. That is not to say that DeNiro does not deliver one of the best performances in history [and let's face it, to deny such a thing would be ludicrous], but that the overall impeccable cast is just that; one of the most impeccable ensembles ever thrown together [I smile for a moment as I consider Joe Pesci attacking Frank Vincent in the restaurant...]

This film is technically astounding, and along with Lawrence Of Arabia I consider it one of the most overall emotionally and aesthetically satisfying films I have ever seen. This is even more of an inspiration to an aspiring filmmaker when you consider the fact that Raging Bull is very traditional in terms of technique; Scorsese really doesn't rely on flashy tricks to create interest, but to aid the story; something that is lacking amongst the MTV fodder films of today. Raging Bull is just so perfectly, and [if you know what I mean] honorably, crafted, and for me there is nothing better.

So. Holden. I think it is time for GoodFellas.

We can't ignore Travis Bickle...

I don't think I said we would...

I never said you did...

Did so...

My favs...........he is just total class..........

Casino
Gangs of New York
Taxi Driver
Cape Fear
GoodFellas
The Age of Innocence
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
New York, New York
The Color of Money

The only true re-make Scorsese has done to date is Cape Fear, from a pulp novel called The Executioners by John D. MacDonald, previously adapted to film in 1962 by British-born director J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone), starring Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Martin Balsam and Telly Savalas. Scorsese was a big fan of the movie, one of the latter Noir classics, so he knew there was no need to re-make it in the same tone and style. His own spin on the material is quite different, though while keeping the same main plot points and conflicts, he paints a more complex morality tale for a more complex time.



The movie is about vengeance, and the inability to outrun past mistakes. Nick Nolte, who previously worked with Scorsese on the short film "Life Lessons" (one segment of the anthology New York Stories), stars as Sam Bowden, a Southern defense attorney who has just moved to a new small town with his wife, played by Jessica Lange, and teenage daughter, played by Juliette Lewis. On the surface everything is perfect, but we quickly learn that Sam is on the flirtatious verge of an adulterous affair with a co-worker (Illeana Douglas), and there is much underlying tension in the marriage because of past infidelities - part of the reason for the move and "new" start. Also, their daughter Danielle, rebellious and just coming into her sexuality though unsure of what it is, was caught with some pot at school and must take a summer school course. Despite the huge house and good job in an idyllic town, the Bowden family is far from perfect. Then enters The Devil, who comes in the form of Max Cady (DeNiro), a hard-as-nails ex-con who has just been released after a long sentence. He's come looking for Sam Bowden, his former attorney, who he blames for his incarceration - for the rape and brutal beating of a young woman. Soon Cady will be wreaking true terror on all three members of the Bowden family, at first with intimidation, building surely to life-threatening peril.



While the basics of ex-con Cady terrorizing the Bowdens are the same, this modernized version is really much, much different than the '62 flick. In the original, Mr. and Mrs. Bowden (Peck and Bergen) had a strong marriage, and their daughter was a good and happy child. Cady (Mitchum) came at them relentlessly, but his anger was really irrational and insane. In the Scorsese version, the Bowdens have all kinds of issues and faults, and Cady's rage - while certainly insane, is justified on some basic level, because we learn that Sam had actually blown the case intentionally, having essentially passed judgement on the horrible crime of his client. Peck's attorney had done his job to the letter, but Mitchum still blamed him anyway. Nolte's lawyer buried evidence that could have either gotten DeNiro's monster off completely or at least severely decreased his sentence. That decision, while understandable on a human level because Cady's crime was so viscious, is of course completely and totally wrong in regards to the ethics of the law and our system of justice. All of these changes make the story more complicated, and for me much more engaging and real (even if the tone often approaches the surreal). The Demon trying to destroy them is one of Sam's own creation, and the weaknesses Cady uses to get at them are further extensions of their own faults and failures, not just a random Hell coming to attack a perfect family.



The visuals, as well as the tone, are very stylized. Scorsese and cinematographer Freddie Francis (The Elephant Man, Glory, The Straight Story) really have fun with the look of the film, and this was Scorsese's first use of a true 2.35:1 widescreen process. It is something he had avoided over his career specifically because he hated seeing scope films butchered with panning and scanning for TV and video distribution, but with the advent of LaserDiscs he knew the proper aspect ratio could now be maintained. He uses every inch of the wide frame - some amazing compositions. The musical score by Elmer Berstein is for the most part a re-arrangement of the original score from Thompson's film, a wonderful theme by the immortal Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane, Verigo, Psycho), who's last score was for Marty's Taxi Driver (completed quite literally in the last days of his life). It was a perfect idea, that Scorsese credits to a suggestion from DeNiro. It is a powerful and thunderous piece of music, and perfectly matches the style of the movie - part loving hommage, part winking exaggeration.

Scorsese also has loads of fun with the thriller genre conventions. For me this is his Touch of Evil. Just as Welles was able to add his artistry and perspective to a pulpy Noir tale, so does Scorsese here with material that, even with the added psychological deminsions and character flaws, is still at the roots very much a genre piece and adheres to (while still playing with and commenting upon) those rules and cliches.



Nolte is very good and controlled as Sam, and Lange is his equal as the very tough but almost at her breaking point Leigh. Juliette Lewis was an amazing find (her biggest role to that time was as Audrey in Christmas Vacation), and she was rightly Oscar nominated for her pitch perfect work as the curious teen who's budding sexuality leads straight to Hell and terror. The creepy nature of her relationship with Cady is another ingredient absent from the original, as you'd expect. And of course, yet again, DeNiro (also Oscar nominated) goes through another physical and karmic transformation to become the super-muscular, overly-tattooed monster with a thick Southern drawl and a head full of vengeance and Bible quotations. His performance is pitched at the same stylized level as the visuals and tone, and while certainly over-the-top, it is an intentional camp that still manages to be credibly horrifying and believable while also cartoonish and broad, a real multi-dimensional character and a parody at the same time.

The supporting cast includes Joe Don Baker (Charley Varrick, Walking Tall) as a private investigator Sam hires to help steer Cady clear of his family, good ol' Fred Dalton Thompson (The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2) as Bowden's boss, and in three wonderful cameos as a cop, a lawyer and a judge respectively, Bob Mitchum, Gregory Peck and Martin Balsam - the stars of the '62 film.


"Maybe I'm the Big Bad Wolf?"

Because some of the thriller conventions are so silly out of context, and because the entire movie is stylized so over-the-top, building to a fantastic if unlikely crescendo of a finale, Cape Fear is probably easily dismissed by many as nothing more than a slick and ridiculous thriller, which on one level it is. But there is much more to the movie than those simple surface elements, and it makes for one of Scorsese's most fun and accessible works (though definitely adult and grisly).



An interesting trvia note: Cape Fear was originally supposed to be made by Steven Spielberg, and Schindler's List by Scorsese. They essentially traded projects, when Marty thought a Jewish director might bring something he couldn't to the material. The Cape Fear screenwriter, Wesley Strick (Arachnophobia, Wolf), had adapted the original with Spielberg in mind, and as you'd imagine the movie was far less dark and not as morally murky. When he learned Scorsese was helming the project, he gleefully excised the perfect family for the troubled group and demonic terror. Scorsese was rewarded with the most commercially successful movie of his career, and Spielberg with dozens of awards. But, oh, to imagine Schindler in the hands of Martin Scorsese...!



Cape Fear was released as a special edition R1 DVD in 2001 (as was the 1962 original version), including deleted scenes and an excellent retrospective documentary. No commentary track though (again, too busy with Gangs of New York).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDWEc2_Hqrg&t=2s

Question, Pikey. You say, "Oh to imagine Schindler in the hands of Martin Scorsese..." and I wonder what you mean. No doubt you believe it would be an amazing film, but I ask you, what do you think Schindler's List would have been like if helmed by Marty?

Spielberg's Schindler's List is a powerful, earnest and important film, with strong performances by Neeson and Kingsley and a great turn by Finnes. It deserves all the attention, Oscars and whatever other accolades it receives. BUT, having said that, it is flawed for me, and the flaw has to do with Spielberg as a filmmaker. For all the inherent power and emotion of the movie, I find Spielberg undercuts it at the end. Not the CODA with the survivors, which is both sobering and haunting, but the end of the narrative itself, the tearful speech Schindler makes. It's melodramatic, overly theatrical and unnecessary. It smacks of Spielberg's sentimentality, which is fine I suppose, and I know most audiences accept that scene completely and are probably even moved by it. But I find it inconcruous with the body of the movie, and again, unncecessary and even cheap. That isn't a scene I can imagine Scorsese having ever filmed.

I don't really know how else the movie may have differed specifically (if anyone could predict what Scorsese'd do, he wouldn't be the filmmaker he is), but it certainly would have been interesting to see Scorsese tackle the Holocaust as a subject matter. I also wonder how he would have cast it. His choice of Willem Dafoe for example as Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ was so unusual but so intuitively on-target. Who would have been Scorsese's Oskar Schindler? Can you imagine Daniel Day-Lewis in the role perhaps? I don't believe Marty had reached the stage of casting yet, but who knows which actors may have filled the roles?

Anyway, Spielberg made an important movie, and except for that one key scene and a couple other little sentimental false notes here and there, I have no qualms with it as is - it's a success for sure. But Scorsese's is such a different artist and sensibility than Spielberg's, the differences surely would have been interesting to see. Most probably would have been subtle, but others likely disperate.

And on an awards level, no matter how different Scorsese's Schindler's List might have been, I think the end result would have been exactly the same: armfulls of awards, including the elusive Oscar.


As another sidetrack, it's a also a shame that the success of Schindler's List stopped Kubrick's own long-researched Holocaust project from ever going into production. His was certainly another sensibilty and genius I would have liked to see address the subject. But alas...



And now, back to Scorsese!

Of Scorsese's post-GoodFellas movies, it is probably fair to say that Bringing Out The Dead is both the least known, and the most underrated. It tells the delirious and detached tale of a haunted man in a haunted world – Nicolas Cage driving the streets of a vice ridden mid-90s Manhattan, accompanied by three remote partners, on three nights, with the image of a dead girl lingering ever on his mind.

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0163988/AU23_2_47.jpg

To say that I had no idea that Bringing Out The Dead was a Scorsese film is an understatement. I had no idea, at all, in Hell that this was a Scorsese picture until I read the Ebert review – and then I was all like, "oh, my God, I gotta see that!" I knew it was at my video store. I knew it was on DVD. And now I had reason – why had I never hired it before? It really didn't appeal to me from a distance. The title rang bells, but not enough, for me to register anything. Bringing Out The Dead is a film so under known that the title meant nothing to me – and while I may not have see enough Scorsese films, it isn't like I didn't know that they existed. Why is it that this was the Scorsese picture that I didn't even know Scorsese made? This marks Bringing Out The Dead in my opinion; no one really knows about it, and to be dead honest, it is a crying shame.

With some amazing technical flourishes [the shot that rotates imagery of an ambulance driving down a busy city street by ninety degrees still blows my mind], and a visual palette that reminds me of [and as Holden compares After Hours to the following film, I note this quite interestingly] Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Nothing is subdued about Bringing Out The Dead in terms of visuals – it is blaring, it burns at the eyes and at the mind. Juxtaposed against the silent desperation of the characters, Scorsese, Shoonmaker and Richardson create a loud and intensely paranoid schizophrenic visual landscape that, much like Eyes Wide Shut, seems to be coked up to the gills. It is definitely one of the most visually inspiring films I have seen in terms of atmosphere in my next screenplay, Beautiful Story.

The performance of Nicolas Cage is probably a lot like his role in Leaving Los Vegas [which once again is a film that employs a very colourful nightmarish city as its backdrop] in terms of the impending doom that seems to mark his character. It is a wonderful role and perfectly executed for much of the film, but it is important to note that the character is less about moving the thin traces of a story, but simply about bearing testament to it – he becomes our eyes. His role as our collective eye is much like that of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby in some ways, and it is important that he is not the focal point of Schrader's screenplay, but simply a vehicle through which we are able to experience this world. As a result it is fair to say that Cage does a bang up job, but it is fairer to say that it is the characters around him that steal the show, especially Ving Rhames as the evangelistic Marcus – a tour de force of sorts, and this is how supporting roles should be played, dammit.

I posted my initial thoughts on Bringing Out The Dead on the FIRST PAGE of this thread [go read them], and so much else of what I could now say would be redundant, other than that this is one film that is totally undeserving of its obscurity – it is without doubt one of the better films of 1999, and indeed, the latter nineties period. I'm not sure about R1 DVD, but the R4 version has just been released down here, with a pretty standard PR piece of crap attached. That said, even without a swag of extras, Bringing Out The Dead is a literal must have, not only because it is a Scorsese film, but because it is a wonderful Scorsese film to boot.

Bringing Out the Dead was certainly underrated, misunderstood and even generally ignored during its U.S. release in 1999, but you could hardly call it unknown. It was promoted very heavily, and Scorsese and Cage are both high-profile names. That few went to see it, and that those audiences that did were largely unimpressed, has nothing to do with its marquee value. If Eyes Wide Shut hadn't been released earlier that year, I'd say Bringing Out the Dead was probably the most misunderstood movie of the year - but as usual Kubrick won that prize...sadly this time posthumously.

A return to the mean streets, this time Hell's Kitchen via the busy night shift of an ambulance crew. Frank Pierce (Nic Cage) is burned out which is manifesting as insomnia, depression, and probably some job-related PTSD, and of late he is starting to see visions. Are these simple hallucinations brought on by his lack of sleep and mental duress, or are they ghosts walking through the same chaotic nights he is working in? Frank has a series of partners, played by Vingh Rhames, John Goodman, and Tom Sizemore who all deal with the stress of the job in their own ways - Marcus (Rhames) is an almost evangelical preacher, Larry is trying his best just to focus on the job and get through a shift, and Tom (Sizemore) seems as high-strung as the junkies they encounter nightly. Mary (Patricia Arquette) is the daughter of a recent patient and may be a rope Frank can cling to in the swimming nightmare to tether him back to the land of the living.



It was a Scorsese return to New York nights with screenwriter Paul Schrader, who adapted the novel by Joe Connelly. While Taxi Driver may present a hopeless character, Frank - as far gone as he is - can still be saved. The fevered nightmare of lower Manhattan at night is different than Taxi Driver or After Hours, but just as palpable.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfUwvmRmMtw


The post-GoodFellas movie that is truly unknown and hardly many would think of as Scorsese attached to is Kundun (1997). The story of the Dalai Lama being discovered then exiled by the Communist Chinese, with not one American or English actor appearing in it, set entirely in Tibet and China. THAT is a tough sell, marketing wise, against Adam Sandler and Steven Segal movies. At least the other Dalai Lama movie from about the same time, Seven Years in Tibet, had Brad Pitt to help sell it (not that it helped much).

And I'd say The Age of Innocence (1993), too, is probably less known than Bringing Out the Dead, though it did manage to get five Oscar nominations (and even a win, for Gabriella Pescuicci's costumes). Certainly, the genre of literary costume drama is less obviously "Scorsese-like" than Bringing Out the Dead, which is another nighttime odyssey on the streets of Manhattan (see also Taxi Driver and After Hours). Anyway, most of Scorsese's works, apart from the three touchstones in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and GoodFellas, are underknown and underappreciated on one or more levels. And remember, even the least-popular Adam Sandler vehicle is seemingly more widely popular than even those three films, so it's all about perspective.

Well, I knew about Kundun and The Age Of Innocence.

But then I guess that even if I was unaware of Bringing Out The Dead being a Scorsese picture, I'm still more cinematically educated than your run of the mill moron.

"A love story is like a song: it's beautiful while it lasts..."


New York, New York (1977) is far and away Scorsese's least liked and most universally derided film. It was a huge critical and financial disappointment upon its release in 1977. Today, even with it being a Scorsese/DeNiro collaboration, it is so little known that few probably even realize the song "New York, New York" (properly titled "Theme from New York, New York") is from this film (you know, "These little town blues, are leaving today, I'll make a brand new start of it...", etc.). Its reputation is so bad that I don't think anyone even gives it a chance. But while far from his masterpieces, New York, New York is an interesting movie, and has strong points to recommend.



The story opens with the crowded happy streets in the middle of Manhattan on V-J Day, 1945. Through the celebratory crowd the camera finds Jimmy Doyle (DeNiro), a fast-talking overly-confident schemer in a loud shirt. While trying to score from gal to gal in their post-war euphoria, he comes up against Francine Evans (Liza Minnelli), a WAC sitting alone because one of Jimmy's pals has escorted her friend away to the dance floor (and later a hotel room). Jimmy tries half-heartedly to pick Francine up, but she's not the least bit interested. So naturally Jimmy tries harder, until he won't leave her alone unless she agrees to give him a chance. Francine isn't just being coy, she instantly sees through Doyle's horsesh!t. This both angers and intrigues him.



The next day they somehow wind up in a cab together and she learns he's a musician, a saxophonist. She accompanies him to an audition where he's trying to be the house bandleader in a mid-sized club. When it starts going badly and Jimmy is just about to be thrown out for his temper and unwillingness to compromise, Francine stands up and starts crooning - turns out she's an aspiring singer in her own right. The club owner loves them as a double act, and they're thrown in together. Jimmy is not only a first-rate sax player, but also a gifted composer, though his tastes run more toward the burgeoning BeBop movement up in Harlem, not the popular music of the day. Francine on the other hand is perfectly suited for the mainstream, a star waiting to happen. She's attracted to Jimmy's talent and artistry, so against her better judgment they become lovers as well as co-workers.

And that's the central conflict and background of New York, New York. It sounds like any number of Musicals from the '30s or '40s, and of course that is intentional. It's even a very loose re-working of a 1946 Raoul Walsh flick called The Man I Love, which starred Ida Lupino. But it could just as well have used any number of those Musical melodramas as a blueprint. Scorsese is a fan of that time period and those types of films, so in many ways his New York, New York is an hommage. But Marty also tried to add something of his own time and experience, and it's an experiment with mixed results.



Scorsese's central idea was to use the frame of that genre as well as its visual style and signature - such as big sets and a patterend Technicolor look, but the new wrinkle added would be the characterizations and the pacing, which would be more akin to Cassavetes, with lots of improvisation and a frankness in dealing with subject matter that in the 1940s would have been unsavory or off-limits. There are times this unlikely combination works perfectly, perhaps the best example being the scene where Jimmy and Francine meet and argue back and forth on V-J Day. The freshness is clearly due to improvisation, and it melds seemlessly with the stylized look at sets. But there are other instances, especially in the last third of the movie, where this combo falls flat. The acting and character work, while true and convincing in the context of the particular scene, is simply out of place against the backdrop and doesn't link up well with what is before or after it. There is a lack of coherence in the idea by the end parts of the flick.

So that's both the essential strength and the fatal flaw of the project: it tries for something ambitious and new, and when it works it's marvelous, but when it doesn't it's awkward. Todd Haynes tried something similar with last year's Far From Heaven, using the tone, style, visual fabric and plot conventions from the '50s melodramas of Douglas Sirk, but with subject matter and performances from a more modern perspective. For me personally, I think New York, New York is more ambitious and more successful in this regard, but judging by critics and audience response, most would say exactly the opposite. Whichever you prefer, the experiment is very similar. Both also offer more levels to the viewer who is more familiar with the genres and films being used as reference points. If you know A Star is Born and The Best Years of Our Lives, the more you'll likely appreciate the attention to textual detail in New York, New York. Likewise, if you've seen All That Heaven Allows and Magnificent Obsession, you can marvel at the loving recreations and parallels in Far From Hevean.

I think Scorsese's idea mostly works, and the wonderful moments in New York, New York outweigh the hollow ones. But I can also see why critics and audiences would focus on the false notes.



The performances of DeNiro and Minnelli in the leads also echo the stradling of two styles. Bobby D. has the look of a '50 leading man here, but his harshness and cruelty are definitely modern. His petty and jealous egomaniac who can't possibly give another person love is a darker and more complex version of the archetype from the '40s and '50s, an artist who uses his art as an excuse to treat the people around him like crap. And true to his Method, DeNiro learned how to play the saxophone before filming began - quite well, apparently. Minnelli, who had won the Best Actress Oscar only a few years before for Cabaret, is obviously used by Scorsese more than partially to echo her Mother and her Father's body of work - singing movie star Judy Garland being her mother, and director Vincente Minnelli - one of Marty's favorites - who helmed such classics as An American in Paris, Father of the Bride, Meet Me in St. Louis and The Bad & the Beautiful, being her Pop. Her singing and look automatically harken back to yesteryear, but she also gives an emotionally raw and layered performance seldom seen in that age.



The rest of the cast includes Barry Primus, Lionel Stander and Mary Kay Place, but for all the minor characters and hundreds of extras, this is very much a two character movie.

The film ran nearly three hours on first release, and was later cut by about twenty minutes. Both versions were deemed too long for an experimental Musical by most who saw it. Years later in 1981, after the theme song had quickly become a standard (thanks in large part to Frank Sinatra's rendition) and Scorsese was a darling again after the critical success of Raging Bull, an even longer version was released, including an elabroate production number near the end that was filmed before but never used, "Happy Endings", similar in size and complexity to the "Broadway Melody" showpiece at the center of Singin' in the Rain. Again the movie was deemed unweildy and a failure by the majority.

But I think it's worth taking a chance on and discovering for yourself. It definitely has a strong love-it/hate-it thing going on. Those who love it tend to overlook the flaws and are wowed by the brilliance and execution of such a tricky idea. Those who hate it see the flaws more vividly than anything else, so the pacing and length become a torture and the mix incongruous. At least it's not a viewing experience you're likely to come away from with no opinion at all, and perhaps that's reason enough to recommend it. Plus the music is terrific (shockingly, "New York, New York" was not even nominated for best original song at that year's Oscars, where Debbie Boone's sappy "You Light Up My Life" somehow beat out Carly Simon's Bond tune "Nobody Does it Better").



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spKekOaHa4k
"These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray..."

Great news. Over the holidays a local film buff is getting a heap of his own private stash of films to me. King Of Comedy, Taxi Driver, possibly After Hours. Plus a heap of Kurosawa, Renoir, Melville, Kubrick, De Sica, Sirk...

I will let you know what I think of them all. I'm starting on them first chance I get tomorrow, most probably with King Of Comedy, after all the discussion here.

What holidays? Wallabe Freedom Day?

Easter vacation, Chumps.

In 1978, Scorsese decided to get together with a few friends and make a film record of some of Steven Prince's autobiographical stories. The resulting movie, American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince, is a simple project, but actually falls right in line with themes and interests common in much of his work.

http://www.movieforums.com/community...1&d=1322064264 http://www.movieforums.com/community...1&d=1322064292

Steven Prince is a face (he's kind of like a taller Steve Buscemi type - you know, funny lookin') you might remember from Taxi Driver, where he played "Anytime" Andy, the shady speed-freak who sells Travis the guns he will later use as an avenging angel. He also has a brief role in New York, New York as the producer in the recording booth when Minnelli is cutting a song. But Prince's brief career as a walk-on actor in small parts of Scorsese movies is nothing compared to the tales he tells of his life.

Some of the more memorable episodes Prince recalls are from his days as a Rock & Roll roadie for Neil Diamond and others, an attempted robbery while he was working nights at a secluded gas station, and plenty from his years as an addict. The most noteable for many viewers will be one of the drug stories, that goes exactly like this...

Of course many will very quickly recognize that as one of the most memorable and heralded scenes from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994), where Travolta's Vincent and Eric Stoltz's Lance desperately work to revive the O.D.'d Mrs. Marsellus Wallace (Uma Thurman). Quentin freely admits American Boy is the source of that scene (how could he do otherwise?), and of course Tarantino realizes it brilliantly and adds the character points and such of his own, but basically it is taken almost word for word from Prince's description. Since Scorsese's documentary is fairly obscure - even to many Scorsese fans, few Pulp Fiction audiences will recognize the hommage, and may even be shocked when that segment of American Boy comes up. I saw this at a revival screening in San Francisco, where fully half of the audience started gasping "Hey!" and "No fu*king way" and "Isn't that...?" etc. during that piece of the movie.

Fans of a more recent movie, Linklater's Waking Life (2001), will also recognize the story of Prince using deadly force to defend himself against a drug-crazed would-be robber at a gas station. But Linklater has the current day (and animated, naturally) Prince tell the story himself all over again. It hasn't changed much, though the version in American Boy is longer and more detailed, and actually seeing Steven's eyes as he tells about killing a man is sad and fascinating.

http://www.filmforum.org/films/scors...orsese2_04.jpg

Scorsese does nothing flashy editorially with American Boy, and the majority of the film is simply Prince on a couch in a room full of friends talking, sometimes prompted by Marty or one of the others, including George Memmoli. He's another familiar face from a couple Scorsese flicks, most prominently as the fat fella in the poolhall who starts the brawl with Charlie and Johnny Boy by calling them "mooks". It is actually his California house where the documentary is being filmed. Anyway, the only real editorial addition Marty makes is the use of Neil Young's "Time Fades Away" over the opening and closing credits, and some bits of old Prince family home movies featuring Steven as a toddler and young boy. The juxtaposition of these completely innocent childhood moments with the wild and often sordid details of the same man's later life is an easy but effective observation. Prince started out as an average middle class kid in suburbia, full of smiles and dreams of being a cowboy. He wound up with heroin needles in his arm and a dead man at the end of a gun.

This dissolution of the American dream into corrupt horrors - though often seemingly good-natured ones on some level at least in this film, as Prince the survivor is a funny and compelling storyteller - is right at home along side Henry Hill's story in GoodFellas, Travis Bickle's in Taxi Driver, Charlie's in Mean Streets or Alice Hyatt's in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. It's also clear after seeing American Boy why Scorsese was confident to cast non-actor Steven as Andy in Taxi Driver. It's practically type-casting.

American Boy only runs about an hour, but it's an entertaining and reavealing look at one man's troubled journey. It's a must as a curio for Pulp Fiction devotees so they can see one of Tarantino's many sources, but beyond that it's compelling and interesting as a whole. Take a look, if'n you can find a copy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxaNe2SY-AI

Jesus, I had no idea.
I am actually and literally leaving to scour the video stores of my town right... now.

Anybody caught the new American Express television commercial starring Scorsese? It's a brilliant, hilarious little skit. Marty is at a drugstore picking up snapshots he's taken, of a child's birthday party. He flips through them disgusted with himself, chastising his own work ("I should have gotten the bigger pony, because it doesn't read....How could I have done this? I have lost the narrative thread"), muttering to the teenage clerk. It ends with Scorsese deciding he must re-shoot, and the last line as he's walking out is on his cell phone: "Yeah, Timmy? It's your Uncle Marty. How'd you like to turn five again?". 'American Express, the card of perfectionists', is the campaign.

Very funny. I saw it for the first time Saturday morning, and then I was lucky enough to catch it again and even tape it. Great stuff. Gotta find out who wrote it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45iZP6AWT3c

oh yeah.........he is a super genius...........

but........

is he ...............gib........


hmmmmmmmmm.........shows how immature or NUTZ.......I really am.......

:yup: ... The first time I saw it, it took a second for it to dawn on me what was going on… but I love it... :laugh:

I love the look he gives the clerk after he says, "It's pretty". Rich, very rich.

Just determining my favourites again...

01. GoodFellas A+++
02. Raging Bull A+++
03. Taxi Driver A+++
04. After Hours A++
05. The King Of Comedy A+
06. Bringing Out The Dead A
07. Gangs Of New York B+
08. Casino B

And the two documentaries are both wonderful too.

Martin Scorsese - King Missile

This one' called Martin Scorsese
He makes the best ****ing films
He makes the best ****ing films
If I ever meet him I'm gonna grab his ****in' neck and just shake him
And say thank you thank you for makin' such excellent ****in' movies
Then I'd twist his nose all the way the **** around
And the rip off one of his ears and throw it
Like a like a like a ****in' frisbee
I wanna chew his ****in' lips off and grab his head and suck out one of his
eyes and chew on it and spit it out in his face
And thank you thank you for all of your ****in' films
Then I'd pick him up by the hair swing him over my head a few times
And throw him across the room and kick all his ****in' teeth in and then
stomp on his face 40 or 50 times
Cuz he makes the best ****ing films he makes the best ****ing films
I've ever seen in my life
I ****in love him
I ****in love him

****ed up poem dude....

My Personal Five Favorite Scorsese Flicks:

1.Goodfellas

2.Gangs of New York

3.Cape Fear

4.Taxi Driver

5.Casino

all just frankly (in my opinion) breathtaking works of cinema

Its not a poem its a song by the fabulos King Missile. Listen to it some time. The video clip is also very good

I read a magazine interview with Michael Chapman today (Were he and I reading the interview together? 'Tis a mystery.), and it occurred to me that this thread has been seemingly abandoned. Where-what-gone-who?