I guess it depends on what you mean by "move away." I think Scorsese does crime/mob films well, and so I'm glad he's done several, and I'm skeptical that his forays into other types of films have necessarily improved his later work. You tell me: is The Departed better than Goodfellas for having come after he'd also made The Aviator?
I thought The Departed was a joke regardless of coming after The Aviator or not. I think what you're asking is do I give The Departed more leeway because he broke away for a bit before it? I mean, that far into his career, he's gotten a lot more involved in other things than fiction, his documentaries are always interesting, the films he produces are usually interesting, and he had Gangs of New York in there somewhere. The Departed seemed like a full-out money maker to me, I think he just wanted to do something easy, and good for him I guess but I didn't enjoy it. Wouldn't a better question be was Casino worse because it came right after Goodfellas? My answer would be yes because it just happened to be less interesting and had less to say.
I think directors have styles and strengths and while I like them to try other things, I don't think there's anything at all negative about playing to those strengths. Even if I did, such an opinion would lead me to have a lot of problems with a lot of directors, because most of them clearly have a specialty they routinely employ or a topic they continually come back to. I feel like that kind of focus is probably a natural byproduct of the passion that produces most great directors to begin with.
Again I'm not saying don't play your strengths, just do it in new ways. However, I do feel a lot of directors are just not even trying to do anything outside their comfort zone and it's super easy to get away with here because samey stuff sells. If you couldn't tell yet, I'm not a big fan of appeal for appeal's sake.
But even on a factual level, is it really true that his films always revolve around crime? Inception doesn't really, if you ask me. It does exactly what you're saying: tell a story where crime is a component, but not really the point. It's about the awesome power of ideas and their consequences. Crime is merely the mechanism from which it's examined.
If it was about ideas, then it would include something more than gunfights and pseudo-intellectual explanations of what's about to happen next. The whole subplot with Leo was there to appeal as far as I'm concerned because it just wasn't that grabbing. Sure it added a bit more empathy for the guy but if he wasn't so predictable, and if the film made you actually think about what your dreams can be/are/produce/destroy, which it doesn't at all, it wouldn't have been a blockbuster but it would have had more merit.
The Dark Knight has lots of crime in it, but it's more about what civilization actually means, the relationship between democracy and consequences, and about how complicated true heroism can be.
I agree, but it asks too obvious of questions for me to consider it stretching his talents. Plus it wasn't really filmed well. Really expensive cameras doesn't mean you have good cinematography or miss en scene.
Memento is about memory, obviously, and how it's both unreliable and an indelible part of who we are.
No argument here. Why, though, was the finale so freakin illogical that it demeaned the venture of the whole film? He did what he did because he's stupid, but somehow he can play detective with short-term memory. Did it have to be murder? Couldn't he have just tried to kill her and give him more to fight against? It was awfully heavy handed for something with that kind of promise.
I'm just not seeing the crime-centric picture you guys are painting. I feel like he's already using crime the way you suggest: as a backdrop to explore something else.
I guess you're not wrong, but now I feel like my complaint is that he half-asses it. Whether he does it on purpose or hasn't done a rewrite in his life is unbeknownst to me
Originally Posted by bouncing brick
The_Prestige, you talked about his sense of humor and how the jokes are dark and subtle. That's fine, to a point. But every single one of his films exist on that level. There are no belly laughs. There's no temporary relief from the pace of his films, be it humor or any kind. They are relentless.
I don't think it's necessary for the humor to change. Or change from being relentless. Just change to something worth thinking about more than the exposition gives away.
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