Anyway, one other thing I've been wondering - what would it have been like if Scorsese had directed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (with Jack Nicholson as Raoul Duke)? It would most definitely improve on the Gilliam/Depp version.
I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. But for me... I can't stand Scorsese.. Just something about him bugs me. I mean I've seen a couple of his films and liked the ones I saw but the others I down right dislike.. Probably one of my least favorite directors.
The Reaping 7/10
Transformers 8.5/10
Flight of the Living Dead 6/10
The Invisible 6/10
Return to House on Haunted Hill 1/10
Planet Terror 8/10
A Mighty Heart 7/10
I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. But for me... I can't stand Scorsese.. Just something about him bugs me. I mean I've seen a couple of his films and liked the ones I saw but the others I down right dislike.. Probably one of my least favorite directors.
Which ones did you like or dislike?
__________________ Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
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Raging Bull is one of my all-time favorites, but on the whole, I think Scorsese's work is fundamentally inconsistent due to his overreliance on improvisational performances without fitting them into a larger cinematic concept.
Raging Bull is one of my all-time favorites, but on the whole, I think Scorsese's work is fundamentally inconsistent due to his overreliance on improvisational performances without fitting them into a larger cinematic concept.
Overreliance? Are you sure you're talking about Martin Scorsese's films? Can you give me five or ten examples, because I seriously don't know what you're talking about. Other than New York, New York where Scorsese admittedly tried winging it (with mixed results), the film of Marty's that had the most scenes of improvisation is the one you think is great: Raging Bull.
Some of the best-known individual scenes from his movies had improvisation going on, like the "How am I funny?" bit in GoodFellas and the "You talkin' to me?" from Taxi Driver, but Scorsese doesn't allow wholesale improvisation throughout the process the way somebody like Robert Altman or John Cassavetes or Alan Rudolph most definitely does. And with a few exceptions, Scorsese also doesn't seek much on-camera improv. In the rehearsal process and the work they do off the set, especially with DeNiro, Scorsese will see things he likes that he'll incorperate into the script, but this idea you seem to have about actors going off on unstructured tangents is...well, I'm just not sure how you came to this conclusion. Was this in an article or book you read somewhere, or do you just assume there's lots of improv going on?
Can you please give us examples of the specific films, not a scene or two but whole chunks of films or performances, that you thought had lots of improvisation going on, and how this improvisation then detracted from the overall film?
..
__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
Most of his films with DeNiro have the feel of improvisation about them, not the of wholesale, Altmanesque type (with random babbling about random nothingness), just in the sense that the script is being deviated from, perhaps slightly, in almost every scene.
Part of it may be his own openness to the moment. There are directors who are far more reliant on improvisation from their stars, but do so within a carefully considered and rigidly constructed visual style (Wong Kar-Wai comes to mind), and this seems to work better. I don't think Scorsese always comes in knowing how he wants a scene to look, and his films tend to be character driven and stylistically uninteresting as a result. He's at his best when he actually puts effort into having a consistent visual approach (Raging Bull) than when he turns into a typical Eye-talian director letting all his Eye-talian buddies mug for the camera (Goodfellas).
He's at his best when he actually puts effort into having a consistent visual approach (Raging Bull) than when he turns into a typical wop director letting all his wop buddies mug for the camera (Goodfellas).
You're trying really really hard to troll, aren't you?
__________________ "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how theTatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan
You're trying really really hard to troll, aren't you?
Not at all. Just pointing out that Scorsese is at his best when directing rather than doing the Italian/Italian-American thing and just pointing a camera at actors acting. Fellini leaves me feeling much the same - when he really takes charge and puts his talents toward shaping the whole picture, it's great. When he doesn't, it bores the **** out of me.
"You don't make up for your sins in the Church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit, and you know it."
Mean Streets, Scorsese's first real Studio film, is his "other" movie about New York gangsters that gets overshadowed by the later accomplishments of both GoodFellas and Casino. But this was the movie that announced him to the cinematic world, and it's no wonder it caught people's attention back in 1973. It's the story of a few young friends, all at least peripherally connected to organized crime. The main character is Charlie (Harvey Keitel), an introspective guy who tries to keep the peace and walk the line between the worlds of violence and love while running numbers and other low-level tasks for his Mobbed-up Uncle. However, the main albatross around his neck isn't his Catholic conscience or the way he earns his money, it's his loose cannon of a friend Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro). The plot cheifly concerns Charlie's misplaced loyalty to Johnny and a secret romantic relationship with his cousin, Teresa (Amy Robinson). But more than the plot driving the movie, this is a character piece about a time and place and the language of the movies.
There's terrific energy in Mean Streets, both in the filmmaking and the performances. After making the Roger Corman quickie Boxcar Bertha, friend and mentor John Cassavetes told him it was fine and all but to stop wasting his time making *****, to direct something more personal like Marty's first independent project out of NYU, Who's That Knocking at My Door?, which in many ways was a dry run for this flick - including starring Harvey Keitel. Scorsese had been very influenced by Cassavetes' Shadows and Faces, and it probably shows the most in Who's That Knocking and Mean Streets where there is a seeming improvisational style to the dialogue and acting along with stolen shots in authentic locations. Other than his work with Scorsese in a movie that barely got distributed, Keitel had yet to make his mark in the industry. DeNiro had been toiling in no-budget affairs with Brian DePalma and Roger Corman and had just shot a mid-range Studio pic in Bang the Drum Slowly. Both actors explode off the screen here, especially in their scenes together. In the next seven years DeNrio would become a double Oscar winner and a star, while Keitel would get good roles in decent films, if all less acclaimed than DeNiro's (all three would team again for Taxi Driver, and to date Keitel has been in five of his features and DeNiro in eight). But this is what really launched them, including the fact that seeing rushes of Mean Streets is what convinced Francis Ford Coppola DeNiro was the only actor who could play the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II.
As much as it did for Keitel and DeNiro, this was Scorsese's breakthrough as well. Martin's personal knowledge of his neighborhood and the kinds of guys drifting through it is what gives the entire movie its authenticity, and his technical prowess behind the camera really makes one sit up and notice the talent involved. Many of his trademarks, including voice-over, differing film speeds, a moving camera and a perfect integration of Pop music on the soundtrack all cemented by great performances are on display in Mean Streets. It's a little more raw and unflitered than Taxi Driver and certainly GoodFellas, but the power of the images and the great cinematic storytelling are just as remarkable.
Mean Streets is Scorsese's first great movie, and too often lost in the mix of his filmography.
I feel bad for the man, because he hasn't been properly recognized by the academy. But then I realize, he doesn't need sympathy, he is enormously accomplished and talented and adored and wealthy.
I feel bad for the man, because he hasn't been properly recognized by the academy. But then I realize, he doesn't need sympathy, he is enormously accomplished and talented and adored and wealthy.
Hitchcock never won a Best Director Oscar. Neither did Kubrick. Or Kurosawa. Lots of greats never got "their" Oscar. Doesn't matter much.
Hitchcock never won a Best Director Oscar. Neither did Kubrick. Or Kurosawa. Lots of greats never got "their" Oscar. Doesn't matter much.
The Academy is pretty reluctant to give Best Picture or Best Director honors to films and directors from outside the US. And Kubrick, while certainly an American, spent most of his career in Europe and, for the most part, worked entirely outside of the Hollywood milieu.
Scorsese is an anomaly in that he is a very successful (both commercially and critically) American director, who has definitely stayed within the Hollywood box, has consistenly worked with the best American actors in the business and is an 'actor's director' (which the Academy tends to favor come award season), yet he has never won the director's Oscar nor have any of his films won Best Picture.
I don't think to most mainstream Oscar voters of the old guard that Scorsese seems terribly inside any Hollywood box, which is part of why Raging Bull and GoodFellas lost out to Ordinary People and Dances with Wolves. But whatever the reasons (and there are many), that Marty doesn't have an Oscar don't mean too terribly much. I look at it as a badge of honor at this point.
Sample of filmmakers who have never won Best Director Oscars...
Alfred Hitchcock
five nominations & zero wins
(Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window, Psycho)
Robert Altman
five nominations & zero wins
(MASH, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, Gosford Park)
Martin Scorsese
five nominations & zero wins
(Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, GoodFellas, Gangs of New York, The Aviator)
Stanley Kubrick
four nominations & zero wins
(Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon)
Sidney Lumet
four nominations & zero wins
(12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict)
Federico Fellini
four nominations & zero wins
(La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Satyricon, Armacord)
Ingmar Bergman
three nominations & zero wins
(Cries & Whispers, Face to Face, Fanny & Alexander)
David Lynch
three nominations & zero wins
(The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive)
William Wellman
three nominations & zero wins
(A Star is Born, Battleground, The High and the Mighty)
Otto Preminger
two nominations & zero wins
(Laura & The Cardinal)
Orson Welles
one nomination & zero wins
(Citizen Kane)
John Cassavetes
one nomination & zero wins
(A Woman Under the Influence)
Howard Hawks
one nomination & zero wins
(Sergeant York)
Terrence Malick
one nomination & zero wins
(The Thin Red Line)
Hal Ashby
one nomination & zero wins
(Coming Home)
Krzysztof Kieslowski
one nomination & zero wins
(Three Colours: Red)
Jean Renoir
one nomination & zero wins
(The Southerner)
Akira Kurosawa
one nomination & zero wins
(RAN)
François Truffaut
one nomination & zero wins
(Day for Night)
Joel & Ethan Coen
one nomination & zero wins
(Fargo)
Sergio Leone
never nominated
Jean-Luc Godard
never nominated
Nicholas Ray
never nominated
Werner Herzog
never nominated
Charlie Chaplin
never nominated
Roberto Rossellini
never nominated
Preston Sturges
never nominated
Fritz Lang
never nominated
Sam Peckinpah
never nominated
Luis Buñuel
never nominated
Spike Lee
never nominated
Luchino Visconti
never nominated
Wim Wenders
never nominated
Andrei Tarkovsky
never nominated
John Sayles
never nominated
Vittorio De Sica
never nominated
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
never nominated
But what's more alarming and insulting to me isn't the Oscar snub - as you can see, the Academy can be a fickle, silly and even embarassing voting body. No, what floors me is that Scorsese has never won the DGA Award. That his peers in his own field have consistently snubbed him says more than anything the lack of Oscars does. Martin has won a Life Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America, but though he was nominated for his work on Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York and The Aviator, he has yet to win their Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures trophy.
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