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In Reply to: "Goodfellas" posted by rico on August 3, 2005 at 07:37:00:
I have found it difficult to place Scorcese in the pantheon of great film directors. He stength as a director lies in his ability, detractors would say "willingness," to portray, without reservation, without so much as a blink, the violent underbelly of modern american society. His great achievement has been to place the fringes, the last outposts, the dark, benighted corners of modern civilization in the glare of the spotlight, and to find humanity and spirit and pathos under the grimiest rocks. I think Taxi Driver is the quintessential Scorcese film. Raging Bull is in the same company. But the problem I have with Scorcese is that he seems to be something of a one-trick pony. Goodfellas is a fine film, with outstanding performances and a very solid script. But again, we seem stuck in a mire of underclass denizens and gratuitous violence. With Casino, he almost seems to be a cinematic Chubby Checker, telling us all to "twist again, like we did last summer."Francis Ford Coppola, on the other hand, has a much greater range. Apocolyse Now, Bram Stoker's (sp?) Dracula, Peggy Sue, The Conversation, are all fine films far outside the confines of crime and violence. Scorcese, by comparison, has not succeeded well when he's abondoned the crime genre.
Compare Scorcese to the greatest American Film Director, Stanley Kubrick, and you'll see what I mean: The Killing, Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket, 2001, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining -- all outstanding films of their kind, all exploring different subjects and settings.
Follow Ups:
So by that definition Alfred Hitchcock wouldn't be a "great" director, as he did 99% thriller/suspense/horror pictures? Or Charlie Chaplin who was almost exclusively comedy?
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/
Your points are well taken. And there are exceptions to every exception.Hitchcock's movies rarely had that "been there, done that" quality that you see so often in Scorcese's work, and Spielberg's, or that matter. Suspense was a vehicle for Hitchcock, not the objective. Foreign Correspondent, Psycho, The Birds, The Rope, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, Rebecca all seem to me to be very different Films. Then again, I ain't seen'em all. And there certainly is a consistent return to the themes of foreign intrigue, expecially in his earlier, pre-Hollywood work.
Chaplin seems to me to have to be taken on his own terms, because he worked so early in the era of the modern film. His body of work is also enormous, also due probably to the era in which he worked. But again, I have to concede your point.
But on balance, I think you have to take a director's range into acount in consideration of his overall talent. Peckinpaw and DePalma are both very talented and very important directors. But I think in there cases, and I would argue in Scorcese's case as well, their lack of range would tend to diminish their reputation in the annals of film history. What say you?
I think you are forgetting Scorsese's work on films such as:New York Stories
Cape Fear
Raging Bull
The Last Temptation of Christ
The Color of Money
After Hours
The Last Waltz
Taxi DriverThis represents a pretty wide range of film styles...
Hmmm. I'd have to say that "homage" films like Cape Fear and The Color of Money do not count. Neither was as good as the original either. The fact that Scorcese had an avid interest in the band, as almost every graduate of the 1960's did, does not enhance his reputation as a film maker. There was nothing about this documentary that made it unusual or original, but I do like his selection of subject matter. I believe he is currently at work on a documentary, not so coincidentally, about Bob Dylan.Scorcese was a seminary student before he became a film director. And The Last Temptation was a daring film, though not a very good one, from where I sit.
I didn't see After Hours. In New York Stories, he only had a short segment, as you know.
But I would have to maintain that his main body of work, the films upon which his reputation is made -- Taxi Driver, Means Streets,
Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Casino, even the King of Comedy -- have at their heart a fixation on the brutish side of modern civilized life, individuals who, due to the pressures and complexities of their milieu, have become twisted monsters of a kind, and who have abodoned the mores and restraints that guide the rest of us. It's not a trivial subject, but one which his films treat with a certain redundancy.I'm not saying he's a BAD director. But I would not put him in the pantheon that includes Kubrick, Hitchcock, or Fellini, and a very short list of others.
I'm with you on Francis Ford Coppola's range, but I wouldn't have put Bram Stoker's Dracula there...that was awful!
s
It was a great romantic confection, exquisitely filmed, fairy-tale like and mythic, both in it's original concept, and in Coppola's treatment. It can understand, like a too-sweet candy, how it might not be palatable to some. I liked tremendously. Oldman's performance with breath-taking and highly imaginative, right there with the Drexel character he played in True Romance.
Not all Scorcese films are about violence. Think of "New york, New York", and "After Hours" and "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore". Plus there are ther short early films, the one about his parents (I forget the title), "American Shave", and others. Plus there is his film documatary. "A Personal Journey though American Film". Also "Bringing out the Dead" and "The Aviator".
I had forgotten some of these. Guess I should check his filmography before I go shooting off my opinionator.However, New York, New York was a bad film, at least in my opinion, and so it doesn't count. Bringing Out the Dead, though not strickly about criminals, did have that same exploring the fringes theme -- but a good show all the way. I didn't see Aviator. But I heard it was a turkey, too. Gangs of New York, another of the ugly underbelly genre, stunk. Sorry, just my opinion. But Daniel Day Lewis's weird eye-ball was the height of the film.
I enjoyed his documentary about film greatly, and found his comments about other films and directors very illuminating. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it.
Alice was a very good film, and one that clearly shows his ability to be successful outside his "home turf." But a great film it is not, and he rarely returned to this sensibility again.
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