Scorsese and DiCaprio back together again with 'Killers of the Flower Moon'.

In my home! In my bedroom, were my wife sleeps! Where my children come and play with their toys. In my home.

https://i.postimg.cc/6pcC6DRx/window.jpg

(Not Scorsese x 2, but it did cross my mind.)

Not much to add about this movie, other than I enjoyed it and it didn't feel like it was three and a half hours long. Did anyone else think that the "meta" radio-show ending was a nod to Wes Anderson?

In case you haven't got three and a half hours, apparently Buster Keaton told the same story in 1922:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3E6pVHuoiU

Now you tell me

Two podcasts I did with a friend:

Killers of the Flower Moon: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKnM8qyiYik
The Killer/Past Lives: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF6A1u94G3o

Starting with the very name of this ongoing series--"What They Said," after the Kael documentary, not "What They Saw," which is what I call it here--I always laugh at how often I misspeak or mangle some fact. Sometimes I detect gaffes between the lines: when I refer to Seven's "famous twist at the end," there's a good chance I'm thinking of The Usual Suspects.

Hmm. Putting aside whether these decisions work, on which, of course, we can disagree, what other American directors would've written and directed that ending? Or concentrated on the indigenous as much or more than the standard police procedural section? Also: thanks to Schoonmaker, his rhythms remain his own.

Agreed on the ending, don't think the film does concentrate on the indigenous as much or more than the procedural - it remains a movie about the white men screwing them over and not the indigenous community itself imo - though yes in the hands of many a director it would have much less on that community as well.

Paul Schrader talked some shit. Said Leo should have played the cop, and three and a half hours in the company of an idiot was too much.

It's not as if the film has nothing else going on besides Scrunchy Face -- if Schrader had said it about his own Raging Bull I'd agree.

And I maintain that ending was very a la Spike Lee.

I liked DiCaprio in this but I kinda agree with Schrader. Just…kinda. Though I remember envisioning Plemmons as Ernest as I was reading the book. Seemed to fit much more. Perhaps Leo as tet another cop/detective in a Scorsese film may have been too much of a deja vu?

And I maintain that ending was very a la Spike Lee.

Both endings — the Spike Lee one and then the kinda-sorta Schindler’s List one — were my favorite part of the movie more or less

I feel like Mollie’s last scene in the movie proper and the radio show coda work in tandem. The coda implies that what you just saw was a dramatic piece created by outsiders, and Mollie’s last request on screen was for Ernest to tell the full truth. We don’t get the full truth, and her obituary leaves out the entire ordeal we just saw on screen. It’s hard to qualify her performance — which is excellent — but there’s an ethereal quality to it.

I was left wishing we’d heard the story from her perspective, but we won’t because we collectively won’t acknowledge the depths of our violence and lies. So this is the best we get.

Ethereal is a great way to describe Gladstone’s performance; riveting whenever she was onscreen. She had an almost Bressonian control in her facial and gestural expressions here that seemed to exist apart from the actor-y goings on orbiting around her when she shared the screen.

I truly did not like DeNiro in this and wished it was a different actor.

I had more problems with some of the Supporting cast. Found some of them to be a bit too “amateur hour”, unfortunately. Brendan Fraser and the actor playing Rita, are two ottomh.

Greil Marcus has a long entry on Killers of the Flower Moon in his "Real Life Top 10" column that just went up. I think this is perfect:

And it brings up a question it seems that Scorsese, now 81 and piling up one legacy picture after another as if building a monument so big it would cost too much to ever tear down--a monument not to himself, but to the glories of cinema!--can’t answer. His movies are automatically and almost universally celebrated. He is an American master. A titan of world film. And yet his movies fade. They don’t linger in the heart. They are triumphs of status--who would say no to a part in a Scorsese picture?--and big budgets--You say you need three hours, Marty? You got it.

There's a career overview later in the comment--basically trying to locate a line where all that kicked in--that I don't entirely agree with but would be pretty close to my own.

link pls

Some of his Substack blog is free, but the "Real Life" columns are behind a paywall.

And yet his movies fade. They don’t linger in the heart.

I don't know that this is true! He's alternated between punchy, quotable stories of corruption and hedonism that people do tend to remember and more pensive, contemplative works for years. I don't think I'm the Goodfellas-quoting type of guy, but I do think about works like Silence on occasion

after hours lingers in my heart

What's the question it brings up? Maybe he asks it on his page.

Anyway I don't think that's perfect tbh, kinda offtm on his part. if anything one of the strengths of some of his recent films has been that they don't quite fit the obviousness of legacy pictures, can be a bit more difficult, and they're richer for it. The Irishman lingers longer than even something like Raging Bull (not a fully dissimilar film) because the full weight of time and a wasted life is so palpable. I would say he's a much better filmmaker in recent years than he's been for a very long time, since the mid-90s at least.

I wonder sometimes who would have been the best replacement muse for Scorcese -- someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman is an easy answer but not really credible as a leading man (though how many of Leo's parts really required a leading man type? Hoffman-lookalike Jessie Plemons could have easily done Leo's role here -- despite being a "pretty face", and probably much better.) Maybe Matt Damon?

Like years from now, if people are still talking about legacy, they'll be going Kurosawa had Mifune and uh... Scorcese had Leo...

Raging Bull lives in my head almost shot for shot and line for line. I can barely remember anything about The Irishman.

His turn to DiCaprio--outside of his clout in getting a picture financed and completed--mystifies me to no end.

piling up one legacy picture after another as if building a monument so big it would cost too much to ever tear down--a monument not to himself, but to the glories of cinema!

what's the difference between this and Scorsese simply realizing that he can choose to make any movie he wants and these have been the movies he most wanted to spend his time making?

DiCaprio has been fine in his movies, maybe there would have been better fits out there for a couple of the films but he's been solid to excellent. I don't even mind the dodgy accents, it's all part of the full leo.

all these 70s directors having come up through the Corman schlock mill makes me think in their heart-of-hearts, they actually would prefer to make glorious trash if not for the specter of legacy, so maybe Scorcese saw Titanic and thought, "here's my Rock Hudson" or something...

The problem with the Greil Marcus line is it jumps from something objectively true - Scorsese's films are gonna get good reviews no matter what - to a highly personal subjective asssesment that his recent films fade and don't linger in the heart. That may be true for Marcus and subjective experience is ofc an essential part of criticism, but the jumping between modes makes it pretty ridiculous imo - why in God's name should Scorsese have "an answer" as to why Greil Marcus doesn't find his films memorable?

Like yeah I'll agree that Irishman has lingered in my mind far more than Raging Bull, I'm sure the reverse is true for others, c'est la vie.

I think he comes out of a time when the best critics tended to conflate the objective/subjective. It's like whenever Kael said "you," she always meant "I." Isn't that a hallmark of message boards, too? People assert highly subjective opinions here as if they're facts all the time.

People assert highly subjective opinions here as if they're facts all the time.

I see what you did there. ;-)

There you go...it's impossible not to. (I just did it again.)

Raging Bull has a few decade lead time but just on quotes/memes, it's fairly objectively more resonant than the Irishman, but I dunno if that necessarily reflects on quality, since I still think about Godfather III's "every time I thought I was out" line.

But makeup in Raging Bull vs makeup in Irishman feels like Irishman has aged much worse in a much shorter time.

I actually do, often, go out of my way to include "if you ask me" or "I'd say" or other such qualifications, and sometimes I'm not sure it's worth the effort. But I do it anyway, for the very reason Daniel_Rf cites.

Well the nature of message boards is such that whenever this happens, the next person can say "nah that's crazy talk" and the ensuing discussion can turn out interesting or lame or whatever but the premises get questioned. An essay does not allow for that.

I agree the conflation of the two modes was very common for critics of his era (and beyond, think it was still default circa gen x) and I'm not a purist about it but I do think it's ultimately lazy thinking and once you get to the idea that even the artist themselves must surely secretly share your assesment of their work, as I said, that's just a bit goofy.

many xposts

Well yes Raging Bull objectively has left a bigger mark as a pop culture reference point but I dunno that this is what Marcus means by lingering in the heart.

What the fuck is "heart"

Raging Bull lives in my head almost shot for shot and line for line. I can barely remember anything about The Irishman.

― clemenza, Wednesday, January 3, 2024 2:04 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglin

And this is a perfectly defensible opinion. It has nothing to do with "heart"

Also, is there a contemporary film critic you can cite who's not Kael, Marcus, etc.? It's not like film crit is dead!

Ultimately it comes down to: "I love these guys' films from my youth, I don't want to engage what they're doing anymore."

And we all do this, btw, especially with musicians. But let's be honest.

I would say he's a much better filmmaker in recent years than he's been for a very long time, since the mid-90s at least.

This is true even when I don't embrace every object. My heart finds his '80s comparably barren compared to what he's done now.

It's weird seeing Marcus write that because he's had high praise for Scorsese's films before (most notably The Last Waltz for obvious reasons).

I actually like Scorsese's work over the past 30 years - none are less than interesting and all have something to recommend - and there's at least several that I'd hold up as great films, particularly in more recent years, but I'm not the only one who thinks his best and most memorable work spanned Mean Streets through The Age of Innocence. And I think Marcus is dead wrong - at least for me, Scorsese's work lingers a LOT more "in the heart" (or really the mind) than that of any other Hollywood filmmaker from that same time frame. He had good competition, but guys like Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch and Albert Brooks weren't as prolific. (The closest would probably be David Cronenberg who didn't really cross over into Hollywood until the mid-'80s.) It's definitely not just the '70s: without hesitation, I'd put Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Last Temptation of Christ and Life Lessons among the very best films of the 1980s, regardless of where and how they were made.

I think he's always effusively praised the early films, but his praise for anything from the last two or three decades has been guarded at best. (He did really like the George Harrison documentary.) Here's his career rundown from the "Real Life" column...I won't post anymore than that.

There are Scorsese films that stay with you because the desire is too strong and the loss too painful to forget--Who’s That Knocking at My Door, Mean Streets, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy most of all--is there anything since The Departed? Is there anything in the lumbering The Wolf of Wall Street--three hours--or even more intractable The Irishman--three and a half hours--and never mind the watchable and empty Goodfellas, the pointless Casino, the paint-by-numbers The Color of Money, the epic without a cause Gangs of New York, and the rest--that as something that years later can still make you find yourself alone and consumed by sorrow and lost hope, even shaking with a sense of clarity about life and what it costs, as in the way Spike Lee gives Edward Norton, Rosario Dawson, and Philip Seymour Hoffman only so much room to move as they struggle toward the end of 25th Hour?

So there are a few things I disagree with--love Goodfellas, think The Color of Money is underrated, not big on The Departed, didn't like 25th Hour--but I agree with his general point: the first four films he mentions are qualitatively different than most of what comes later. I know Casino is admired here--I like maybe half of it.

I was surprised how many people have tried to re-evaluate Casino as this great, underrated film in recent years. David Ehrenstein (possibly since it was released) has argued it's superior to GoodFellas. I've seen it three times over a dozen years, and the third time was this fall during a long flight to Alaska. Third time's the charm - I thoroughly enjoyed it from start-to-finish whereas before it was a slog once it got to the second half. I still don't think it's one of his best films - it breaks no new ground - but everything showcases his strengths. It's great how he details the entire casino operation, and it's great to see Sharon Stone delivering what may be her best performance in a movie that isn't complete schlock or burdened with horrible dialogue. It's not De Niro or Pesci or Woods's most distinguished performances, but they're all still in their prime and they're not phoning it in - they're all committed to their roles.

A lot of cinephiles seem to be fans of The Wolf of Wall Street (Richard Brody in particular, who believes it's a masterpiece). I'm not one of them, it would be a chore for me to sit through it again, BUT I do think it's misunderstood, it has what are good performances given the material, and I think the final shot is a truly great ending, maybe even the best Scorsese's ever done.

The Color of Money is fine, the merits outweigh everything that isn't so inspired, but even though I love seeing Newman as Fast Eddie again, the film doesn't even approach the level of The Hustler.

Gangs of New York can be a slog to get through, but I've seen it maybe four times now from start-to-finish, and I've grown to appreciate as a flawed but often inspired epic. There's a lot that's great about it, especially the first half, but it does feel like there's perhaps too much being packed into 167 minutes - I'm tempted to say it would've been better to break it up into two feature-length epics (with each part running at least two hours) but financially that would've been unlikely. The other shortcoming is the casting - DiCaprio seems too pretty for the role. I'm not sure if Daniel Craig or Michael Fassbender would've worked - and besides they were still unknowns, not someone that would secure the enormous budget they needed - but just physically they would be convincing as scarred individuals driven (and aged) by a lifetime of vengeance. And I don't think Diaz was very good - I wish Sarah Polley had gotten the role, I think she would've been far better.

25th Hour I had to see twice, and the second time I did (years later), it all came together - I think it's possibly Spike Lee's greatest work along with Do the Right Thing. There's a lot that seemed to linger after watching it the second time - Jonathan Rosenbaum said it made him really think about what it meant to imprison somebody, and I think he hits on something there. The whole film is swallowed up in grief and loss, both in the immediate present and the foreseeable future - it's hard to articulate, but I want to say if you end up becoming moved by the film, it'll give you a greater sense of how easily anything can be thrown away or taken away, especially what's most valuable, and how permanent that damage can be, in a way that only grows with time.

As for latter day Scorsese, I'd say Hugo, The Silence, and The Irishman stick out as the most personal films he's made in decades, and they feel appropriate for a filmmaker who's aware of his mortality and wants to say everything he can say while there's still time. He knew and befriended many filmmakers in his lifetime who were just like Méliès in Hugo, feeling broken and forgotten, maybe even regretful of their choices despite the work they created. He came very close to being one of those people too, or at least felt like it. The Silence is possibly the most revealing statement he can make about his faith and the work he's known for, and The Irishman is similar in that respect, making it clear why the director behind GoodFellas doesn't relate to anything about The Sopranos even when most of the world lumps those works together as if there were a kinship.

What does "personal" mean here?

The Age of Innocence, Silence, and Killers... are the only Scorsese films since 1990 I care about.

Directly relating to himself and his own life. It's difficult for a good, much less great, auteur filmmaker to make anything that is really impersonal, but those films together speak directly to either his relationship to cinephilia - as a cinephile but also as a filmmaker, historian and preservationist - or his faith or the crime films he's arguably best known for (i.e. perhaps the most visible legacy he'll leave behind).

I feel like he's more personal, or at least more revealing at his dorkiest rather than most transcendent, like hamming it up as van gogh in the kurosawa movie he helped fund (pretty much the trifecta of him speaking as a filmmaker, historian, preservationist), or shilling for amex with tina fey. but maybe those things are more "marty" than "scorcese" for most people.