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

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.

I haven't gotten around to Silence, I guess I should. I tend to like Scorsese more in New York than anywhere else, almost all my favorite Scorsese films are in New York. And even less-favorite ones (Raging Bull, Gangs, New York, New York) still have good New York energy.

One of my last chats with Morbius was about our proselytizing on behalf of Silence to our friends.

I remember he admired it.

xps I don't know if I'd call hamming it up revealing - it's generally the side he typically shows in public, which to be fair is great. It shows he's been in a much better place long after some harrowing stretches in the '70s and early '80s. But when I wonder "what happened to the guy who studied for priesthood?" you see that in The Silence, and not simply because it deals with priests - his faith hasn't faded with time, and the complications that arise from it are something he still thinks about it, even if he's more at peace with it now.

That personal dimension aside, the film did have a lot to say about religion and its complicated place in politics, especially when it premiered in late 2016, after the evangelical vote sold their souls to a fascist waste dump. Look at the Falun Gong - on the one hand, practicing their faith in China is more or less an act of rebellion against authoritarian rule, and yet they're also publishing the batshit insane, far-right Trump-loving Epoch Times here in the U.S.

Well as the OG Mormons showed you can be both persecuted and a lunatic cult.

As I alluded to in another thread, I've been thinking a lot of Spielberg and Scorsese in tandem, as two virtuoso stylists and synthesists steeped in cinema history, where almost every shot and scene I suspect has its roots in a very specific antecedent. With one or two exceptions, at their worst their films are almost always fascinating outlets for their abilities, passions and references. Even when they don't end up where I want them, I can almost always tell where they are going and what they are going for. I would never pit the directors against one another, mind. More that they set a standard few other directors consistently reach, especially late career, given the standard they each set for themselves so early.

I feel like Scorsese lost it a bit between 1997 to 2011. Trying to ape genres that didnt really suit him like Shutter Island and Gangs of New York. The Departed was enjoyable but far from essential and felt like he was trying too hard to recapture former glories - like a later Stones album or something. I think hes on a roll since Wolf of Wall Street though and is making his best films as good as his recognised classics. Not sure Killers totally landed for me though.

Scorsese has alluded to this many times over the years without delving too much into the topic (for tactful reasons), but he knows he's taken on a fair share of projects that he clearly "had" to do in order to make certain films he already had in development, and there have been times where he realizes "I shouldn't have agreed to direct this" but has to power through and find a way to get the film done as best as he can because it's too late to back out. The Departed is very likely one of those - to me, it never seemed like a conscious attempt to recapture his past work because if you watch Infernal Affairs, it doesn't feel like they were trying to transform the material so much as streamline it and adapt it to a Boston setting with Hollywood movie stars. In other words, very professional in a pretty cold way. I'm not a huge fan of Cape Fear, which was another film that was brought to him (by Spielberg no less), but he seemed to make a bigger effort in transforming that material and making it closer to him. The Wolf of Wall Street was also brought to him - DiCaprio really had to push Scorsese, selling it as "no studio's really making a movie like this anymore with this kind of money - it's a rare opportunity."

The Departed is very different in tone to Infernal Affairs, basically a comedy, of a piece with Wolf of Wall Street. Maybe the "one for them" movies are the ones where he lets loose and has the most fun? To me, that's letting his guard down.

the editing and arrangement of the departed is neither professional nor cold imo

Wolf of Wall Street might be one for the studio but it definitely utilises the style of Goodfellas/Casino.

I think that happens a lot with directors when the stakes feel lower - one of Scorsese's most enjoyable works over the past 20 years is a Hitchcock tribute he did for a commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjQrDn1IR0Q

One major element of Wolf of Wall Street is the visual subjectivity, which reflects how these characters have a warped view of life. It's partly what makes the last show so powerful and damning for me but Scorsese also has a lot of fun with that concept via the quaaludes gag.

Also to be clear, when I say "professional," I don't mean phoning it in - he never does that. He's always committed to doing his best, even when he has doubts - it's always going to look like a Scorsese picture. But The Departed does feel a bit cold to me. Funny, entertaining, but not a whole lot underneath the surface.

RE: "I think that happens a lot with directors when the stakes feel lower," I mean relax and have more fun.

* the last shot

if you watch Infernal Affairs, it doesn't feel like they were trying to transform the material so much as streamline it and adapt it to a Boston setting with Hollywood movie stars.

He didn't streamline it tho, he made it baggier — added 50 minutes and a whole layer of (tedious imo) Catholic framing to it.

Yeah, if his last couple films are any indication, his movies can often use a bit more streamlining (imo). And coincidence or no, some of my least favorite of his films are the ones that cost the most. I think I like him best when he's ambitious and scrappy and not self-consciously over-inflated.

ok which one of you replaced his bio with this on letterboxd

https://i.imgur.com/KzFcyv2.png

He didn't streamline it tho, he made it baggier — added 50 minutes and a whole layer of (tedious imo) Catholic framing to it.

Hah, yes he did! It's been too long since I saw either. But the Catholic framing, do you mean the sense of guilt? I remember that being in Infernal Affairs as well though it wasn't rooted in Catholicism. (Regardless, that part never made a strong impression either.)

Yeah, it was there in the original but rooted in personal loyalties. But Scorsese can't help letting Catholicism run all over everything (explicitly or otherwise).

It made logical sense when they transplanted the film to Boston - it's almost become a cliché at this point, so many Boston-based dramas I've seen over the past 20 years work the Catholic presence, whether it's Mystic River or (for obvious reasons) Spotlight.

I don't mind it. I like when artists' religion and politics bleed all over the place.

I mean, why else watch Scorsese? If I want amoral gangster shit I can watch a Warner Bros pic or Brian De Palma.

Very true. Honestly, it's hard to imagine his work without it, but if you somehow wrote that out of the scripts for, say, Mean Streets or Raging Bull, I don't think he'd ever make those films and I'm not sure there would be any real merit to them. Jake LaMotta truly does become nothing more than a cockroach, which is what the reluctant execs at UA initially believed when they were pitched the film.

Actually, LaMotta is a cockroach. The Age of Innocence, Silence, Killers of the Flower Moon >>>>>> Raging Bull.

LOL, we'll have to disagree, but I always thought that was Scorsese's best film because of what he finds in that story.

And also to add what I posted before, I say that as an agnostic - what makes Scorsese (or Leo McCarey or Paul Schrader among others for that matter) so compelling is a lot of what they explore through their faith is universal. The struggles their characters go through feel very honest, something anyone can recognize or experience.

Sure, the "Catholic stuff" is part of what makes his great stuff great. But in what should have been a trifle like The Departed, to me it felt like padding, like he had to find a way to make the story feel important enough for him or something.

(I don't like The Departed anyway, if it's not clear. It cracks me up that it was his Oscar film.)

Yeah, far from my favorite, but it was such a big success that it made Hugo possible, which again is one of my favorites from recent years. I think he said it allowed him to pass on some projects he would've considered before as well.

Hugo is the only Scorsese I havent watched!

I watched Hugo. It felt like Scorsese wanted very badly to make a magical kid's movie tapping into our sense of innocent wonder and he just didn't have the chops for it. It's way too heavy to get airborne.

Innocent wonder is like a Spielberg fantasy, I never got the impression Hugo was interested in those sort of illusions. The heart of it is about a very bitter and broken man, and the war played a huge role in that. It's still uplifting to me because of the way they find their way out of despair. I don't doubt that's heavy, but that's pretty much why it left a lasting impression.