Personally, I’d say Hugo is his most recent grapple with risk. It’s simultaneously a love letter to his inspirations, as well as being an exploration of a new medium for himself.
That doesn’t really sound like a risk as you just described it a few minutes ago, unless you really think Hugo was Scorsese “baring his soul”. I did not get that impression. More like Scorsese “getting sentimental and boring”.
Well, I disagree. I think Hugo was Scorsese taking a gigantic risk by making his most personally gratifying story, in a medium and genre that he didn’t know, and no one expected.
It’s not my favorite Scorsese movie, but I can’t watch it without thinking about how he felt while making it.
Am I missing something? He specifically addresses this. It’s the whole back third of the article. He even mentions that he just finished his Netflix production.
I mean, Scorcese for my money is probably the greatest director who ever lived. I love his work. And I’m sure that the very existence of focus-grouped, hashtag-branded, factory-stamped lowest-common-denominator broad-appeal films burns his ass to its very core. How could he be Martin Scorcese if it didn’t?
I bet Thom Yorke has a lot of feelings about a lot of music that I listen to and love. And that’s cool; it’s probably a fantastic conversation to have. But in no universe is it going to affect my love for and enjoyment of Licensed to Ill.
For me, it has to be the scene when Jake LaMotta’s taken to the cells kicking and screaming in Raging Bull. By this stage, he’s an overweight, broken, and completely isolated man who is completely at fault for the situation he’s in. After lashing out, he collapses into a pitiable mess. It’s a heartbreaking scene that pairs nicely with the conclusion where he’s launching a gaudy comeback as an entertainer, and he recites Brando’s famous monologue from On the Waterfront while looking at himself in the mirror. No Rod Steiger to bear the blame this time!
I also think the moment where a coked out, depressed Ray Liotta asks for money one last time from Paul Sorvino near the climax of Goodfellas is tragic, and something about the oversized glasses DeNiro’s wearing at the end of Casino while reassuring the audience he can still pick a winner as that beautiful score from Contempt begins to play moves me every time.
After reading that article by Scorsese, I’m reminded that one of these days I really need to track down Alfred Hitchcock movies and give them another chance. I watched “The Birds” and decided Hitchcock films weren’t for me, but maybe that’s too harsh a judgement based on one movie.
I love his work but I’m not really a fan of The Birds either, so I wouldn’t let that discourage you. If you’re relatively new to Hitchcock, I would recommend checking out Notorious, Rear Window, Psycho, and Frenzy first. He’s such an elegant stylist that even his disappointing works have brilliant moments in them, like this stunning death scene from his espionage misfire Topaz (1969):
I love the spread of her dress, I thought it was blood spreading on the ground.
Thanks for the recommendation!
There’s also people in this part of the article that I’m not familiar with mentioned by Scorsese:
Need to track down Clair Denis and Ari Aster movies too. And fill in the missing pieces from Paul Thomas Anderson and Wes Anderson. I still haven’t seen, for instance, The Master, Phantom Thread, Moonrise Kingdom, Grand Budapest Hotel and Isle of Dogs.
Ari Aster made Hereditary and Midsommar.
Check out Beau Travail.
As for the article, the first time I saw something defined as non-cinema was when who was probably the best ever Spanish film critic (and screenwriter, he wrote The Spirit of the Beehive, one of my favorite movies) decided to tackle The Fellowship of the Ring.
I saw the point then and I do now (even if the formulation is intended to be controversial). For some people cinema is about accessing an emotional reality through the craft, and spectacle movies are not that.
I didn’t get from his piece that he thinks there’s anything wrong with superhero or action movies existing.
My take from it was that he’s concerned about the current situation in which it’s getting difficult to even book screens to show films that aren’t billion-dollar-grossing franchise tentpoles, and the correspondingly unsophisticated taste of a public fed a steady diet of the same superhero/sci-fi movies being remade over and over.
Which is fair, but… who wants to pay $15 a seat to see a smart, thoughtful movie that will be a very similar experience at home on a streaming service? It’s the big dumb blockbusters that justify the ever increasing cost of the theatrical experience.
(I don’t pay that much myself and very much enjoy seeing all sorts of movies in a decent - I. e. Alamo - theater, but if I had to choose…)
Black Panther was a huge risk in terms of casting and story telling - mostly casting which most definitely did challenge the audience.
FWIW, I didn’t get the Oscar buzz - I thought it was good, but not THAT good as well.
As to the Dark Knight? You do seem to be forgetting about Batman’s quandary from two-face, and showing heroism as taking the blame to keep Harvey’s knighthood memory alive. That was some pretty fine storytelling and risk taking, along the lines of the Man who Shot Liberty Valance. IMHO, more than Scorsese showed in most of his gangster movies.
I think CG is kind of boring so the blockbuster stuff doesn’t do much for me. I’d rather see the thoughtful movie, though I prefer something with a bit of suspense usually. I’ve not seen the majority of the MCU movies because they just seem uninteresting.
To me going to the movies is about going to the movies. Getting out of the house. Getting the popcorn. Watching the previews. I don’t want spectacle. I want something engaging. Sometimes I settle for spectacle.
Paying $15 a seat isn’t that bad when it’s once a month or once every two months. Most of the spectacle movies I can see for $5 on Tuesdays if I don’t need to see it opening week. Get a free small popcorn too!
Oh, wow. Well, we have a much different experience of movies, then.
I’d much rather watch a carefully thought-out and composed shot from a Wes Anderson or Wong Kar Wai film on the big screen than a series of Marvel or Star Wars visual effects shots.
Are you talking about “casting” as in “an almost all-POC cast, which we’re a little hinky about throwing out into the general audience since there really hasn’t been a blockbuster with an almost all-POC cast” type deal? Or, are you saying the specific casting choices were risky?
Because one is very different from the other. The general fear of an almost all-POC cast was a business/studio risk. Scorsese definitely isn’t talking about that.
Specific casting? Nah. Ryan Coogler working with Michael B. Jordan isn’t risky based on their history together. Luptio Nyong’o already had an Academy nomination. Danai Gurira was known as a badass from The Walking Dead. Chadwick Boseman had already been introduced to audiences in Civil War as Black Panther. I guess Winston Duke was largely an unknown until this movie, but I don’t think anyone cared about him prior to that movie either. I don’t recall anyone arguing about the announced cast in Black Panther. It wasn’t like Heath Ledger, Joaquin Phoenix, or (dare I say it) even Jared Leto as the Joker. People can’t stop arguing about those casting choices.
And storytelling? Nope. It was a linear story told mostly from the two perspectives - Jordan’s and Boseman’s. It was a basic good guy versus bad guy story. (Hell, Marvel couldn’t even be assed to differentiate much between them in the showdown. Just give them a palette swap and be done with it.) Like I wrote earlier, the movie almost pushed an interesting idea by making Killmonger’s motivation deeper than world domination for the sake of it, but then by the third act they just flopped back into the big CG Wrestlemania fight and only paused near the end to give Killmonger a music-swelling send off.
Keep in mind that I liked Black Panther a lot. Really! I enjoy Marvel, Star Wars, Fast & Furious, and all sorts of bombastic blockbuster flicks. They’re great! I’m glad I can see all my nerd hobbies hit the big screen. But very few of them have ever challenged me as a viewer. I’ve never come out of an MCU movie thinking about the ideas presented to me except in the most superficial ways. I’ve been more consistently challenged by indie horror movies.
I just don’t find a meaningful difference between the experience of those movies on a theater screen several rows away (usually about the smallest one in the house because of the relatively limited audience) and a 27" 4K monitor 5 feet from my face. Similarly, I can get all the important audio nuances with a good set of headphones and a virtual surround app.
No reproducing the bone-deep bass of a big explosion in my 1BR apartment with a full four sets of neighbors to potentially complain about it, though.
I still see them in the theater because I have a good theater and it’s not that expensive. But that’s not true for a heck of a lot of folks.
Especially folks with young children.
I have a max of 2-3 movies in theater per year. Maybe a fourth if I can bring the kids.
Yeah, they’re fun, but they don’t actually make you think. They don’t actually say anything.
I mean, that’s ok. I like them. But they aren’t really on par with Scorsese’s best stuff, or even close.