It’s his birthday today.
It will be a huge loss when this man goes. He holds up the torch for continuity of cinema history, and his breadth and depth of knowledge – which he is so eager to share – is an essential part of the movie-lovers’ world. I cannot tell you how many movies I have sought out because of his passionate advocacy. He knows everything. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet of my friend Glenn Kenny’s book Made Men, about the making of Goodfellas, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Glenn interviewed everyone involved, including a lengthy sit-down with Scorsese (whom Glenn had interviewed before). It gives good context about the phenom of that film AND how it was rejected by a lot of people, because of the violence. (Same shit, different day.) Its reputation has grown to a towering height ever since, but it was one of those things where people didn’t quite recognize what they had when it first arrived. There was a lot of chatter about that movie. Maybe not as totally irritating as the ridiculous chatter around The Irishman, ranging from “This movie literally silences women” (there aren’t enough eyerolls in the world …) to “Scorsese only directs movies about gangsters” (I guess Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, New York New York, The Last Waltz, King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, Last Temptation of Christ, “Life Lessons”, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Kundun, Bringing Out the Dead, The Aviator, Shutter Island, the George Harrison doc, Hugo, Wolf of Wall Street and Silence don’t count. He’s done more movies NOT about gangsters than movies about gangsters. And these people, some of them, actually write about film. In a way, they help me save a lot of time: I know who NOT to read now.)
One of the honors of my career thus far was to write and narrate a video-essay on the three central performances in Raging Bull, included in the special features of the Criterion Collection’s long-awaited 4k release of that masterpiece. That piece required a deep and concentrated dive into the Scorsese/DeNiro collaboration – one which I have already been invested in since I first became aware of movies as a teenager – but to do so in a deliberate way, with this focus in mind, was an intense joy. I am very very proud of that video-essay (not online: you have to be a paying member of the Criterion Channel and/or buy a copy of Raging Bull to watch it. Of course I highly recommend you do so, and not just because of my video-essay.
One unexpected result of my participation in Criterion’s release of Raging Bull was receiving a hand-written card in the mail.
I had to sit down on my front steps when I figured out what was going on, when I saw the masthead on that little note card. I am truly honored.
For his birthday, here are some other pieces I’ve written where Scorsese figures either prominently or peripherally:
— For my Film Comment column about watching movies in a theatre vs. watching them at home, I wrote about the quaalude scene in Wolf of Wall Street, and how differently it played in the two different contexts. It was fascinating!
— I had the great honor of interviewing Scorsese’s long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker about her gig restoring Powell/Pressburger’s Tales of Hoffmann, one of Scorsese’s obsessions and influences.
— In 2013, which feels like it was a million years ago, I wrote about The King of Comedy for what was then Capital New York, and is now Politico. I love that bleak joyless movie.
— I wrote about Taxi Driver on the occasion of the film’s 35th anniversary. The film hasn’t lessened in power, not by one iota.
— For a feature at Ebert about the Best Films of the 2010s, the contributors all voted on their choices, and the editors tallied it up coming up with the final list. I lobbied – hard – to write about Wolf of Wall Street, which I did. I lobbied hard because:
1. I love that movie.
2. Women criticized the movie for its misogyny. I thought it would be cool to have a woman sing its praises, just to fuck with the accepted narrative.
One of my goals in life as a writer is to combat sexist assumptions – coming from men AND from women – about what women will and will not or should and should not like. If a woman disagrees with the so-called feminist status quo, she is shunned by so-called feminists as “not like us.” It’s happened to me practically all my life. It happened to me in high school, in college, and beyond. It happens to me now in the world of film criticism. The only way to deal with it is to not give a fuck. I already don’t give a fuck about sexist men. They’re everywhere. But women who buy into this “girls like different things from boys” shit? What is WRONG with you? Why are you reinforcing Victorian-era-1950s-era gender roles like this? Make it make sense. I address this in the piece.
And finally, and the biggest: I wrote the booklet essay for Criterion’s release of After Hours, his Beckettian-Surrealist-Kafka-esque (all of the above) New-York-cross-section movie starring Griffin Dunne. My involvement in the release led to a 45-minute phone call with the man himself, where I was nervous beforehand, and then not at all nervous during, because he was so nice. We talked about After Hours, yes, but so much else. He gave me a code-name the next time we meet in person, which we are bound to do: “Sheila-Raging-Bull-After-Hours” so he’ll know who I am. You know I will take him up on it!
I’ve seen Killers of the Flower Moon twice. It’s still in theatres: I highly recommend seeing it in a theatre. It’s different from his other films. There are very few cinematic flourishes, of the kind we associate with Scorsese. There’s one long shot, swirling through the rooms of a house, each room bustling with activity, one of those intricate shots Scorsese is so good at, an attention-getting camera move. But other than that, Killers of the Flower Moon is shot in a fairly straight-forward way, with lots of focus on the faces, on close-ups. Lily Gladstone gives a performance literally like no other – it’s an unprecedented role – but it’s De Niro I think of when I think of this film. This is unlike anything he’s ever done before – so exciting, and – quite honestly – one of his most frightening performances. But what’s going on goes even deeper than that. There are certain performances which are so psychologically acute – so insightful – that they actually explain how the world works. Not many performances are like this, because not many actors (or people, really) have that wide a lens. De Niro does. He had that wide a lens as a young actor too. It’s why he stands out. He’s beyond himself, he’s beyond a SELF. Travis Bickle explains something about how the world works, he explains a TYPE of alienation in the same way Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov explains the same thing. We need these people, these characters, these vessels – and when it “hits”, then forevermore we have it as an example. We can go back to Raskolnikov again and again. It’s not a character. It’s not even a mindset. It’s a psychological state of being: and we need artists who look at things with such a wide lens. Again, it will be rare. Because, in general, human beings are not very smart about why we do what we do, and how we do what we do. Otherwise why would we keep making the same mistakes over and over again? Robert De Niro’s performance is chilly, ice-cold, and perhaps it’s coldest when it’s warmest. If you’ve seen it you’ll know what I mean. Lily Gladstone represents the human cost of the evil perpetrated. De Niro is the evil. And evil doesn’t snarl and cackle like a villain. Evil is caring, evil speaks in a soft voice, reaches out with a soft touch. Evil HIDES itself. Robert De Niro, a pessimistic even nihilistic man – at least in terms of his psychological makeup – understands this. Even very good actors find a way to wiggle out of the psychological implications of what they are asked to play. Playing a villain LIKE a villain is one way actors try to escape, keep themselves safe, avoid complicity in what they are playing. They find ways to distance themselves. De Niro does not.
Seriously. It’s a major performance.
Seeing these octogenarians working, still upping their game, challenging themselves, going to newer deeper levels, and creating a work so personal it implicates ALL of us … this is reason to celebrate.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
KOTFM is one for the ages. I’m chuffed you picked up on the two faced nature of DeNiro’s performance. He is a prairie Iago.
It was such a good performance.! You have to be a really TOUGH person to give a performance like that. and of course he’s very tough, mentally. He’s looking at the heart of the matter with that role – like, that’s how it was, that’s the mentality, here it is, out in the open, bald-faced.
The trailers for Killers of the Flower Moon looked quite good (I saw them while I was in the theater for Oppenheimer), but I’m so bad about actually getting out there & watching movies that I doubted I’d manage to follow up and go see it. But your recommendation tips me into the “more likely to see it than not” category… I’ll have to make a special effort to go see it. I do see a couple theaters near me still playing it.
I’ve also made a note to watch Wolf of Wall Street (another movie whose trailers I was interested in when I first saw them but that I just never got around to). I’ve read some of what you’ve written about it, and I imagine I’d enjoy it greatly — it sounds right up my alley.
I have to admit that I just went to Wikipedia to see the total of Martin Scorsese’s filmography and realized that the only film he’s directed that I’ve seen is Shutter Island (and one that he produced: Uncut Gems). It’s harder to convince me to watch older movies vs. newer ones (my ADHD can make it painful to watch films with slower pacing/fewer cuts/less visual stimulation, and it seems like older films are more likely to fall into this category), but I might also pick one of his older movies & try to watch that, too. Maybe with something to keep my hands busy while I watch…
If I had to pick between Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas, which should I watch?
Goodfellas is not “slow” at all. It never stops moving! It’s fluid and funny and violent. Classic gangster movie. I’d start with that one. Taxi Driver is one of the great works of American cinema – as is Raging Bull – so of course I’d encourage you to see them both – but in terms of pacing, I think Goodfellas is totally accessible (as is Wolf of Wall Street). They both play like bats out of hell!
Thank you for the wonderful recommendation — just watched Goodfellas and I loved it! This is probably not the best comparison, but the closest thing I’ve seen to it is Snatch, I think. There was a similar chaotic energy, and it was indeed quite funny!
Interestingly, my husband had Goodfellas in his collection (and had seen it before) but had *not* seen The Godfather (which I *had* seen), so we had fun watching those two back-to-back and comparing the very different takes/vibes, too…
(If I manage to get around to the others at some point, I will try to check in & at least give you credit, lol!)
I have a feeling I could see every film Scorsese has made and still think, “I haven’t seen enough Scorsese.” For now…yup, I *really* haven’t seen enough Scorsese. My favorite of his films–because I lean toward the “sense of wonder” of it all–is likely HUGO, that amazing kind-of-steampunk movie that starts out in a rail station full of tunnels and catwalks and manual clocks but which slowly becomes a tale about the earliest days of cinema. I know the film was adapted from a book (quite a good one, at that), but I still think that it would have been a shame if anyone BUT Scorsese, with his life-long steeping in the world of cinema, had made it.
I also loved THE IRISHMAN, in terms of his recent work. I sometimes feel somewhat alone in that assessment, but I greatly appreciated the idea of what’s like like for mobsters who DON’T get “whacked” at some point, the ones who actually do make it to old age and find themselves in a home wondering why the kid doesn’t stop by more.
Kelly – I adore Hugo!! It feels Spielberg-ian to me – which I loved – because it shows Scorsese has all these different kinds of artists in him (yet another example of how he doesn’t “just” do “gangster movies”). But “wonder” isn’t really a Scorsese fingerprint – but here it is in Hugo! It was magical and very emotional – I was surprised by how emotional it made me. and I ADORED the little romance going on down among the officer (cop?) and flower seller – it was so yearning and perfect. ALSO I loved that James Joyce was sitting at one of the tables!
and I looooved The Irishman. You are not alone!! also we finally got Pacino and De Niro together (Heat notwithstanding) – and I was so happy seeing the two of them – IN PAJAMAS – talking before bed. it gave me so much pleasure!
I also kind of got the feeling that the Irishman was not wildly beloved in the period right after its release. Over time the commentary seemed to get more positive, & I wonder if that was partly that people moved on (as you do), and only the real Scorsese lovers were still talking about it.
As for me, I needed around a year after first seeing it before I was ready to go back to it, in part just because it’s so long, you really need some time available. But it grew on me fast when I did get back to it, and I watched a few times through over a couple months. That Pacino performance, man, I kind of wish Scorsese had made (or would make) a 3- or 4-hour Hoffa biopic.
I also want to go on record that I am with Sally Bugs: it needs to be explained how you buy a fish and don’t know what kind of fish it is. I mean Chuckie did eventually come up with the explanation, just saying, that does need to be explained.
Anyway, I’m at the same place now with Killers of the Flower Moon that I was for a while with the Irishman, which is that it was great and all, but I need more time to pass before I’m ready to go back into that one.
Oh, and on “What’s life like for mobsters who DON’T get whacked”: You ever notice how in Goodfellas, it all comes crashing down for Henry Hill just when he’s hitting middle age, and that juvenile life he’s been leading is not going to be sustainable much longer anyway? It provokes exactly the question you ask, and that the Irishman looks at. Wonder if Scorsese was thinking about that general question all those years.
I agree with your thoughts here about these films – I haven’t yet re-watched Killers of the Flower Moon – I found it quite overwhelming the first time, particularly De Niro’s performance. I feel like – even at his age – he is finding new “ways in” – he has explored evil so many times – but never quite this BRAND of evil. it was so smart – showing what a psychologist he is. World-class. like, what does evil like that look like? It looks kind. It looks generous. This is an INSIGHT, not a performance – I feel the same way about so many of his performances – Travis Bickle is an INSIGHT into a psychological PHENOMENON – not a performance. I think Rupert Pupkin is the same thing. and yet because De Niro is brilliant, he’s not presenting a thesis – he is so embedded in it the critique is implicit. He’s not TRYING to make a critique. He the human actor is totally invisible. and I really felt this in Killers.
Pacino was the perfect Hoffa – he could lean into his strengths, the verbosity, the blow-hard-ness of it all – you understood why Hoffa had the position he had when you watch him (again: a performance like this provides insight. Not all performances do!).
Yeah, I recently rewatched King of Comedy and that Rupert Pupkin performance is really amazing. De Niro has played so many tough-guys, it’s almost a typecasting thing, and Pupkin is so NOT that kind of guy, he’s completely believable. Reminds me of Cagney, who played a whole boatload of tough-guy gangsters, but would also go all in on song-and-dance man in Yankee Doodle Dandy, comedy in One Two Three, or his amazingly craven coward skipper in Mr. Roberts.
Also, thinking a bit more about it, it may well be that what we got in Irishman, is all Scorsese had to say about Hoffa, or maybe he wouldn’t want to look at that kind of historical person too directly, would rather go through this Frank Sheeran fantasy. (I mean, I gather that there really was a Frank Sheeran who wrote about having done these things, but the FBI doesn’t seem to regard any of it as very credible.)
Now the Scorsese-movie minor character who I REALLY want to see expanded to feature length is Matthew McConaughey from Wolf of Wall Street. Really buried the lede there
yeah what happened to that Matthew M. character? He seems like a cockroach – he’d survive anything!
I wonder if De Niro as Rupert was so alienating to audiences back then who were conditioned to see him a certain way. and couldn’t even perceive what he was doing. God, the moment on the date where he’s trying to impress her (his real life girlfriend – or maybe wife by that point?) – and he’s talking about “woody” etc., and his work is so HILARIOUS but also so uncomfortable you want to hide under the table. It’s extremely exposing work – maybe even more so than Travis – because to some degree Travis made it okay to admit to being that lonely and isolated. But NOBODY wants to admit to feeling like Rupert Pupkin inside. we reject our inner Rupert Pupkins.
// is all Scorsese had to say about Hoffa, //
yeah, right? seems to be so. and I feel like Frank – with his maybe tall tales – is kind of similar to a lot of the confabulators and myth-makers Scorsese seems interested in: like Didion wrote – “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”. someone like Jordan Belfort told himself the story of who he was – and then conned everyone around him to believe it too. Rupert Pupkin is a perfect example of this – the most vivid world is inside his own head, where he tells himself the story that he is the Heir Apparent.
It’s really interesting.
I think I commented recently somewhere on here, though not this thread apparently, that King of Comedy struck me as being more Rupert-Pupkin-subjective than I got on earlier viewings; anyway, it’s mainly the interactions with Rita (the Diahnne Abbot character, Rupert’s girlfriend (though maybe in fantasy only?)), that I get this feeling. Not sure of this at all, I really need to watch it through again, but they struck me as having a distinctive look, as if shot with a soap-opera lighting, or something, that made them feel more fantasy-world. (Having a grasp of film technique would be helpful here, alas.) It’s possible I’m projecting back from the scene at the end, where he goes into Rita’s bar, and it segues from realistic into fantasy (with the bits on the TV toward the end where Rupert “actually” does become the star of the moment). Again, not sure.
I also rewatched Inside Llewyn Davis about the same time, and those two make a bit of a pair, “what about an artist who’s NOT successful?” Though with Llewyn, he really is an artist, just not good enough to make it as a solo act. Rupert, he’s more of a celebrity cultist.
Oh, and “I wonder if De Niro as Rupert was so alienating to audiences back then who were conditioned to see him a certain way”: On one hand, this seems right, seeing King of Comedy after Travis Bickle/Jake LaMotta/young Vito Corleone must’ve been off-putting to lots of viewers. But on the other hand I wonder if it mattered, in that De Niro is SO good as Rupert, and Rupert is so awful; it’s just a repellent performance (complimentary).
Trying to think of another character with such an awful presence. You ever read Wise Blood? Remember Enoch, the kid who gloms onto Hazel, is obsessed with a mummified body at the local museum, dresses up as a gorilla later on? Everybody loathes him? Pupkin reminds me of him, except Enoch’s only a minor character, not the center of the whole story like Rupert. But similar combination of neediness with nothing endearing to offer.
// De Niro is SO good as Rupert, and Rupert is so awful; it’s just a repellent performance (complimentary). //
so true. I think it’s one of his very best. he has so many people in him, lol. like my friend Dan says in his book – his work is so internal you don’t SEE it. EVER. he’s a phenom. truly. he’s not “playing a character”. he is that guy. he’s as cringey as Travis – hell, MORE cringey.
I also wondered if his mother screaming down the stairs was even real. I mean, it’s pretty funny imagining this New Jersey mother thinking “who the hell is he talking to down there?”
OH. and for many years I lived in an apartment ON “his” street. at least the street they chose to represent where he lived, with the view of New York on the river. Literally my street. I can see my door.
I used to walk on my commute through the location of a Dirty Harry scene, the scene where they find the body of one of killer’s victims on a kind of wind-swept hillside with a lotta long grass growing. Empty field in the scene, it now has an apartment building & a storage facility on it; you can spot it b/c there was one building across the street, that is still there, still recognizable by the bars over its door and windows. There’s lots of new construction behind that building too, replacing empty sky in the movie.
(I say the “building..is still there,” but this was ~12 years since I’ve been there, so this one remnant building could be gone by now.)
How lovely that he sent you the card. He’s such a legend. His infectious love of classic cinema is matched only by that of Guillermo del Toro, and I wish that someone would make a documentary just recording the pair of them discussing the classics for hours on end without interruption.
I’m drawn more to his less acclaimed films over the gangster flicks(although they are amazing). The Age Of Innocence is my favourite. It’s like watching an 1800’s painting come to life.
Maddy
age of innocence, more and more seems to me a masterpiece. It took me a while, I think. I saw it in the theatre – and of course it’s beautiful, but I think maybe I needed to be a little bit older to really get it. It blew my hair back when I revisited it. I also think it’s one of his most gorgeous LOOKING films.