Director Martin Scorsese feels that he has no choice but to go back to being an independent filmmaker. The good people over at slashfilm.com give us this:
“The question is how close to a personal film can I make in the Hollywood system today – and this [The Departed] is as close as I can get,” admits Scorsese in a EW interview. “I don’t know if there’s room for me and the kind of picture I’d like to make anymore.”
Scorsese’s solution may be to return to independent low budget filmmaking, where he got his start.
“I may have to do them independently because I like to take risks, and how can you do that when a picture costs $200 million?” asks Scorsese. “There’s a lot of money involved and you have a responsibility to the studio.”
I like reading this, it’s nice to see artists today saying there are more important things than money, like doing the art the way it was intended. True as an established and well respected director Scorsese can afford to do this without a lot of pain, and I’m sure his “independent” films won’t be as cheap as say…a low budget zombie movie. But it’s still a bold move to go back to lower budget.
For some reason I can’t seem to get M. Night Shyamalan out of my brain with this post, he also has complained that studios hold the reigns too firmly with his pictures (you may remember earlier on in the year he fought heavily with Disney for his artistic rights in the movie The lady of the Water). What Shyamalan ended up doing was going to a different production company and blaring to the media about his woes.
It takes a classy guy like Martin Scorsese to move back into less expensive territory with filmmaking rather than fight with studios every time he makes a movie.
I cannot believe all of the trash-talk I’m reading of Taxi Driver. I’m appalled!
The movie is a classic. “Are you talkin’ to me?” … That’s great.
The subtle transition, Henrik, from normal to sociopath, is meant to show how these are the people you’d never expect to be so. It happens… like that is a perfect definition of the term “going postal.”
I’m in the “Scorsese is overrated” camp as well. Raging Bull and Goodfellas I liked but I don’t find anything particularly impressive about the rest of his work. What I HAVE noticed, as was stated before, that he is a darling of establishment critics and so his efforts, whether they be good (Raging Bull) or ridiculous (Last Temptation) don’t get examined, picked apart and scrutinized nearly as much as the work of most other directors.
Henrik – I would say you undermine your argument the moment you mention the cretinous Shyamalan…
Undoubtably, Scorsese has gone off the boil in recent years. He hasn’t made a decent film since The Age of Innocence, or a great one since Goodfellas, and Once Upon a Time in America is the greatest ‘mob’ film, but:
Mean Streets
Taxi Driver
Raging Bull
The King of Comedy
After Hours
The Last Temptation of Christ
Goodfellas
That is still a formidable filmography! Credit where credit is due.
I notice you still haven’t actually said WHY you think Scorsese is over-rated (your arguments seem to hinge on ‘critics all love him, so I’m going the other way’ and ‘they don’t stand the test of time’, which is patent nonsense since many of his films are still well thought of today), and you still haven’t provided any examples of what you called ‘better non-Marty films’.
I’ve read enough about the mafia, and about the making of The Godfather, to know that that particular film (good as it is) comes mostly from the imaginations of Puzo and Coppola. I also know enough about Henry Hill to know Goodfellas is closer to the truth. I’m not actually in the mafia, so I suppose my knowledge will always be limited, but that’s not what this is about. You suggested there were better mafia films than Goodfellas. I say there aren’t, and you’ve not come up with one either.
No, I don’t have to agree with your arguments for them to be valid, but they have to have some substance to them if anyone’s going to take them seriously. Just because I say water is dry, that doesn’t make it so.
You may be right about this Six Pack fellow when it comes to Casino, The AGE Of Innocence and Gangs Of New York (probably Kundun, too), but the good stuff – the stuff worth remembering (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King Of Comedy, Goodfellas) will still be around. Joe Six Pack might not watch them, but he doesn’t watch them now either. Why would he? Twenty years from now he’ll be watching the 3D fully holographic remake of 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Ah, well. Obviously we we’re not going to agree, which is all well and good. I appreciate your responses. Nice talking to you, Edward.
Take care.
^^ ??? You don’t HAVE to agree with the arguments in order for them to be valid arguments. Again, that’s what I meant when I said “it’s the nature of opinion and tastes.” No two people necessarily see the same thing in all films, and, while I’d never argue that these weren’t significant films, I’d always argue that they’re overrated. Outside of TAXI DRIVER and parts of RAGING BULL (both of which were made at very very different times in the life of Marty, when I’d have to agree that he had a somewhat singular vision, a relevant vision for filmmaking), I believe it’s clear that his films don’t stand the test of time. Sure, that’s 2 for Marty and zero for, say, Uwe Boll, and I give him credit for that, but the rest IS the Hollywoodization of Scorsese, compliments of critics everywhere. (Think of it like Entertainment Weekly proclaiming television viewing audiences for not embracing the new Battlestar Galactica, and you might be inclined to agree. Or critics heralding Oliver Stone — the most successful revisionist ever — as a lesser Scorsese, and you might see my point.)
Erm … have you READ anything about the REAL mafia from history … or are you talking about Americanized portrait of crime? While GOODFELLAS might seem like some folks to be about ‘the mafia,’ I’d have to strongly disagree. I think modern cinema has really confused “mobsters” with “the mob,” or vice versa, and films about American thuggery really aren’t accurate depictions of the mafia from history. Sure, they’re relevant for today, but that’s the point I’m making about not standing the test of time: in 20 years, the only folks who care about CASINO are going to be taking a class on Scorsese. Joe Six Pack may never have seen CITIZEN KANE, but he knows it exists; in 20 years, Joe Six Pack won’t give two shits about CASINO or THE END OF INNOCENCE or THE GANGS OF NEW YORK.
Thanks for responding, Edward, but I don’t agree with your argument at all.
Do you really believe Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas haven’t stood the test of time? These are films that are consistently voted as being among the best of their respective decades.
Films about the mob? The only contender I can think of is The Godfather, but that’s not even about the real mafia. It’s a Hollywood glamorisation. A great film, but not based on much in the way of facts. So if your talking about films that attempt to show what mafia life is really like, then, no, I can’t think of a better film than Goodfellas. Which do you think is better?
Is there a better angry, alienated loner film than Taxi Driver?
A better boxing film than Raging Bull?
As for De Niro, I agree he’s been wasting his talent for the better part of twenty years, but how does that cancel out what he did before? Most artists of one sort or another lose it as they get older, so we’d have very little left if we invalidated all the art created by people who sold out in their later years. Christ, I wish Bob Dylan had died in 1975, but we can’t all get what we want.
P.S. Good call on Midnight Run. I’ve always loved that film.
^^ It’s the nature of opinion and tastes. (And haven’t John and Rod made it very clear that you don’t have to pump up your opinion with an intelligent explanation?)
Scorsese films are critics’ darlings, and, as a result, nearly everything he’s ever done gets industry applause when there are other films — far more significant — that tend to stend the real test of time in relation to dealing with the same subject matter. Take the mob — a Scorsese favorite — and tell me that you cannot name better non-Marty films on the subject.
DeNiro, on the other hand, has finally reached the point where opinion of his work seems to be ‘settling’ over his career. No longer is his every performance lauded. I’ve always enjoyed his work in lesser films — like MIDNIGHT RUN — that tends to get dismissed as ‘sugary’ by most critics.
I know I shouldn’t feed you, Edward Lee, but what the hell.
Since Henrik was good enough to prop up his opinion with an intelligent explanation, how about you do the same? Why do you think De Niro and Scorsese are over-rated?
^^ Not only is DeNiro overrated, Scorsese’s right there in the overrated camp.
Taxi Driver is one of many movies that convinced me Robert De Niro is the most overrated actor in history. I bought Taxi Driver because it’s a classic and I wanted to see what all the fuzz was about, but I was thoroughly disappointed.
De Niro does not burn through the screen for me. His performance is flat and un-nuanced. I understand his character was meant to be a boring guy, and the movie tries to portray loneliness in a big city, but his transformation from more-or-less a regular guy into a sociopath fell flat for me, because De Niro didn’t convince me. I didn’t think the movie trounced him enough to force such a change, and I wasn’t real excited about anything in the movie. It’s hard to point a finger on the one thing that made it bad for me, because it always overlaps. De Niro’s performance is supposed to carry the film I suppose, and he didn’t once convince me. I can’t remember having a concrete problem with the screenplay in the sense that there were specific lines that stood out as horrible, but I didn’t like the overall progression of the movie. When he has his chance at redemption, and the chance to get initiated in society, he spoils it by his obvious lack of social skills, but the scene which was supposed to show this most exactly felt like a cop-out to me. It felt like junior writing, “how does this scene show this and this” and I was sitting there thinking that I was actually watching mechanics instead of something which coherently fit into the story.
I’ll stop now. I could go on and on about this movie like I can with any other. If you’re interested in talking about movies you can email me at [email protected]
I agree this is good news. As much as I’ve enjoyed his last few films, they do have a glossy, studio-friendly feel about them. Working independently could bring back some freshness, and it might free him up to take a few chances and try different things.
Also, to Henrik. Could you let me know why you think Taxi Driver was bad? It’s fine if you don’t like it, but what was bad about it? The performances? The screenplay? It’s a little on the depressing side, but I think it’s easily one of Scorsese’s best. I’m interested to know what you think.
Yeah. Good luck getting Leonardo to take a job at scale, Marty.
Y’know what? “Mean Streets” is still underrated.
Seriously, I think moviegoers – and studios- can have a huge benifeit from established filmmakers working on projects under 30 milliion. These filmmakers will still attact “names”, whatever that means nowadays, they still will have a following, and, yes, they still will make great movies. There are also a small handful of filmmakers who do better on tighter budgets: The Cohen Bros., Steven Soderbergh, John Carpenter…[yes, John Carpenter! Return to the camera…please…? ]
Also, like I said, Scorcese’s name can attract good actors no matter what. He can get an Oscar worthy performance out of somebody.
After the likes of ‘Jackass’, maybe young audiences should be given a film along the likes of “Mean Streets” or “Raging Bull”, get thier butts kicked, wake those sleepyheads up.
If you get a chance, watch ‘A Personal Journey with Martin Scorcese through American Movies’. The guy has an amazing knowledge of and love for film. It’s no surprise that he feels passionate enough to go back to the the edgy kind of filmmaking that made him the icon that he is today. And if ‘The Departed’ is as good as the ‘Infernal Affairs’ we’re in for a real treat.
I disagree with Henrik. You may not like “Taxi Driver” but personally, it’s one of my favourites. But film is subjective so it’s all a personal view.
I think Sharon said it best though. It takes a “classy guy like Martin Scorsese” to say that he’d like to go back to less expensive films and make something that’s a bit edgier. Unlike the nameless one who bitches and whines after leaving Disney.
Now if only his movies were worth watching… Taxi Driver? Gawd that was bad. Casting Cameron Diaz? The sign of any good film-maker.
I much prefer Shyamalan acting like a retard and actually putting out innovative quality film-making.