Learn about Martin Scorsese
It’s been delayed like a million times or maybe just once and I got really upset about it and cried a little bit but this Friday sees the release of Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island. It’s the continuation for Scorsese and DiCaprio working together. It’s not Scorsese’s normal gangster stuff which I might going to complain about that it’s De Niro it’s the DeCaprio well they’re apparently as good and as faithful as work as the work that they did in 80s and early 90s year. We don’t know we have to wait until Friday to find out if it’s any good or not but one thing is for sure Scorsese is a living legend, the master in its own time, love it and endured by all—one of the best living film maker. It’s the subject of today’s very important dudes and dudettes in film history show.
So Scorsese started out like exactly what 50% scientifically determined of all famous working film makers by going to film school specifically the Tisch School in NYU in New York where he is also born and raised. The most famous film from that period is time of the students called The Big Shave which we can see thanks for the You Tube you can go and find it it’s not that hard to find which is ultimately titled Viet ’67. It’s basically a five-minute piece where the guy shaves his face in the bathroom and eventually shave and felt bloody and eventually slips his own throat while shaving and it’s just this horrible bloody very stylish commentary on the American involvement in Vietnam. What’s interesting is that even way back then in a five-minute short in film school, you can see some of the Scorsese style, some of the queues especially the way that he uses his music.
Scorsese started working with Harvey Keitel who he knew from school right away and knew a lot of the other film branch from the 70s as well, Brian DePalma introduced him to Robert De Niro and Francis Ford Coppola took Ellen Burstyn to go see approval screening of Mean Streets his second feature. Not by the Ellen Burstyn choosing him to direct her in Alice Doesn’t Leave Here Anymore which is a movie that’s kind of a bit of an—and then it’s not about a troubled young catholic Italian dude struggling with morality and machismo and guilt and crime. Ellen Burstyn is really good in it, she won an Oscar for her performance. It’s a really good movie you can’t forget about which is a repeating pattern in Scorsese career.
Scorsese then made you know it you love it, one of the best films of all time Taxi Driver starring Robert De Niro. He and De Niro brought us Travis Bickle in one of the best character portrait films of all time and also brought us John—trying to kill Ray—It was also the first time Scorsese work with cinematographer Michael Chapman and the pairing helped establish Scorsese’s reputation for innovative expressive catalogue. Post Taxi Driver Scorsese tackled New York, New York musical and it’s kind of failure going into depression and a really powerful addiction of cocaine. Making the documentary that the ban the Last Waltz with some of the best cinematographers working the business again Michael Chapman didn’t help bring them out but what did was Robert De Niro working with him in 1980 on Raging Bull another one of the best movies of all time. It’s half terrifying, half beautiful and thanks for really telling the people like Michael Chapman and editor film school makers undisputed technical masterpiece.
So from this point 1980 go 10 years in the future to this point 1990 you Goodfellas with Pesci and the shine box, stabbing the dude in the trunk of car from five years on from that point you got Casino with Pesci getting barried in a desert. 11 years on from that point you got Gangster Jack with a shade and the stone song and the trouble and the drama and you got Scorsese that gangster movie master. The absolute king the genre, the maestro at the top of game making movies that he knows how to make that we’d love film making except in between all of those gangster movies. Scorsese made a bunch of other movies they’re incredible that people just kind of glass over. The King of Comedy and After Hours are both great. some of the best darkest comedies that came out in 80s. Even the Color of Money is good and it has Tom Cruise it in. Cape Fear is great, it’s an old fashioned thriller that introduced us to the Robert De Niro that loves to chew up the scenery and it’s awesome. He’s also that made the massively underrated Last Temptation of Christ and whenever that you remember about that film is the controversy. What they forget is that it’s a really, really good movie.
What get missed about these guys well yes, a lot of his work explore some routines, single trouble dudes, family, honor, machismo, crime. He’s got a pretty broad obra well it’s worth exploring even if you think well I’m a guy that likes—murders why would I like an adaptation of—set in New York in the 1870s. Try it you’ll like it. The good news for lovers and gangster movies anyways because in 2011 they will bring Scorsese and De Niro, I Heard You Paint Houses which will feature De Niro playing Frank the Irishman Sheeran, the guy that currently shot Jimmy Hoffa. So will Shutter Island be good? I don’t know we’ll have to wait until Friday to find out. Dennis Lehane is a great writer, Scorsese is probably the best living film maker. It’s not a gangster thing but I don’t really care he makes great movies no matter what genre he work in and I’m looking forward to it.
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