I stopped reading at “Granted I haven’t seen the movie yet.”
Scorsese has been “Hollywood” ever since Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
I agree about the fiction films. Casino was the last good one and I have seen Shutter.
He is doing very well with music and documentary. Maybe he got caught up in box office success and does not want to make challenging movies, maybe he is just old and doesnt want any battles for financing or maybe he has run out of relevant and interesing ways to make a fiction film. Stick to documentaries Martin; the world needs good and profitable documentaries
The trailer is indeed disappointing, but it seems that it doesn’t represent the film well. I might watch “Shutter Island” in a couple of days. It happens frequently that a director isn’t able to come close to his earlier efforts, at least Scorsese is getting accepted by the Academy since his films are commercial enough.
So you have not seen the movie but decide to complain anyway. What is he supposed to be doing? Goodfellas and Mean Streets over and over again. I have not see the film yet but do think it will end up being a worthwhile entry in his already impressing list of films.
About being Hollywood….I don’t get it. Since Mean Streets he pretty much has been working within the Studio system. He seems to have no issue with it and as a film lover embraces Hollywood filmmaking and filmmakers as much as the indie filmmakers. You are all just way too critical and seem to think that he is slumming because he has studio backing.
I heard Francis Coppola speak about 3 years ago and he kind of bashed on his old compatriots, specifically calling out Scorsese by name, saying effectively, “[We used to get excited when a new Scorsese picture was coming out, but now it’s just more studio product.]” Although at that pre-Tetro time, that was a bit of kettle black-calling, I think the sentiment is dead-right. Scorsese will always be an undisputed technical camera wizard, but when adapting screenplays by others, he’s at the mercy of the material. And I think he’s maturing into a role as one of Hollywood’s venerated elders, like Clint – a kind of living relic/fetish object. All of that love really stems from his most daring work, but it’s work that the Academy would still be too afraid to go anywhere near (taxi Driver is still daring, and an oscar win for it today would still be a subversive upset). Now he makes toothless entertainments that allow them a surrogate body of work to decorate him for. Anyone who still talks about him as one of the greatest living filmmakers has a very narrow view of film. I grant any artist the right to challenge themselves with new material/genres/etc, but what he is doing these days does not feel very personal or challenging.
As far as I know, and others have noted, Scorsese has almost always worked in the studio system. What seperated him from the pack of other Hollywood directors was that he was able to satisfy the demands of the commercial enterpise, whilst exercising his own creative juices. He didn’t have to “go indie” to make the film he wanted. I think that’s what’s most impressive. Raging Bull, Goodfellas, all of his esteemed classics are a lot better than the ocassional, pretentious arthouse flick. And it never hurts to earn a bit of money.
Yes, Shutter Island may not live up to his best work (in fact, it doesn’t), but a part of me thinks that we need to accept the present Martin Scorsese, and not continually lambast for not keeping up with the films he made in the past. There’s a sense that you get in his recent films that he’s said all he has wanted to say.
ha, even WAY BEFORE tetro, coppola had no fucking right to bash ANY of his compatriots. he needs to be quiet.
Andre and Sean the present Scorsese has shown with No Direction and Shine a Light that he is very capable of doing better. If audiences stop flocking to his bad films (in my defense I didnt pay for shutter I bought a bootleg) he will maybe drop leo and try something different
why cant coppola bash. Its one right artists have to complain about the art of others
that “toothless entertainment,” however, still is a lot better than the average film that comes out of Hollywood.
SHUTTER ISLAND is a good movie, but not one of my favorite Scorsese films… It definitely had a “Big Hollywood Production” feel to it, and not as much of Scorsese’s personal touch like in many of his others… I thought DiCaprio put in a very good performance with what he was given to do, but the movie as a whole seemed like it was trying to hard to mask what was really going on… Instead of getting into the movie itself and letting it wash over me, it tried too hard to hide the fact that it was hiding the facts… No doubt, some good scenes, just not an entirely enjoyable experience for me…
I don’t know. I have never thought Di Caprio to be a good actor and he certainley didn’t convince me otherwise in SI. But yes, the film did seem as if it was making painstaking costs to conceal “the facts” when it became obvious early on what the final “twist” was going to be like…
Not every film every filmmaker makes is going to be brilliant. But I can honestly look at Scorsese’s list of films and say there is nothing he should be embarrased about having his name attached to.
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@den, but he has only 21 features??
Hollywood or not, the man has never lost his talent or love for film. I think what he does with preservation is great. So, I don’t think anything ever happened to him. He’s the same man who made Taxi Driver, but it is hard to make one of those with every film.
Shutter Island (2010)
Shine a Light (2008)
The Departed (2006)
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)
The Aviator (2004)
The Blues" (1 episode, 2003)
Gangs of New York (2002)
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Il mio viaggio in Italia (1999)
… aka My Voyage to Italy (USA)
Kundun (1997)
Casino (1995)
… aka Casino (France)
A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995) (TV)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Cape Fear (1991)
Goodfellas (1990)
Made in Milan (1990)
New York Stories (1989) (segment “Life Lessons”)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
The Color of Money (1986)
After Hours (1985)
The King of Comedy (1982)
Raging Bull (1980)
The Last Waltz (1978)
New York, New York (1977)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)
Mean Streets (1973)
Boxcar Bertha (1972)
He has about 27. I was counting his early short films as well but a more accurate description (counting 2 feature length tv projects and a very good short documentary made recently) would be 11 good, 8 great and 8 bad, 5 out of those 8 coming in the last 10 years
“why cant coppola bash. Its one right artists have to complain about the art of others”
He can bash all he wants, he certainly has a right. If anyone listens is a different story. I personally really can’t listen to anything that man says anymore. When he hasn’t made even a good film since 1979, it is hard to think he is right in what he is saying.
What he’s done in “Shutter Island” is make a jet-propelled genre film. Audiences apparently have embraced it. But for me it’s a stylistic exercise that falls short — unlike the “Cape Fear” remake which I quite liked.
I at least respect him because he always said he wanted to go back to independent filmmaking and eventually did tho very late in the game
Unlike George Lucas who keeps saying I was trapped by star wars and I want to make arthouse films
“Audiences apparently have embraced it”
they also embraced Judd Apatow and Transformers 2
Well George Lucas is a man who hasn’t made an exceptional films. He made average films in the beginning and made several below average films as of late. Coppola is a man who has made 4 films that are on best ever lists, and basically makes the same kind of crap Lucas makes now, if not worse. To go from there to there, yeah I respect the man certainly for gracing cinema, but he certainly disgraced cinema from setting his bar way too high in the beginning. Lucas never had a bar, and if he does it is very low.
Coppola might have started a comeback with Tetro, but for man that has thrown out shit almost every year between 1979 and 2009, I’m cautioning him until I see a few more films.
Disagree about Lucas, American Graffiti a wonderful film in my mind.
I dont know that I agree with Coppola either (btw I think one from the heart and gardens of strone are very interesting films) just that he certainly has the right comment (calling out has been a staple of art for as long as artists have gotten recognition). Maybe his comments are a testament to how go his wine is.
I probably will see Shutter Island, but I’m not looking forward to it. Somewhere around The Color of Money, Martin lost his edge. He has regained it on occasion, but he just isn’t the same. True that he has always worked within the system, but he didn’t necessarily abide by its rules, and his early films had a deep personal feel that has been sorely lacking in his latest efforts.
you know what they say, directing is a young man’s game
and you can never top the glory days, no matter what. name a filmmaker who has. if you fall in love with a filmmakers work, or a certain period, theres nothing that will ever live up to that original magic.
Whatever happened to seeing a film before passing judgment on it? :) That said, I’m sure Shutter Island won’t convince you but for me it was a moderate return to form (it’s Scorsese’s best film since Casino). I think unlike directors of his generation who made some late-in-the-game masterpieces, Scorsese’s problem is that he’s been so thoroughly enshrined on a pedestal that you don’t get a sense of anything at stake in his films anymore. His films feel really comfortable (aesthetically and emotionally) and that’s a problem for someone who made his mark making angsty, emotionally unstable and often angry films. He’s like an old punk rocker who mellowed out with age and success, leaving his work emotionally hollow. While the Departure was a competent film that felt like it could have been directed by anyone, what makes Shutter island marginally more interesting than the rest of the films from this decade is that it is stylistically more unique and personal.
Ari, in what way in hell is it more personal
Passing judgment without even seeing the film is the problem. Nothing has happened to Scorsese except for backlash backlash backlash. It’s become second nature almost uhh EXPECTED to hate Scorsese or say he’s a shadow of his former self. The truth is all of his recent films still share similarities both thematically and stylistically as the rest of his oeuvre. You’re not allowed to be a fan of higher cinema if you like him because his last couple of films have been nominated for Oscars. You can only like the works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Michael Haneke and other auteurs not in the public eye.
“Anyone who still talks about him as one of the greatest living filmmakers has a very narrow view of film”
Statements like these just baffle me in their irony.
Sean John, more personal in terms of both stylistic and aesthetics but also in terms of viscerality. Yes, it’s a genre film but I think they can be personal too (personal doesn’t just mean making films about one’s own background/culture). Example – How Scorsese captures the protagonist’s emotional distress in Shutter Island is far more emotionally compelling for me than, say, how he captures the protagonist’s emotional distress in The Aviator (which just felt completely flat and uninvolving). And he does this in a profoundly silly film.
Dzimas
Granted I haven’t seen the movie yet, but judging by the trailer and other assorted scenes Shutter Island doesn’t strike me as one of Scorsese’s better efforts. I wasn’t a big fan of The Departed (2006) either. In fact I would have to say the last Scorsese movie I really enjoyed was Casino (1995). I much preferred his early more intimate films like Mean Streets and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. I guess movies like Shutter Island represent the price of going Hollywood. What are other opinions?