Director's Spotlight: Martin Scorsese

Second only to Kurosawa on my list of favorite filmmakers, and really it’s 1 and 1a, I think Scorsese is by far the best filmmaker still working. He’s doing great work at the age of 75. I take for granted that every movie could be his last. He gets some of the consistently best work from his actors of any filmmaker I can think of, and each of his movies is oozing with style, passion, character, and beauty of many different kinds. He’s crossed so many genres, but every movie he’s made is a “Martin Scorsese movie” without a doubt (well, except maybe Michael Jackson's Bad, there’s not a ton of distinctly Scorsese feel to that, understandably), even when they’re not repeating each other.

Like what’s in The Aviator that is in his other movies, stylistically? There's nothing that ties The Aviator into Goodfellas or The Last Waltz from a style or thematic perspective. Yet they're all still masterpieces and feel very "Scorsese" to me. The Aviator probably has the most in common with Hugo, as both are kind of tributes to movies themselves. The Aviator is stylized and colored in the same way that movies back then were, which is why Howard Hughes's peas look blue on screen. Hugo, of course, is a tribute to Georges Melies, one of the godfathers of modern cinema, but it's also about the joy of creation as well. And that's always present in Scorsese's work.

Obviously, there's also that Scorsese is the most Catholic of filmmakers, obsessed with themes of guilt, absolution, sin, and redemption. Silence is his theological masterpiece in my eyes, even more so than Last Temptation of Christ. The thing ultimately becomes with Scorsese that all of his movies are worth watching, even the ones I'm not as crazy about as the others. He's a master filmmaker, the best we have working today, and I like bringing some extra attention his way, even if he's not hurting for accolades.



So anyway, my ratings/rankings would look something like:

1. Taxi Driver – 10/10
2. Goodfellas – 10/10
3. The Aviator – 10/10
4. Silence - 10/10
5. Raging Bull – 10/10
6. The Last Waltz – 10/10
7. Hugo – 10/10
8. Bringing Out the Dead – 9/10
9. The Departed – 9/10
10. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies – 9/10
11. Gangs of New York – 9/10
12. Shutter Island – 9/10
13. Mean Streets – 9/10
14. Casino – 9/10
15. The Last Temptation of Christ – 8/10
16. The Wolf of Wall Street – 8/10
17. The Age of Innocence – 8/10
18. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – 8/10
19. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan – 8/10
20. Shine a Light – 8/10
21. Who’s That Knocking at My Door? – 7/10
22. After Hours – 7/10
23. Cape Fear – 7/10
24. Kundun – 7/10
25. The Color of Money – 6/10
26. Michael Jackson’s Bad short film – 6/10
27. Boxcar Bertha – 6/10
28. The King of Comedy – 4/10
29. The Audition (short) – 4/10