Scorsese the Dreamer gets free rein
Peter Hoskin 4:59pm
Broadly speaking, there are two Martin Scorseses. There's Martin Scorsese the Social Realist. And there's Martin Scorsese the Dreamer. Sometimes these two characters collaborate, sometimes they fight, and sometimes they work separately. Or at least that's how I've always seen it.
To clarify: Scorsese the Social Realist makes documentaries, or perhaps films like Mean Streets (1973) - informed by the currents and eddies of his own life, and particularly by his youth. It always seems like the characters in these films keep on existing once the camera stops rolling; that Charlie and Johnny Boy just keep on tearing up the bars of Little Italy.
Scorsese the Dreamer relies more on his inner life - a life informed by cinema, by the fantasies of Mario Bava and Powell & Pressburger, by the patterns of light on celluloid. When Scorsese is in this mode, he makes films which really feel like films. The locations seem like sets, the dialogue sounds hand-written, and it feels like the characters smoke a cigarette and pop to the toilets between takes. This Scorsese is revelling, more than anything, in the sheer art and wonder of cinema. And the result is the The Departed (2006), The King of Comedy (1982) or The Aviator (2004).
Now, I'm not saying that one of these impulses is better than the other (although I must admit that Mean Streets is my favourite Scorsese movie). Indeed, there's even a case that Marty is at his best when he pitches somewhere between them, as in Taxi Driver (1976), Goodfellas (1990) and (perhaps) Raging Bull (1980). But it's just a way of approaching his filmography - and one that I find engaging, if slightly pointless.*
The reason I raise this now is because of Shutter Island, Scorsese's latest film which opened last Friday. It is, with little doubt, the most concentrated dose of Scorsese the Dreamer that we've yet received. At times, this 1950s-set tale of a missing psychiatric patient on an island feels like little more than an excuse to rattle through a thousand-and-one cinematic tropes and references: Val Lewton's** horrors of the mind; Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980); Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958); the foggy graveyards of countless Universal Horror films; Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor (1963); and so on, and so on. But it's pulled off with such panache, with such forceful deliberateness, that it's hard not to be pulled along.
But pulled along to what? So far, it seems like Shutter Island's "twist" ending is dividing viewers and reviewers alike. I won't say too much here, except that the conclusion worked for me - and mainly because of its thematic consistency. All through Shutter Island, we're taken through a Grand Guignol of guilt, paranoia, dread and confusion in post-War America. The scars are plain to see. But, in the end, they're simply shown to run deeper than we thought.
* And it's also the reason why I'm looking forward with joy to Scorsese's documentary on British cinema, which I've always thought is similarly split between two traditions: the high fantasy of, say, Powell & Pressburger, and the social realism of, say, the British documentary movement. I don't think it's a coincidence that Scorsese so admires Lindsay Anderson (one of my favourite directors, as it happens), who resolves these two traditions in films like If.... (1968) and O Lucky Man! (1973).
** Incidentally, Scorsese produced a documentary on Val Lewton a few years back.
P.S. Here's the trailer for Shutter Island:
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THX1138
March 16th, 2010 5:28pm Report this commentI saw ‘Shutter Island’ on Saturday night and loved it a dark and taught psychological thriller that grabbed me from start to finish. It was a stylish movie with fine performances from all involved particularly Kingsley, Ruffalo & DiCaprio, DiCaprio has grown hugely in stature as an actor since becoming Martys leading man (hardly surprising I suppose).. I thought the score worked well too never overbearing but building tension, suspense & the odd bit of humour too. I had no problems with the nods to noir and Hitchcock, 'Shutter Island' is nothing short of a cinematic masterpiece, a journey into a character’s mind, a mystery within another mystery, an open door to a master film maker at work.
Saying all that Mrs THX didn’t like it at all, she thought it was too long, too predictable and far too stylized and she accused me only liking it because Scorsese directed it.. I defended my position vigorously over a curry afterwards.. Okay it wasn’t Mean Streets Goodfellas, Taxi Driver or Raging Bull (but lets face it what is) but it was still a very classy movie, but she did get me thinking that I undoubtedly I do watch Scorsese films wanting to like them as Marty is probably the main reason I love movies so much and I’m always going to cut him some slack… But you hardly ever have to and Shutter Island was no exception…
ndm
March 16th, 2010 7:15pm Report this commentI think Mean Streets is THE Scorsese film. I've had trouble with Raging Bull ever since I read the owner of Time Out saying one reason for the magazine's temporary closure in the early 1980s was that the Time Out film reviewer was so into the film as art she omitted to mention it involved boxing.
Olaf Rye
March 16th, 2010 11:01pm Report this commentI love all his films, but to my mind, 'The Departed' was one of the finest films I have seen in a long time. You never go wrong with Scorsese !
Harry
March 16th, 2010 11:50pm Report this commentI'm afraid Shutter Island is yet another overwrought, overstuffed, overlong piece of junk from American cinema's most overrated living director.
And before you Scorsese fanboys choke on your watercress sandwiches let me just point out that a mere 80 minutes of this hysterical, joyless potboiler, in which Scorsese's camera seemingly can't stop swooping everywhichway & cinematic references to endless older & much better movies abound would be tiresome enough, but this terrible film goes on for nearly two & a half hours!
Scorsese has never been one for subtlety, nor has he ever demonstrated much talent for material outside the Italian-American-Catholic context of his best work (After Hours & The Last Temptation of Christ). Think of all those dreary misfires - New York, New York, Age of Innocence, Kundun, Cape Fear, Gangs of New York, etc, etc) & Shutter Island exhibits all of Scorsese's least attractive traits as a filmmaker.
If The Aviator was an unfocussed, overlong bore with a cold fish character at its centre & The Departed squandered the best male cast in years with its underplotted yet ridiculously overblown script (as well as giving Jack Nicholson the opportunity to contribute his worst ever screen performance. Thanks a lot, Marty) then Shutter Island is just as sterile, unconvincing & artificial & - worse - plodding with it. There's no suspense under Scorsese's direction & the ending is exactly what you thought it might be at the start - & hoped fervently it wouldn't because, hey, that would be just too obvious.
More interestingly the failure of Shutter Island it raises yet again the question of how long this frankly overpraised director can go on being so acclaimed given he hasn't made a movie of substance in over 20 years. How much longer do we have to wait?
Adrian Sells
March 17th, 2010 9:18am Report this commentWell, Harry, that was bracing and delightfully iconoclastic.
You do raise an interesting point which I would like to see answered by Scorsese supporters about the length of Shutter Island.
I haven't seen the movie, but understand it to be - at least, in part - a tribute to film noir. Surely this genre was characterised by its taut, laconic style and the 80-90 minute length.
THX1138
March 17th, 2010 10:25am Report this commentAdrian it's 2hrs & 18 mins of pure joy.
Pete Hoskin
March 17th, 2010 4:07pm Report this commentHarry: I actually agree with some of what you say - especially when it comes to The Departed. And I'm certainly no apologist for Scorsese, although I think Mean Streets is a masterpiece - and so too, more or less, Taxi Driver, Casino, The King of Comedy, Age of Innocence Goodfellas. However, I do like the swollen excess of Kundun and Gangs of New York, but, then, I've always been susceptible to that kind of thing. And, to my eyes, Shutter Island was his best work for a decade-and-a-half.
Adrian Sells: I don't think many people would argue that a 80-90 minute running time is a necessary compenent of film noir, even if many were that length. And I think even fewer people would argue that to pay homage to noir you've got to keep within that running time - I think the homage would either consist in noir-ish themes (alienation, guilt, past associations, that kind of thing) or style (shadows, "low-key" lighting, canted camera angles, etc.).
Adrian Sells
March 17th, 2010 4:41pm Report this commentPete,
Your points are all valid, but I still think that their essentially low-budget feel is characterised by a breathless concision that is hugely related to running time.
Maybe I'm just too in love with less is more.
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