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Taxi Driver |
Robert DeNiro is outstanding as the disturbed Travis Bickle cruising the streets of New York in a haze of alienation and loneliness. It's surprising how much we identify with Bickle considering how little he can relate to those around him. His attempts to woo the high class Betsy are painfully embarrassing. The extent of Bickle's disconnectedness is at once astounding and absolutely tragic because we see that he is not a bad person. I rate this film over Mean Streets because although some of the rawness and vitality may be missing, the improvements in technique, structure and storytelling more than make up for it. Although this is primarily DeNiro's film, there are some notable performances, especially a very young Jody Foster and Peter Boyle in a nice cameo. |
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Raging Bull |
The film where Robert DeNiro finally won his Best Actor Oscar, and quite rightly so. Everyone knows that he gained a lot of weight for the part as the older Jake LaMotta and maybe a lot of people also know that for the young LaMotta DeNiro went into serious training and could have been a handy middleweight contender. In any event all that training paid off because DeNiro's technique coupled with Scorsese's brilliant direction and Thelma Schoonmaker's masterful editing combine to make the most memorable and realistic fight scenes in any boxing picture. Of course it's not really just a boxing picture - it's about addiction - addiction to adrenalin, to control, to glory to losing. The psychology of DeNiro's LaMotta is utterly engrossing. |
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King of Comedy |
DeNiro gives an uncomfortably accurate performance as Rupert Pupkin - a lonely outsider who's hungry for fame and fortune, and who resorts to desperate measures to achieve them. Jerry Lewis plays the unfortunate victim of Pupkin's attentions. Pupkin stalks him at length, and when all his advances are rejected he kidnaps Lewis and demands air time for the stand-up routine he just knows will endear himself to everyone who sees it. This was a time when Robert DeNiro could do no wrong. He should have won an Oscar for The Deer Hunter, he should have had another for Taxi Driver and would go on shortly to finally receive a well-deserved Oscar for Raging Bull, and it's his performance that makes this film worth watching. Lewis is very good too.
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After Hours |
Griffin Dunne stars as a man trapped in New York City after work one day when he tries to score with a women he meets in SoHo. One disaster after another befalls him, and foils every attempt he makes to get home. We're then taken on a journey through the underbelly of the glitzy New York we see by day, and we spend some time with all the people who only seem to surface after hours. And a motley bunch they are too - there's disturbed waitresses, unstable sculptresses, sadomasochists - you name it, and before Dunne gets away from it all he'll encounter a dead body, and it's psychotic bartender husband, be pursued by an angry mob and encased in plaster before being deposited back at work the following morning. Brilliant. |
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The Color of Money |
Sequel to 1961's The Hustler. Tom Cruise stars as an accomplished pool player who teams up with Fast Eddie Felson - who's not too fast anymore - to scam the innocent and fleece the unwary in this slick updating of the old story. Cruise may be a whizz on the tables but he's not too worldly wise and Newman believes he can shape the young boy into a great hustler. The pupil soon becomes the teacher though and Fast Eddie's dreams are crushed later on when he realises he's been hustled himself. Newman gives a good performance here, but he was much better in the original Hustler. Scorsese turns in some neat camera tricks and employs a flambouyant style on the tables, which makes the whole enterprise a bit more interesting. |
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The Last Temptation of Christ |
Now that Mel Gibson has taken the world by storm with his Passion of The Christ, Scorsese's Last Temptation seems to have new relevance. Looking back, using Aramaic subtitles seems like a fine idea, but I suspect the only way Scorsese could fund the film was by casting well-known faces in the key roles. It was not a well-received film, but it was close to Martin Scorsese's heart and he has always been one to follow his heart rather than making a film for purely commercial reasons. I kind of like this film for it's dedication to telling a good story and for the classy way in which it was tackled. There's some good stuff in this film.
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Goodfellas |
This is most Scorsese fans' favourite, and I like it a lot too, but I must admit I do prefer Casino. It's a good story told with a lot of visual flair and technique. Some criticised it's showiness, but as I've said before, these are the kinds of touches that film geeks love and appreciate, and they form the building blocks for the next generation to utilise and refine: Remember the dolly-back/zoom-in shot of chief Brody on the beach in Jaws? Well, it's fifteen years later and now Scorsese has incorporated that stylistic touch into Goodfellas but with a new spin in that it is done so slowly that it will have passed a lot of people by. See if you can spot it.
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Casino |
My favourite Scosese film. I think this just pips Goodfellas for a few reasons; Robert DeNiro has more screen time, it's a more interesting story - the characters all have a defined story arc here where they start off as common hoods then discover Vegas and become part of the criminal establishment whereas in Goodfellas they were just gangsters being gangsters. Also I'm still not too sure about Ray Liotta - there's something creepy about him, and I don't like Lorraine Bracco. Casino is about half an hour longer than Goodfellas, which is a good thing when you're enjoying a film as much as I enjoy this one. Scorsese's style is impeccable. |
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Kundun |
The story of the Dalai Lama from his birth in a small village in Tibet to premature adulthood when he is forced into exile from his own country in 1959 under the tyranny of the invading Chinese army. Another project that Scorsese felt deeply about and this time I would say it's a lot more successful than his previous effort, The Last Temptation of Christ. This is the film of a master craftsman whose been around a long time and knows a lot of stuff, and that's why I enjoy this film; everything is as it should be - the camera is always in the right place and everything proceeds as it should. It's Martin Scorsese's most stately film. |
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Bringing Out The Dead |
This is a supercharged Taxi Driver really - it seems to me that if Travis Bickle had decided to help people out rather than just observe life, if he had gone to school to have some kind of career he'd have ended up as a paramedic, driving around in an ambulance instead of a taxi and he'd be popping pills and taking speed just like Nicholas Cage does in Bringing Out The Dead. Cage is on form here and Scorsese is trying out some new techniques, which are pretty effective. He likes his characters to be on the edge, and Nicholas Cage's character is definitely that. This is a dark tale with some rough moments. Think of E.R with all the lights off and the staff on quaaludes. |
