Martin Scorsese has a new picture coming out Friday. Whether or not you view this as a blessing or a punishment is another matter entirely.
It's all been said about our boy Marty and his movies, but hey, let's say it again, since Scorsese is his movies, more than any other director in history. Let's run down the list. Scorsese is a pit bull. Scorsese is a Maserati on a lonely stretch of road. He's a Springsteen anthem. He's a shot of rye. He's The Man. Right? Right?
No. Well, yes. But also, no. He is all of those things I mentioned earlier, but at times, in the worst possible way. More than anything else, his movies seem vain, indulgent and, at times, borderline incoherent. His brilliance will forever be compromised by this immaturity and lack of discipline as a filmmaker.
In 1974, when "Mean Streets" was released all of his stylistic quirks were a blast. The steadicam shots, the hammering pop-soundtrack, the voiceovers, the knockaround neighborhood dialogue — this was the first (and probably best) example of American naturalism. Just call it Neighborhood Verite.
Indeed, looking back now, even 32 years later, it's impossible not to get a charge out of "Mean Streets," the picture that put Scorsese (and Robert De Niro) on the map. The two most iconic scenes — the opening montage of home videos to the tune of "Be My Baby" and De Niro striding into the bar with "Jumpin' Jack Flash" thumping on the soundtrack — have been parodied to death, but somehow, in their original forms, these moments are so earnest, so pure, so raw, that one can't help but get caught up in Scorsese's dizzying bravado.
Indeed, in the ensuing 32 years, Martin Scorsese has brought so much joy, so much passion to his movies, that he has been put up on a pedestal. He escapes the criticism that gets heaped on his contemporaries like Brian De Palma and even, to a certain extent, Steven Spielberg.
Recent history has been rather unkind to the film brat generation, yet Scorsese seems to have largely been given a pass for the last 35 years, which has reinforced his most infuriating traits. Why do Spielberg, De Palma, George Lucas and the late Hal Ashby find their work under attack, when Scorsese is allowed to skate?
The answer lies in Scorsese's strength as a director. His propensity for dazzling isolated moments of bravado that are so gaudy, so brilliant; they obliterate almost all of his flaws. Those other directors are trying to make films, whereas Scorsese's strength seems to lie in isolated scenes. His focus on the end product is hazy — how else does one explain all the continuity errors and sloppy editing that highlight his films. He's not a filmmaker — he's a moment maker.
Ah, but the moments are glorious, you say. This is true. If all you did was watch scenes from Scorsese movies in a constant loop, you'd have a pretty transcendent cinematic education. At the very least, you'd be enthralled, which is more than you can say for most other directors. Sure, there's the giddy high of watching Billy Bats ordering Tommy DeVito to go home and get his shinebox, or the heartbreaking beauty of seeing Travis Bickle listen to "Late For The Sky" as he aimlessly dips his Wonder Bread in peach schnapps. Or if those moments don't do it for you, what about seeing the perpetrators of the Lufthansa heist turning up dead, with the "Layla" piano solo on the soundtrack. Or what about Henry Hill's entrance to the Copa, all in one long steadicam shot. (Indeed, no director has made better use of a pop soundtrack than Scorsese.)
But, in the end, what do all these moments add up to? Sure, they are great to see when you're flipping through the channels and look pretty good when cobbled together in one of those AFI tributes, but, upon watching "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas" in rapid succession this past weekend, I was shocked by how imperfect much of his filmography really is. Has Martin Scorsese ever made a truly great film in the literal sense, which is to say one with a perfectly realized beginning, middle and end? Heck, I'll even leave his lesser work out of the discussion — let's forget for a moment the fidgety, preternaturally uncomfortable duo of "Cape Fear" and "The King of Comedy" and the head-scratching musical oddities "No Direction Home" and "New York, New York" and focus on the so-called "Scorsese canon."
Even his best films have a bizarre tendency to veer off into borderline obsessive-compulsive territory during their final acts. From the unwatchable, drug-addled madness of "Goodfellas" and "Casino," to the descent into Howard Hughes' nauseating OCD in "The Aviator," Scorsese almost seems to be doing penance for the joyous indulgences we get early in his films. Sure, we can enjoy all those great moments early in his movies, but in the end, we're going to have to put up with a lot of insanity as punishment. In his early movies, it was dogmatic and grueling Catholic imagery (remember Harvey Keitel putting his hand in the flame in "Mean Streets"), then it was drugs in the '80s and early '90s, and now, it's garden-variety OCD behavior. All are variations on the same obsessive theme. And, at this point, it's starting to get tiring. Shouldn't he be growing up just a little bit by this point?
Even "Taxi Driver," certainly Scorsese's best movie, implodes in the final 25 minutes. For nearly 85 minutes, one could make the argument that "Taxi Driver" is certainly of the four or five greatest films ever made — a haunting, austere portrait of urban loneliness. And then, it all goes to hell, with De Niro's rampage through the city streets and an even odder epilogue that, if interpreted literally, turns Travis Bickle — only the very model of post-Vietnam alienation — into some sort of a folk hero.
Scorsese is a water-walker. This is fine, I suppose. We need our sacred cows in this day and age. But count me among the people still waiting for Scorsese to define himself as something other than a stylist. He's too good to keep repeating himself. It's time for our boy Marty to grow up.
