Spoilers herein.
Popular culture plays a central role in inventing a life, the first tenet of which is choosing which sources to ingest. Scorsese is worthy of exposure: he is earnest and skilled.
But the second law of conscious self-invention is a matter of which ideas and notions you cleave to. For me, Scorsese doesn't make the cut and none of his films are on my `worth watching' list, including this one.
That's because Martin has a perspective on film that misses the real magic, the value. His review of important directors here clearly shows this. It is as valuable in revealing the cleft between him and others more creative as its intended purpose in `revealing film.'
Scorsese believes film is a child of the theater and that the purpose of both is to allow us to explore the humanity of each other. His commitment to film mirrors his earlier commitment to the ministry. All his films can be clearly seen in this light -- and so can his `personal history' of film. Even the form of this documentary turns out to be an exploration of a single, interesting being. And the evolution from early films is traced in singularly one-dimensional path of human exploration to the latest evolution shown: the extreme Cassavetes. Cassavetes makes pure emotional `encounter' pieces.
All well. But there are richer notion of film, and art. And life. These have less to do with the character of what we see than HOW we see it and HOW we react, probe. Who we are is more the issue, especially when encountering self as a process of the art.
Contrast Scorsese to his peers dePalma and Coppolla. All of Scorsese's projects are anchored in the character. The camera is slave to the character. All action, indeed the whole environment revolves around the person, even emanates from them. His world of `Goodfellas' is a world of people surrounded by space that we passively watch and sometimes follow.
Coppolla on the other hand lives in the visual assembly. His mind is situated not in the center of the character's heart, but in the filmmaker's hands. That's why we get cinematic effects of action in one place paralleled or superimposed on action in another, amplifying both. The drama is moved by the situation (mostly the visual situation) and the characters are just objects in the tide. It is very intelligent, this manner of composition. It is a little too mannered in fact for my taste, but it is intrinsically a cinematic art (both words emphasized), far from where Scorsese comes from.
Or consider dePalma. He is something between and more clever. His projects are even more selfaware, and anchored by the camera -- the Eye. His eye places the audience not in a theater seat, but makes us God. We swoop into and around the action, abstractly separated from it. The camera has motivation and expresses curiosity, determination equal to that of a character. Coppolla creates montages after Eisenstein; dePalma, great eye poems after the manner of Tarkovsky.
Take your pick. I prefer the narrative intelligence of dePalma, but both he and Coppolla know something about the magic of cinema that eludes mister Scorsese. Taking his work to be important art, the stuff one uses to form a mind, is a lazy decision.
Popular culture plays a central role in inventing a life, the first tenet of which is choosing which sources to ingest. Scorsese is worthy of exposure: he is earnest and skilled.
But the second law of conscious self-invention is a matter of which ideas and notions you cleave to. For me, Scorsese doesn't make the cut and none of his films are on my `worth watching' list, including this one.
That's because Martin has a perspective on film that misses the real magic, the value. His review of important directors here clearly shows this. It is as valuable in revealing the cleft between him and others more creative as its intended purpose in `revealing film.'
Scorsese believes film is a child of the theater and that the purpose of both is to allow us to explore the humanity of each other. His commitment to film mirrors his earlier commitment to the ministry. All his films can be clearly seen in this light -- and so can his `personal history' of film. Even the form of this documentary turns out to be an exploration of a single, interesting being. And the evolution from early films is traced in singularly one-dimensional path of human exploration to the latest evolution shown: the extreme Cassavetes. Cassavetes makes pure emotional `encounter' pieces.
All well. But there are richer notion of film, and art. And life. These have less to do with the character of what we see than HOW we see it and HOW we react, probe. Who we are is more the issue, especially when encountering self as a process of the art.
Contrast Scorsese to his peers dePalma and Coppolla. All of Scorsese's projects are anchored in the character. The camera is slave to the character. All action, indeed the whole environment revolves around the person, even emanates from them. His world of `Goodfellas' is a world of people surrounded by space that we passively watch and sometimes follow.
Coppolla on the other hand lives in the visual assembly. His mind is situated not in the center of the character's heart, but in the filmmaker's hands. That's why we get cinematic effects of action in one place paralleled or superimposed on action in another, amplifying both. The drama is moved by the situation (mostly the visual situation) and the characters are just objects in the tide. It is very intelligent, this manner of composition. It is a little too mannered in fact for my taste, but it is intrinsically a cinematic art (both words emphasized), far from where Scorsese comes from.
Or consider dePalma. He is something between and more clever. His projects are even more selfaware, and anchored by the camera -- the Eye. His eye places the audience not in a theater seat, but makes us God. We swoop into and around the action, abstractly separated from it. The camera has motivation and expresses curiosity, determination equal to that of a character. Coppolla creates montages after Eisenstein; dePalma, great eye poems after the manner of Tarkovsky.
Take your pick. I prefer the narrative intelligence of dePalma, but both he and Coppolla know something about the magic of cinema that eludes mister Scorsese. Taking his work to be important art, the stuff one uses to form a mind, is a lazy decision.