Is Scorsese Scorsese

Is Scorsese Scorsese?: The Wolf of Wall Street and other films as evidence

By Ted Gentle

            Martin Scorsese may be the best known filmmaker in the world, known for such critical favorites as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull as well as the more recent popularly and critically acclaimed The Departed and Shutter Island.  Even the Wolf of Wall Street, although not a critical success, contained his usual bankability.  It is noteworthy that while his early films were grounded in a first person perspective, his later films have at times abandoned this in favor of a more in your face, political approach.  Even cast members such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Andrew Garfield reflect a more contemporary approach to the films.  Has Martin Scorsese literally been replaced by a new director such as Oliver Stone (the most likely suspect), or has he simply embraced a more spontaneous, politicized approach to filmmaking?

            It’s interesting that two recent Scorsese affiliates, Laeta Kalogridis and Leonardo DiCaprio, have had or almost had an affiliation with Oliver Stone.  Kalogridis authored his critically panned film on Alexander the Great, and DiCaprio and Stone were at one time in talks to adapt Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho.  Starting with the alleged Scorsese film The Aviator (and maybe Gangs of New York) on, these films have also been faster paced and contained more action scenes.  There is less attention to setting, conversation, and awkward moments.  The camera doesn’t just sit and watch a conversational scene unfold.  The films in some ways resemble what this Ellis film would have been, with very fast pacing and very routine attention to class disparities in a more coherent way.  The films in many ways have more in common with Born on the Fourth of July than Casino or Bringing Out the Dead.

            Silence is another example of more politicized subject matter.  The film deals with an unwanted presence in a foreign country like Platoon or Oliver Stone’s failed Pinkville.  It never fully enters into the perspective of any character, and it even does away with Scorsese’s usual habit of letting relatable characters survive until the end of the film.  Many lovable characters are killed by the Japanese, setting the stage for a comment on this Jesuit occupation.  Except for a few brief scenes resembling The Last Temptation of Christ, the photography never overtly resembles Scorsese’s except for a generally gray tone.

            Even in the DiCaprio era, one can identify a few touches that resemble Martin Scorsese, such as the Coco Cabana club in The Aviator or the tea cup briefly glimpsed in The Departed.  However, with the filmmaker getting older and with his affiliation with Stone well known as his former teacher, one may ask what inspired this shift in his oeuvre from the modern into the postmodern.  Their frequent interviews together, which are easy to miss, and even the similarities between their films such as Taxi Driver and Natural Born Killers make this possibility more likely than one would initially think.