Starring: Hollywood superstars took part in a big project about Scorsese
The megalomaniac documentary series "Mr. Scorsese" is a perfect match for the 82—year-old classic's own ambitious films. DiCaprio and De Niro, Spielberg and Blanchett, Jodie Foster and Daniel Day-Lewis, and dozens of other respondents of different levels of stardom, along with the author of the film, reflect on the scale of the master's personality and sort through conflicting personal impressions. But at the center of the story is Scorsese himself, with whom the director of the film, Rebecca Miller, recorded many interviews for this series. Izvestia talks about one of the best releases of the year.
Where do De Niro, DiCaprio and Day-Lewis come from in this movie?
It happens that you watch a movie and you envy yourself. You don't look at your watch, you don't check the timekeeping, but you just want it to last longer. This rarely happens today: the world cinema is going through difficult times, and the usual daily news shocks and fascinates much more than any fiction. Against the background of reality, the best plots seem sluggish and lifeless.
Martin Scorsese
The five-hour mini-series "Mr. Scorsese" on Apple TV+ is a real gift to the viewer. Because the biography of the great director is so dizzying that this intense stream of life breaks through from the screen, carries the viewer with it, changing the mood, state, awakening creative energies. Recalling Pushkin's idea that "following the thoughts of a great man is the most entertaining science."
Martin Scorsese, one of the most significant cinematographers of the XX and XXI centuries, a pioneer, a brawler, an educator, cursed and blessed all over the world for several decades, has received the largest study of his biography in the history of cinema. Actress, director and producer Rebecca Miller ("Maggie's Plan", "The Private Life of Pippa Lee", "The Ballad of Jack and Rose") has done a herculean job. There are not only a lot of her interviews with Scorsese himself, recorded in different places each time. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Robert De Niro, Steven Spielberg, Cate Blanchett, Daniel Day-Lewis tell her about the legendary Marty.…
Wait a second, how did she manage to interview Day-Lewis himself, the cinephiles will ask? The rest of the celebrities are still more or less accessible, despite their status as celestials, although if you knew what kind of things DiCaprio is saying here, you would be very surprised. But Day-Lewis is known for his inaccessibility, and there would have been no interview if Rebecca Miller had not been his wife for 30 years. That's why he talks so freely, and his interview is one of the best among the dozens we'll see here. And his relationship with Scorsese, from The Age of Innocence to Gangs of New York, was all in front of her eyes. And when she reminds him in conversation how he broke his nose playing Bill the Butcher, we realize that this is a very personal story.
Daniel Day-Lewis
Spike Lee, Paul Schroeder, Isabella Rossellini, Ari Astaire, Brian De Palma, Margot Robbie, the Safdie brothers, Paul Schroeder present here each their own point of view on Scorsese's personality, add here his wives and children, New York childhood friends from criminal areas, critics, historians — and we get such a symphony, for which alone any connoisseur of cinema would give a lot. Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, the symbols of Scorsese cinema, are physically missing, of course, but apparently even Miller's enormous capabilities and administrative resources are not unlimited.
Why "Mr. Scorsese" is an outstanding Series
It's an expensive, big project. Not only are there interviews, but there's also a lot of expensive music: The Rolling Stones, Donovan, Peter Gabriel, Cream. A million archive tapes. "Animated" drawings and graphics. All this costs more than one million dollars, and there is a feeling that in the end this money was not even enough. The running time was clearly supposed to be more than five hours, most likely eight, and this reduction is almost the only disadvantage of this outstanding film, which will become a must in the film library of any movie fan.
Rebecca Miller and Martin Scorsese
It's all about the composition. Rebecca Miller arranged the story in chronological order. The first episodes tell about the difficult childhood of Marty Scorsese: a large but poor Italian family lived in a poor neighborhood, gangsters ruled everything in the neighborhood, the guys witnessed showdowns, murders, and fights. And little Marty almost died of asthma and spent months and years watching the "evil streets" from the window and not being able to get out. But it was hot at home, and air conditioners could be found in cheap cinemas at that time, and dad took Marty to the cinema because it was easier for the child to breathe there. So cinema, oxygen, and life became synonymous for Scorsese. Did you know?
The first episode ends with an introduction to De Niro, it's the early 1970s, and it's clear that the author set out to give an encyclopedic analysis of all his work, from educational films and his debut in 1967 with "Who's Knocking on my Door?" (look, if you haven't seen, the amazing role of young Keitel, the amazing plot, amazing characters, and there's already a lot of things that we love Scorsese for) up to the latest works. And she kept up the pace until the early 1990s, and then suddenly she starts rushing, "skipping" important projects for Scorsese, and in the last, fifth episode she puts the whole XXI century away. This inevitably leaves a feeling of some kind of crumpling.
A shot from the movie "Who's knocking on my door?"
Where are "Blues" and "There's No Turning Back", "The Rolling Stones: Let There Be Light" and "Underground Empire", "Timekeeper" and "Vinyl", Rolling Thunder Revue and "Imagine That You're in the City"? And this is not the only thing that is missing from the film, and it is not dramaturgically justified in any way, it can only be explained by deadlines, lack of money or pressure from producers / customers.
But this is a claim that will be made by those for whom Scorsese is practically a member of the family, because when you grow up watching his movies and try not to miss anything, when you read his interviews and cry over his cameo in the TV series Studio, you start to take him too personally.
And yet, even for the experts, there will be a lot of new things here. Does everyone know how the famous Travis Bickle monologue from Taxi Driver originated? And that Scorsese's mom first played his first passenger, and then she was cut out? By the way, many funny scenes are dedicated to her and her cameo: it turns out that Scorsese never gives her the text, but only asks her to behave naturally in the scene. Do you remember how Scorsese got out when he was told to cut part of the finale from Taxi Driver? Did you know that the scene from Pulp Fiction with a shot of adrenaline is an "adaptation" of the monologue from the 1970s documentary film "American Guy" by Scorsese? Have you ever heard that the director of the iconic "Gangs of New York" is unhappy with the film, considers it unfinished, and on the set he swore so much with Harvey Weinstein that he threw his desk out the window. However, later it turned out that it was another person's desk.…
A shot from the movie "Taxi Driver"
There are many such anecdotes of the past days here, but the film does not exhaust them at all. Miller talks delicately but honestly about Scorsese's depressions, his broken marriages, and his conflicted nature. There is enough said here about how difficult it is to be with a genius, and Miller understands this optics quite well: she is also the wife of a genius, and all this is quite close to her. Therefore, for the finale, she leaves scenes from the modern personal life of Scorsese, who has been caring for his last wife, who suffers from progressive Parkinson's disease, for many years. This immediately translates the narrative into a different register and cuts into the memory.
Martin Scorsese
Perhaps this film is too hagiography, a hagiography. Perhaps the author's proximity to the characters in the picture played a role, she is not at all an outsider, not an impartial observer, and finally, she is not primarily a documentary filmmaker, although this is not her first non-fiction work. Perhaps there are not enough enemies of Scorsese, of whom he has made a lot, but here they are presented, if at all, in a comic way. Film critics and film historians will find this story too cursory, despite the impressive five-hour running time. But nothing better has been filmed about Scorsese so far and is unlikely to be in the near future. "Mr. Scorsese" is a titanic work, worthy of any awards and, of course, the audience's love. It's so exciting that after each episode you want to immediately start making your own film — the most honest, the most irreconcilable, the most radical. Cinema = oxygen = freedom, Scorsese reminds us. And after 300 minutes in the company of this director, you believe him unconditionally.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
