I really don’t desire to offend, but Spencer Warren’s screed does not merit your praise. It consists mostly of grossly conclusory characterizations without much analysis (“gutter,” “Catholic-bashing”). By my count, that is most of the paragraphs. Blaming Scorsese for the Hinckley assassination attempt on President Reagan (which would have been the worst event in human history! Ergo, Martin Scorsese almost caused the worst event in human history! QED) is a stretch, to put it mildly.
Your own thoughtful, closely-argued defense of Last Temptation disposes of one of Mr. Warren’s chief complaints against Scorsese. (And I don’t even like that movie; but I admire your process of thought about it. Perhaps the most important critical faculty is … let’s call it simply patience, to allow the work of art—film, book, poem, painting—to work upon your mind, and your mind to work upon the work. I wish you would write about movies more regularly, whether new movies or old ones you happen to see.)
It is totally unfair and wrong to brand Martin Scorsese, of all directors, as anti-American etc. Compared to whom? Stone? Spielberg? Moore? Coppola? Tarantino? the makers of Saw and Hostel? The mind-poisoners at MTV and ABC Family and Nickelodeon and Disney Channel? [LA replies: But Mr. Warren does mention Stone and Tarantino as being made of the same stuff as Scorsese.]
It is not legitimate for Mr. Warren to attribute to Scorsese himself, some critic’s view of Taxi Driver:
The critic explained that Taxi Driver is a post-Vietnam critique of “the failure of masculinity as a set of behavioral codes on which to mold a life.” It exposes, among other things, America’s gun fetish and the “myth of the last stand” that is represented by the Alamo and is central to America’s self-image.
Personally, I think this critic is imposing his own views on the movie, which, to me, is the opposite of this critic’s view. (See my comments on Taxi Driver below.) But the point is that it is invalid criticism for Mr. Warren to dock Scorsese for someone else’s description of him.
Now, I am not particularly a fan of Martin Scorsese—he is a very hit-and-miss director in my opinion, and I have no interest in seeing The Departed—but he has made some movies that have impressed me quite a bit, and it is in part because of striking non-liberal or anti-liberal elements in them. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Scorsese is one of the more conservative—or at least non- or anti-lib/left filmmakers. (And he is certainly one of the whitest in his stories and casting, for those whom that concerns.)
I have seen Scorsese interviewed in various documentaries. He never makes liberal or anti-American political statements, but to the contrary is pretty patriotic-sounding compared to most Hollywood types. He loves America as a unique place and says so all the time. He praises—and does not trash—his Catholic upbringing even though he is no longer a Catholic. He says himself that is a powerful influence on his movies, and it shows.
I dislike the excessive violence in some of his movies. But only some of his movies are so violent. Others not at all or barely. And generally, the violence in his violent movies is part of a moral vision. (Compare Tarantino, Saw, Hostel, Hannibal and all the other evil porno-violence out there in respectable theaters.)
Look at Taxi Driver. (I don’t love this movie; too dark and dirty and I don’t like the main character. I can recognize it to be a “good” movie though.) The movie is driven by Travis Bickel’s moral sense. Despite his flaws and weirdness, Travis is a good soul. He erupts into violence in chivalrous defense of the Jodi Foster character. Travis Bickel is very like Don Quixote, who seeks to do knightly deeds on behalf of a Dulcinea . The movie questions whether people like Travis are really freaks, or are they people of a kind of soul that has been displaced by the anti-violent bland “liberal” society we live in?
Look at Scorsese’s Dylan documentary, No Direction Home. Were you not, Mr. Auster, as surprised as I was at how much emphasis and screen time was given to the vicious intolerance of the left-wing folkies towards Dylan when he crossed over to electric rock-and-roll? This was one of the most powerful anti-leftist things I have seen in quite awhile. [LA replies: I don’t see that a critical attitude toward one particular strand of the left as it existed at one particular point in time constitutes anti-leftism.]
Look at Kundun. This movie is anti-Communist and anti-materialist/atheist, and an affirmation of the truth of spiritual faith (even if not Christian faith). The interview between the dignified Dalai Lama and the oily, corrupt, cynical Mao Tse Tung is, hands down, bar none, the most explicit, powerful anti-Communist, anti-atheist piece of film I have seen in my entire life.
Look at Goodfellas. Yes, it is somewhat violent (though not nearly as violent or graphic as it might have been), but the overall point of the movie is that these Mafia gangsters are thugs, contrary to the romanticization of them in The Godfather. Goodfellas has always seemed to me to be, in part, intentionally an anti-Godfather portrayal of Mafia criminals. It is also an non-liberal movie in many ways. One is that it is a Nietzschean portrayal of evil men—they don’t feel bad one bit for anything, but rather rejoice in their power, violence and cruelty. (They are, however, low and petty and not noble.) Another is that it shows woman implicating herself in male criminality, in her own ways and for her own desires. She is not an innocent victim who doesn’t know anything, as in The Godfather. One of the key moments is where she first helps Henry Hill hide his gun—she says when she picked it up, it “turned her on.” The other gangster wives seem similarly to know where the money is coming from and what their husbands do. (The mother of the Joe Pesci character is a foil for the rest of the women characters.)
Look at The Aviator. Self-made capitalist business tycoon and American maverick hero, vs. snooty East Coast rich liberals/socialists.
Look at The King of Comedy. I think this is his best movie, and one of the best movies made in my lifetime—seriously underrated. It is a tragi-comedy that questions America’s celebrity mania and the lust for media fame. It is one of the most literary movies I can think of—a movie as a work of literature—in the way it plays like a short story or novella. It is like a Hawthorne story—Rupert Pupkin has made his entire life into a emblem of his sin (excessive pride, rejection of society of others). It plays perfectly between objective reality and Rupert’s imagined reality. Further, regarding violence, The King of Comedy is a kind of non-violent “remake” of Taxi Driver, but with some important differences in the main characters. In KoC, Rupert Pupkin’s frustrations do not erupt in violent bloodshed but in a (relatively) non-violent kidnapping. In contrast to Travis Bickel’s gallant moral motivations, Rupert Pupkin is totally selfish. Unlike Travis, Rupert does not have violence inside him. He craves to be loved by everyone. However, despite that Rupert doesn’t kill anyone, unlike Travis, he is not a good soul; he is totally self-absorbed (Hawthorne’s “Unpardonable Sin”).
This is all I have time for now. In conclusion: however valuable Mr. Warren’s other contributions to your site may be, I disagree strongly with his wildly unfair critique of Martin Scorsese.