A small praise to one of the Greatest Filmmaker, on his Birthday!
This is just a small praise to one of the greatest filmmakers in the western world. I am not here trying to accentuate his greatness because all who will be reading this knows the man and watched his films even if you have not you would have definitely heard of him.
My relationship towards Scorsese is actually not from his old classical films like Raging Bull (1980), Taxi Driver (1976) or Goodfellas (1990) but rather funnily from one of his older films The Departed (2006). This didn’t really matter to me because I loved him from this film alone and realized who he was as a filmmaker. Think it like this now, The Departed is for some people not Martin Scorsese best film but I saw this film first and I loved it for its consistent direction and performances. Now suddenly imagine someone like me who watched The Departed but later discovered his classics. It gave me a feeling that I really can’t quite put it in words. The next film I am talking about is definitely Taxi Driver and to me I think its his most prominent work he has ever done. That film oozes with the ambience of New York and how he grew up there and his form of the collaboration of music and framing. It just made me realize the guy is another level and only through this I managed to admire him so much. He is a filmmaker who has defined the genre of “Gangster” cinema and you can see that through his immaculate film the Goodfellas. He captures his roots of Italian descent and he manages to create a film that is humorous and shot so well with his one shot especially. If you watch the film notice the scene where the protagonist moves from the outside of the restaurant to the inside and he just creates a wonderful single take shot of the camera from the perspective of the protagonist.
Now I can go on and on but like I said this is just a small appraisal to the man who has influenced not only western cinema but through out the world. I mean think someone like Bong-Joon-Ho when receiving his Oscar for his country that is on the other side of the planet for Martin Scorsese, he gives a standing ovation to him and regards him as a great influence. It is this type of impact that he has created around the world and not only there look at Indian Cinema people like Anurag Kashyap, Mani Ratnam, Gautham Menon and the recently famous and happening director in Tamil Cinema Lokesh Kanagaraj are all fans and have been influenced by his work. He is a man or rather let me be more respectful a filmmaker who will be remembered as one of the greatest not only in western cinema but world cinema.
If you have not watched any of his films you are missing out on some of the greatest works in cinema and I highly recommend that you do watch one of his films from his filmography and you will not regret it.
A scene from Goodfellas (1990)
Robert Deniro as Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver (1976)
The Departed (2006)