Impossible to draw up the “top 10” of Martin Scorsese’s films? Obvious. Back in the days when it came out 30 years ago Those good guys and 14 years ago it came to the cinema The Departed – Good and Evil, we try. At our peril. Inevitably leaving out experimental masterpieces (The last waltz), controversial titles (whether they were set in Palestine ofLast temptation of Christ or in the Hollywood of The Aviator) and works of aesthetic synthesis perhaps too programmatic (above all Hugo Cabretbut also the “spiritual” Kundun And Silence). But trying to put everything that is “Marty’s cinema” into this list. The debate is open.
10King for a night (1983)
After the titles directed by Marty culminated with the apotheosis (and the Oscar for best actor) of wild bull, De Niro sheds his skin. And he wears the clothes (ironically self-mentioned in the recent Joker, but on the other side) of an aspiring comedian willing to do anything to become famous on TV. All in one night, which gives Scorsese the opportunity to demonstrate (once again) his incredible talent in handling the rampant and desperate spirit of the “humans of New York”. Where comedy and tragedy seem to have no continuity solution.
9Mean Streets – Sunday in Church, Monday in Hell (1973)
After the evolution of the diploma essay (so to speak) Who’s knocking on my door? and the invisible America 1929 – Exterminate them without mercy, the film, considered by many to be Marty’s real debut, comes out. Certainly the one that immediately seems seminal: for adherence to the story “from within” New York in the 70s and for the ability to immediately define a style. Also thanks to the choice of faces, who will be his filmic family for eternity: Robert and Harvey take the stage, and American cinema (not only) changes forever.
8The age of innocence (1993)
Considered by many to be a minor Scorsese, it is actually one of his silent masterpieces. At the base is Edith Wharton’s novel/romance, apparently far from the author’s strings. In reality, the parable of Ellen Olenska (a Michelle Pfeiffer at her peak) serves Marty to fresco that of “his” New York at the end of the 1800s (sumptuously photographed by Michael Ballhaus), while the increasingly mixed society seethes and codifies the foundations of the metropolitan myth. Almost a prequel to the future (and just as misunderstood) Gangs of New York. The male lead, after all, is the same: Daniel Day-Lewis, unforgettable him too.
7Casino (1995)
I “goodfellas” move between the green tables and the roulette wheels of the Las Vegas 70s. But they don’t lose their angry strength (and continued ability to raise the bar at the mafia movie). Still Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, plus a Sharon Stone from which no director had ever been able to extract such energy (as well as the only one, in the bunch, to get an Oscar nomination: sacrosanct, but the film should have been nominated for everyone and everything). One of the «most difficult to shoot» productions, by admission of the author himself, and also a work that divided critics from all over the world: try it today, a film like this.
6The Departed – Good and Evil (2006)
An (irony of) fate that almost seems like a sneer: with this film Scorsese wins his first Oscar for best director after five unsuccessful nominations. And he does it with the remake (although many still don’t know it) of the cult action “made in Hong Kong” Infernal Affairs. Many die-hard Scorsesians aren’t crazy about it, despite its global success. But can we say that it is not one of the most solid thrillers of the early 2000s? And then, in the third film together, there is the consecration of Leo DiCaprio as a “total” Scorsesian actor. And the meeting between Marty and Jack Nicholson. Each element contributes to making history, and rightly so.
5wild bull (1980)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiVOwxsa4OM
Directed by KO (pardon) by Marty. Michael Chapman’s monumental black and white. Tight editing by trusted Thelma Schoonmaker. Proof larger than life by Robert De Niro, rightly recognized by the Academy. An all too classic biopic turns into an opportunity to revolutionize sports cinema, of which Scorsese maintains (indeed, enhances) the epic but not the rhetoric. Marty, albeit very wild, seems to almost disappear, but signs the work inserted by the American Film Institute in fourth place in the ranking of the best US films ever (and first of those with a sports theme). And he corners everyone.
4The Irishman (2019)
The work of a life? Maybe. Certainly, the film with which Scorsese pulls the strings of his own cinema, not just “gangsta”. The very special (and needlessly contested) effect that rejuvenates Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci & Co. is the research not only technological to go back into one’s past, if not to stop time. And Bob who tells the deeds of his “Irish” on behalf of the camera seems like a lesson on cinema (not only criminal) as it was once done and how it can no longer be done. Celebrated and at the same time underrated, it is the film-testament that testament is not: at almost eighty years old, Marty is still a bad boy with many things to tell.
3Taxi Driver (1976)
It’s 1976, New Hollywood is now a certified genre, Bob De Niro is the face with which an entire generation has recognized and identified itself. But it comes out Taxi Driver and the detonation is sensational: Travis Bickle’s existentialist tale of mythomaniac and poignant violence is a bombshell that not everyone is ready to receive, and which also shakes the consciences of the audience for this reason. And then there’s New York, which welcomes and alienates, which generates heroes and monsters (or maybe they’re the same thing?). Endless criticism from the censors (especially for Jodie Foster’s lolita), but also the Palme d’Or at Cannes and an Oscar nomination (also) among the best films. It is the definitive embrace of the young author by the institutions, then you know how it went.
2The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
There are those who love it and those who hate it: fortunately, the latter are very few. After a fresco for (almost) every era, here is the 80s of unbridled yuppism, embodied by Jordan Belfort of a DiCaprio who is never so roaring (this is the role for which he should have won the Oscar, closing parenthesis). Baroqueism is unleashed, but in line with the era and the epos it wants to narrate; but even the irony is limitless, the scene with Leo (plus his sidekick Jonah Hill, also excellent) suffices stoned on Quaalude. Ah, the talent scout Marty has also launched the star Margot Robbie with this film: and it is not a small detail.
1Those good guys (1990)
And there is little to say about this. When one thinks of “a film by Martin Scorsese”, these are the first images that come to mind, forever crystallized in the memory of entire generations of viewers. Because they have defined, together with a precise type of humanity, a cinema that is equal only to itself, classically the heir of Old Hollywood but at the same time very modern, innovative, capable of becoming a cornerstone in its turn. Like his actors, from his brother Bob De Niro to lifelong sidekick Joe Pesci, made of the stuff Martin Scorsese’s cinema is made of. From here to eternity.