On November 17, Martin Scorsese turned 80. No director alive has his reputation as a master! Coppola, who is three years older than Scorsese, shone much brighter in the ‘70s—indeed, he towered over the rest of Hollywood, but largely disappointed afterward & men’s memories are short. He’s still working, but does anyone know it? Spielberg, who is three years younger than Scorsese & has been much more popular, failed for that reason to acquire the same reputation as an artist—now that in his old age he’s trying to make political movies, he’s failing. Scorsese seems to have been much more dedicated to two related tasks, to define human sensibility through art, once the task of the novel & the theater, to defend therefore artists as a peak of human nature—& to tell a history of America that would make sense of the harsh conflicts & individualism that define the country, taking exception to the once popular belief that America is basically peaceful & good.
Here’s a podcast I did with my friend & fellow PoMoCon John Presnall on Taxi Driver, the movie that made Scorsese’s career. We tried to show what conservatives should see in this movie that has been neglected—this is not a story about a victim or a macho madman, but about a Vietnam veteran dealing with the national madness & weakness of the ‘70s. He fails at middle class life entirely—he tries working for a living, dinner & a movie dates, &c. he fails at everything—but it’s not entirely his fault. If anything, he seems simply too affected by what American society had become, especially in the cities, above all in NYC, as though during peacetime he still wanted to prove himself an American patriot, as during wartime. To the extent that the movie criticize America, it criticizes not the patriotic & manly side—but the liberal moral, political, & economic collapse.
The other Scorsese entry in the American Cinema Foundation movie podcast is about Silence, Scorsese’s movie about the failure of Christianity in Japan, the conflict between Catholics & an ancient politics that does not separate church & state. This is of course also a meditation on the difficulties of the conscience, most obvious in a non-Christian society in a moment of fundamental conflict, & thus an indirect way of looking at the situation that now obtains among the young & the elites in European countries & America, where an atheistic materialism reigns that’s increasingly alien & hostile to Christianity. My friend Prof. Paul Rahe of Hillsdale joined me for a conversation on Silence, as well as Coppola’s Godfather, which also stages a confrontation between the modern & ancient worlds—the American politics of individual rights & the ancient politics of patrons & clients.
Of course, an artist is best celebrated by enjoying his work & reflecting on it. Soon I’ll publish some thoughts over at Acton Institute on the only Scorsese movie one could call a family movie—Hugo, about French director Georges Méliès & the origin of cinema. It’s also a pleasant movie for the holiday season, so watch it!