The Christmas movie Martin Scorsese called “unexpectedly moving”
Around Christmas time seems like the perfect time to stick a Martin Scorsese classic on the television, to dive headfirst into the underbelly of the American organised crime world with Mean Streets and Goodfellas or enjoy the intense character studies of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, and thereby transcend the expectations of Christmas cinema.
After all, all the repeated performances of Santa Claus in the likes of Miracle on 34th Street or even the comedy of Elf and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas gets incredibly irritating after too many years, so the brilliance of Scorsese seems to serve as the perfect antidote of traditional Christmas films‘ trite, twee banality.
As a Catholic, it’s unsurprising to learn of the legendary director’s love for Christmas – the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ let us not forget – and Scorsese once spoke of one of his favourite Christmas movies, although it’s one with a dark and sombre tone, in line with the kind of themes his own filmography tends to grapple with.
“I suppose that one good way of describing them is to say that they’re continually surprising,” Scorsese once said of the films of A Christmas Tale director Arnaud Desplechin. “The tone is constantly shifting, the actors are always fresh, the camera is always in a new position, and the films catch you off guard. They’re made with great freedom and joy, but they’re also tough, tuned into sadness, confusion, basic human savagery.”
A Christmas Tale was released in 2008, a French comedy-drama starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny and several other French stars. Competing for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Desplechin’s film tells of the strained relationships between members of a family as they come together at home to celebrate Christmas following the news of the mother’s cancer diagnosis.
“This picture [is] about a family gathering at Christmastime,” Scorsese explained of the narrative. “The matriarch has learned that she’s dying of a rare and dangerous form of leukaemia. The doctors search among her family members for a bone-marrow transplant match, and there are only two: her delicate young grandson and her oldest son, the black sheep.”
“The film has so many shifts and twists and grace notes, such a feeling for the beauty and danger of ongoing life, that it feels Shakespearean; there are evocations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Scorsese added of the movie. “It is also wonderfully fluid and vivid. This is a magical, unexpectedly moving film.”
Check out the trailer for A Christmas Tale below.
