The director Martin Scorsese called “one of the greatest masters”
There’s no doubt that for many fans of classic cinema, the American maestro Martin Scorsese is considered one of the greatest directors of all time. Working with the likes of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Daniel Day-Lewis, Andrew Garfield and Cameron Diaz, there are few directors who hold the magnetising allure of Scorsese, holding the ability to work with any creative collaborator of his choosing.
As well as a master craftsman, creating such classic movies as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and The Departed, Scorsese is also a purveyor of the silver screen, gaining much of his knowledge from some of the greatest filmmakers ever to work in the industry. Whilst he is fond of the likes of Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Sam Peckinpah, there is one “master” that he too rarely mentions.
In conversation with Criterion, Scorsese listed some of his favourite movies from the stylish distribution company, picking out the likes of Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan, Jean Renoir’s The River and Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, flexing his encyclopedic knowledge of cinema.
Amongst his ten choices was the Kenji Mizoguchi movie Ugetsu from 1953, a film which Scorsese deeply admires. Speaking about the movie, which chronicles a tale of ambition, love and war in the midst of the Japanese Civil War of the 16th Century, the director states, “Ugetsu has the most powerful effect on me. There are moments in the picture, famous ones, that I’ve seen again and again and that always take my breath away”.
Whilst Ugetsu is often considered to be his masterpiece, Mizoguchi is also known for Miss Oyu, Sansho Dayu and A Story from Chikamatsu, each created in Japan following the end of WWII. Though for Scorsese, nothing compares to three other post-war films, stating, “after the war he made three pictures—The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, and Sansho the Bailiff—that stand at the summit of cinema”.
In fact, Scorsese is such a monumental fan of the Japanese filmmaker that he adds, “Mizoguchi is one of the greatest masters who ever worked in the medium of film; he’s right up there with Renoir and Murnau and Ford”.
Too rarely is Mizoguchi discussed in the conversation of some of the greatest filmmakers of all time, in fact, even when it comes to the most significant Japanese directors, it is the likes of Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu who are first uttered. Indeed, we agree with Scorsese, perhaps not in his comparisons to the problematic films of John Ford, but in his opinion that Mizoguchi is one of the very best of all time.
Finalising his thoughts on the celebrated filmmaker, Scorsese adds, “All of his artistry is channelled into the most extraordinary simplicity. You’re face-to-face with something mysterious, tragically inevitable, and then, in the end, peacefully removed”.
