Martin Scorsese on the movies that looked beyond the harshness of life itself
If there were only one director to showcase the brilliance of American cinema, then it could be much worse than having Martin Scorsese representing the United States. After all, having directors Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, Scorsese is a genuine icon of the cinematic medium.
While the films of Scorsese have often spoken for themselves in terms of their overall quality and cultural importance, there’s another facet to the director that proves his cinematic understanding. Frequently, Scorsese has spoken of the historical and cultural vitality of many pieces of cinema with unrivalled knowledge and passion.
When naming his ten favourite movies of all time in a feature with Criterion, Scorsese spoke of the “special time in cinema” that arrived just after the Second World War, a time when “millions were slaughtered, entire cities were levelled [and] humanity’s faith in itself was shaken”.
Indeed, the mid-20th century conflict left devastating consequences on socio-politics across the world, but the cinematic medium proved to be a true form of artistry in the way that it dealt with the events of the past with an air of resistance. As Scorsese noted, “The greatest filmmakers were moved to create meditations on existence, on the miracle of life itself.”
He added, “They didn’t look away from harshness and violence—quite the contrary. Rather, they dealt with them directly and then looked beyond, from a greater and more benign distance“. Scorsese proceeded to name the films from the era that he believed managed to see beyond the violence of the Second World War and see beyond what would hopefully become a positive future.
Roberto Rossellini’s 1950 film The Flowers of St. Francis, which focuses on the tales of the life of the titular Italian mystic, poet and Catholic friar, got a mention from Scorsese, as did the director’s 1952 neorealism film Europa ’51, which tells of a woman who becomes a humanist after the death of her young son. Italian neorealism, in general, fits into the niche category of Scorsese, too, as he also mentioned the wider works of Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica, which confronted the realities of World War II and the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini with unflinching authenticity.
In terms of Japanese cinema, Scorsese felt that Kenji Mizoguchi’s films had been looking beyond the tragedy of conflict, particularly in the 1953 period fantasy film Ugetsu, telling about a potter in the 16th century who leaves his family after being seduced by a ghost, as well as the Japanese cinema icon’s 1954 work, Sansho the Bailiff, which tells of two wealthy children who are sold into slavery. Akira Kurosawa was another who had slotted into the new era of cinema with Ikiru and Seven Samurai.
As far as Scorsese’s home American directors go, though, it was down to William Wyler with The Best Years of Our Lives, which touchingly tells of three WWII US Army soldiers readjusting to civilian life after the conflict, and John Ford with My Darling Clementine and Wagon Master, two classics of the Western movie genre.
Finally, Scorsese signed off with his impression of the “remarkable” Jean Renoir movie The River, which follows a teenage girl’s coming of age and first experience of love. “A film that is, really, about life, a film without a real story that is all about the rhythm of existence, the cycles of birth and death and regeneration, and the transitory beauty of the world,” Scorsese noted.
Indeed, the kind of films that Scorsese pointed out were all released in the immediate aftermath of the war, but in their own respective ways, either dealt with the consequences of the conflict directly or helped to dream up brighter tomorrows, showing the power that cinema has in helping a society to overcome tragedy.
