The modern horror movie Martin Scorsese calls a “panic attack”
Seeing as Martin Scorsese signifies everything brilliant about American cinema, it’s always an honour to a fellow director when he speaks highly of their movie, even if he describes it as a “panic attack”. To even have Scorsese utter a word about a fellow filmmaker’s work must feel like a great honour.
After all, this is the man behind some of the most significant works in the history of cinema, from his early work on Taxi Driver and Mean Streets to Goodfellas and Shutter Island via Raging Bull and The Age of Innocence. The masterworks of Scorsese simply speak for themselves as marks of the highest quality.
While Scorsese is indeed one of cinema’s all-time great directors, it’s true that he’s an even bigger cinephile and possesses a truly remarkable knowledge of the history of film. In addition, the director has always kept a close eye on the route that contemporary cinema has taken, and one gave the highest of praise to his fellow auteur, Ari Aster.
Scorsese had once called Aster one of the “most extraordinary new voices in world cinema” and pointed out the fact that he watches a whole heap of new movies. Scorsese certainly seems to be a fan of Aster and has admitted that his film Killers of the Flower Moon was inspired by some of Aster’s most notable works.
“I very much like the style and pacing of good horror films like Ari Aster’s Midsommar,” Scorsese had said in an interview with The Irish Times before noting how Aster often allows for non-narrative structural scenes to bleed through his projects and how this informed a few moments in Scorsese’s Osage Nation movie.
At the forefront of Scorsese’s respect when it comes to Aster, though, is the 2023 tragicomic horror film Beau is Afraid, which sees Joaquin Phoenix play a polite but anxiety-ridden man who makes a perilous and surreal journey back home after learning that his mother, who inflicted serious trauma on him in his youth, had died.
Anxiety is absolutely at the forefront of Aster’s movie, and Scorsese called the film a “panic attack” in its own right when discussing it with Aster after a special screening. From there, Scorsese noted the “remarkable technical artistry” of Beau is Afraid, which is a fair comment because the production values are truly breathtaking.
After watching the film for the first time, without knowing “what the hell it was about” and just “going on the journey”, Scorsese watched Beau is Afraid a second time to see how Aster made his directorial decisions. He also found that the director had made something of a stylistic and genre leap from Hereditary and Midsommar.
“Like picaresque things, the mock hero,” he said. “There is no plot; it’s all adventures. One of the important things about new cinema is what [Aster] is doing in terms of structure. I get excited by seeing different ways of approaching structure and telling a story where you’re not locked into it. For years, people have been talking about first act, second act, third act. But that’s theatre; not every film has to follow that structure. This is what [Aster] does.”
Clearly, there is a deep respect in Scorsese for Aster in how the younger director forms his movies. Aster has become one of the big names in modern horror, and he has stated his love and admiration for Scorsese on several occasions. Receiving plaudits from one of your heroes is always a dream come true, and Aster can always take pride in Scorsese’s words.
