The movie Martin Scorsese compared to a classic work of art: “It’s unique”
In the great debate over whether films should or shouldn’t be considered art, few people have made as strong a case for the former as Martin Scorsese. Not only are his movies wildly successful and historically valuable, they’re also beautiful. While there are more visual filmmakers out there, work with cinematographers Rodrigo Prieto, Michael Balhaus, and Robert Richardson stands as the perfect example of how to balance physically stunning vistas with engaging, relevant stories.
Richardson, who has also worked on the likes of Platoon, World War Z, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, collaborated with Scorsese on the 2010 picture Shutter Island. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as an FBI agent called to investigate a missing asylum patient, this twisty-turny thriller is beautiful to look at, making full use of its gorgeous Massachusetts locations. The film gets super trippy too, allowing for all sorts of visual effects to flood the screen and bring the various characters’ delusions to life.
While promoting the film to Indie London, Scorsese cited a classic psychological thriller from the 1960s as a major inspiration for his own mind-bending venture. “Shock Corridor is a classic work of art,” he said. “It comes from the unique experience of being [director] Sam Fuller, and yes, there’s always that element of Shock Corridor hovering around the picture, but never specifically. In fact, I didn’t even screen it because it’s in us. It’s in me anyway. It’s in me. It was a way of conjuring up support just by saying the name Shock Corridor, as I was going to shoot.”
Released in 1963, Fuller’s movie stars Peter Breck as Johnny Barrett, a journalist hellbent on winning the Pulitzer prize. His ambition leads him to get intentionally institutionalised to report on the story of a murder that has taken place inside the facility. He quickly realises he is out of his depth as the horrors of the institution rapidly take their toll on his psyche.
Fuller lived an extraordinary life. Born in 1912, he began his career as a reporter and pulp novel writer, penning books about hardened criminals while covering the real thing for the press. He had made a splash writing screenplays in the mid-1930s before joining the US Army to serve in World War II. Upon his return, he moved into directing, beginning with the 1949 western I Shot Jesse James. His work became a major influence not just on the French New Wave movement but also on American filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch. Scorsese once called him “one of the bravest and most profoundly moral artists the movies have ever had”.
In terms of movies, he screened his actors, including Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley alongside Leo; Scorsese picked a wide range. A major one was Laura, a 1944 mystery noir from director Otto Preminger. To generate some of the movie’s horror, he screened two Jacques Tourneur films: Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie.
Samuel Fuller isn’t an unknown director by any stretch, but it takes a real scholar of cinema to pick him out as a reference point. Scorsese knows film inside and out, better than 99% of anyone who has ever lived, and his dedication to preserving so many elements of the medium’s history should be greatly commended.
