The movie that taught Martin Scorsese about on-screen violence: “The biggest influence”
The boundaries of cinematic violence are constantly being raised to new and increasingly gratuitous levels, but Martin Scorsese has never been a filmmaker to include scenes of wanton brutality in his movies just for the sake of it.
That’s not to say he hasn’t made plenty of violent films because he has, and it’s something that’s brought him regular criticism and controversy over the years. It was only a small part of the backlash that greeted The Last Temptation of Christ, but several of its blood-soaked scenes were an endurance test for the eyeballs.
Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro watches his brother get beaten to within an inch of his life by metal baseball bats in Casino, knowing fine well he’s next in line for the chopping block, the final act of Taxi Driver was defined by Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle exacting his bloodthirsty vengeance, and Tommy DeVito knifing Billy Batts to death in Goodfellas are just several examples, but they’re all in service of the story.
It’s not like Scorsese is out there dumping gallons of claret on his cast for the sake of it, but he’s run afoul of censors and pearl-clutchers on many occasions. There’s always a reason for the director to include violence in his features, and he’s made enough without it to underline it isn’t a gimmick or hallmark he can’t do without.
The concept of violence within the fictional context of cinema is always more powerful when it means something. Audiences have become desensitised to watching invincible action heroes mow down small armies or slasher villains racking up sky-high body counts, but a savage fate awaiting a character they’ve become invested in? That’s an altogether more potent thing.
It’s been key to Scorsese’s approach since the start of his career, and there was one film that taught him everything he ever needed to know. While celebrating the virtues of Michael Mann’s Heat – which features one of the greatest shootouts ever committed to celluloid – Scorsese pointed to a classic 1931 gangster flick as being instrumental in forming his own perspective.
“Don’t forget, for me, the biggest influence was William Wellman’s The Public Enemy,” he said to Rolling Stone. “And it’s always pointed out that the act of violence is offscreen. It’s tricky. I didn’t realise it for a few years because I saw it when I was 12, and there’s a big gun battle at the end.”
However, despite Scorsese vividly remembering each beat of the narrative, it took him a second viewing before he was struck with the realisation violent scenes don’t actually need to show the full extent of the violence in order to get the message across. Oxymoronic to a point, but influential nonetheless.
“But you never see it; Jimmy Cagney goes into this saloon, it’s raining outside, and you just see gun flashes,” he continued. “You hear screams, he comes back out, and he’s shot, goes into a giant closeup, and he goes, ‘I ain’t so tough’. It’s like, you never needed to see!”
It was a formative lesson in how the unseen can be every bit as important – if not more so – than what viewers are presented physically. He may not have forsaken violence entirely, but if it wasn’t for The Public Enemy, Scorsese might well have made a lifelong enemy out of the MPAA.
