Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence - Taxi Driver
If there is a film that screams "LOOK OUT FOR MARTIN SCORSESE" Taxi Driver is the one that launches him into the film world. It ranks among the top 100 films on the AFI list and top 100 film quotes of all time (you talking to me?).
What I believe makes the film timeless and valuable is the depiction and character study we get for that New York 1970s era. It was grimy, ugly and filled with crime. We study a character that is starting to loose grip with his own sanity yet question if it's because of him solely or the environment around him. We get to see a violent shootout at the end that isn't doing so to glorify violence but to show how disgusting violence is.
The influences this film had to cinema today is still relevant today. Joker, which garnered an Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix, doesn't happen without Taxi Driver.
Personal Favorite - The Wolf of Wall Street
Scorsese excels at making characters that are downright despicable into entertaining figures. Jordan Belfort (who Leonardo DiCaprio should've won an Oscar for) is that type of character. Objectively, Belfort is a drug addict, womanizing, sleazy Wall Street mogul that is manipulating the system to his favor and is one of the reasons the 2008 crash happened. Yet Scorsese takes us within that lifestyle, shows us the glam and debauchery, how enticing it might be and rips it out with hard realization. At the end of it, you smaybe sympathize with Belfort, which in it of its own a marvelous feat because towards the end of his journey, there really shouldn't be any emotional feelings towards him.
What also makes this my personal favorite is up to this point, all I've know Scorsese for is his take on the gangster genre. He uses humor here and there to liven up the mood but for the most part, it's playing everything straight. This film, though, is an outright black comedy. The crass and humor that happens throughout drives home the point of how wrong this all is yet you can't help but laugh at their mishaps.Fan Favorite - The Departed
Scorsese in a cop thriller that stars DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg? Whoever said they weren't hyped for this when first announced was a liar. And it definitely showed. When ranking Scorsese films through IMDb user ratings, Rotten Tomatoes user ratings and domestic box office receipts, this film ranked among the top three of each category.
Unless you were privy to Infernal Affairs (a great film in of it's own right) beforehand, the twists and turns were truly riveting. He mastered the the thrill of the chase. Even though the symbolism is sometimes heavy handed (and if you don't see that rat, you are blind), I believe what drew the masses to this film is Scorsese doing something different with a genre that is largely predictable. A lesser director would've made a film about a cop trying to find the mole in a mob. Scorsese delves into DiCaprio and Damon's characters livelihood and what tolls they go through living a double life while trying to complete their task.
Did We Get This Wrong? - Casino
I remember the first time I saw this film and thought to myself, this isn't Goodfellas. It's still good but it ain't no Goodfellas. It had the same director, same co-writer and two of the same stars so maybe my expectations were much higher than they should have been. Like critics beforehand, I have to believe they had the same mindset as mine. Mike LaSelle of the San Francisco Chronicle sums it up pretty well for critics of that time. "The best De Niro - Pesci scenes in Casino only call to mind better ones in their other Scorsese films, GoodFellas and Raging Bull."
Among Rotten Tomato film critics and Metacritic ratings, Casino ranked 18 and 17 respectively among Scorsese's filmography. Yet among IMDb user ratings and RT user ratings, they are ranked 4th and 6th.
So why such a discrepancy between the audience and critics? Can it simply be that critics hold Goodfellas in such high regard that watching Casino they will always be linked? It seems too simple but when I read user reviews and critic reviews making a comparison between the two, the audience is a lot more forgiving. Audiences like that Casino is in the same brethren as Goodfellas while critics feel that one product is inferior to the other.
Critical Darling - Goodfellas
Taxi Driver is the film that made everyone take notice of Scorsese. Goodfellas is the film that changed how a genre is viewed and is the benchmark to where every film wants to be. Francis Ford Coppola showed you what the dynamics are within in the mafia with The Godfather. Scorsese flat out shows how cool it would be to be a gangster.
Like I've stated before with The Wolf of Wall Street, he is great at making despicable characters fun. We all know that Henry (Ray Liotta), Jimmy (DeNiro) and Tommy (Joe Pesci) are all terrible men. Yet they have a code and a family that supports that code. They show you the extravagant lifestyle you can have (the one tracking shot through the back of the restaurant is one of the best you'll see in film to this day) but the jobs they have to do in order to maintain what is theirs (killing everyone off that knew about the last job heist).
The critics absolutely love this film, ranking it the second highest among RT critic scores. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards (won for best supporting actor) and won best film among film critics in New York, Los Angeles, Venice and Boston to name a few.
Roger Ebert summarized it best for critics alike when he wrote, "most films, even great ones, evaporate like mist once you've returned to the real world; they leave memories behind, but their reality fades fairly quickly. Not this film, which shows America's finest filmmaker at the peak of his form. No finer film has ever been made about organized crime - not even The Godfather."
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