Martin Scorsese as an Auteur By Yasmin Ally

What is an Auteur?

Firstly, an auteur is a director who takes creative control of the majority of a film-making project. This is through the director himself inputting his own style onto his films; therefore creating their own recognisable style making their particular style differentiate from others.

I will be doing my presentation on Martin Scorsese, who is an Italian American director, and how his creative input in his films has made him an auteur.

Martin Scorsese’s Work

Scorsese is known for his unique style in films containing masculinity, identity and violence through his gangster films, period films and biopics. Many of his leading characters in films are often portrayed to be isolated in a chaotic world by trying to make sense of it.

Scorsese is known for his unique style in films containing masculinity, identity and violence through his gangster films, period films and biopics. Many of his leading characters in films are often portrayed to be isolated in a chaotic world by trying to make sense of it.

Martin Scorsese’s Visual Styles

Martin Scorsese’s Visual StylesScorsese is also well known for his films based on true stories, portraying the lives of real criminals. These films I will be comparing – evidencing why Scorsese is an auteur.

Quite often in Scorsese’s films, you see a use of Steadicam shots, slow motion, freeze frames and popular music. There are examples of these in…

Steadicam Shots: Mean Streets & Goodfellashttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srphI34omF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sr-vxVaY_M

The reason Scorsese uses Steadicam shots in these extracts is to let the audience see out of a similar way the eye sees but not with a shaky-like feel, with a more continuous feel.

Visual Styles: Freeze FramesGoodfellas and Casino share the use of freeze frames. In Goodfellas, Scorsese uses freeze frames to highlight the important memories Ray Liotta’s character Henry Hill remembers from his life, which is used to draw our attention to these particular memories and to let us see it from his point of view. The freeze frames are on the following memories:- A beating from his father- Running away from cars that he torched- Henry staring into the boot of a car where a brutally injured man is, with a non-diegetic

voice saying “As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster.”- When Henry comes out of court

Scorsese also uses a freeze frame in Casino when Frank Vincent’s character Frankie is asked a question, the frame shows the look on his face of him being in a predicament where he is unsure of whether or not he should lie due to the consequences. Scorsese does this as the voice over presents the character’s emotions, allowing Frankie to speak directly to the audience so they can sympathise for him.

Visual Styles: Cast

Another recognisable visual style would be that Scorsese often uses the same actors, including…

Robert De NiroCape Fear

Mean StreetsTaxi Driver

CasinoGoodfellasRaging Bull

The King of Comedy

Joe PesciGoodfellas

CasinoRaging Bull

Leonardo DicaprioGangs of New YorkWolf of Wall Street

The Departed

And his parents who often play small roles, e.g.

GoodfellasCasino

Raging BullCape Fear

The King of ComedyWho’s That Knocking at My Door

Mean Streets

Scorsese may have done this due to Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent often playing similar roles as the main character with violent sidekicks (likewise with his parents even though they only often play small cameo roles).

Visual Styles: Music

Martin Scorsese’s films are also recognisable through his use of popular music. In Casino, he uses two different versions of two tracks by The Rolling Stones. The original versions of ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘Satisfaction’ are shown during the beginning of the film whereas towards the end when situations between characters get worse, ‘whacky’ cover versions of these are played to highlight the tension and unordinary behaviour between characters. In addition to this, ‘Gimme Shelter’, ‘Monkey Man’ and ‘Memo from Turner are also played in Goodfellas, ‘Jumpin Jack Flash’ and ‘Tell Me’ are played in Mean Streets, ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘Let it Loose’ were also played in The Departed.

Scorsese may have potentially done this as during the beginning of his directing career The Rolling Stones were a famous group as they still are today, which will make the audience like it even more, therefore through using music from the same group throughout his films, the audience will always easily be able to link the two together as the majority of their songs are heard in Scorsese’s films.

Visual Style: Voice Over Narration

Often found in Scorsese’s films, are voice overs and non-diegetic narrations made by the main characters. This is

primarily because the voice over provides the character with the opportunity to speak to the audience – making them feel as

if they can relate to the character in some way. The following films include voice overs:

Goodfellas (Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco)Casino (Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci)

Taxi Driver (Robert De Niro)Mean Streets (Harvey Keitel)

Wolf of Wall Street (Leonardo Dicaprio)Gangs of New York (Leonardo Dicaprio)

Visual Styles: Slow Motion

Scorsese is also known to use slow motion in his films to enhance subjectivity; he uses the technique to tell the audience something about the characters and/or what we’re seeing at that moment. Firstly, slow motion is used during Johnny Boy’s entrance to create tension between Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel’s characters. Again, during the beginning of Raging Bull and during fight scenes (of De Niro’s character).In Goodfellas, when Joe Pesci’s character shoots someone.In Casino after Joe Pesci’s character stabs and kills someone. In Taxi Driver after the shooting. In Goodfellas looking at Robert De Niro’s character.

Recurring Themes

The recurring themes throughout these films are often dramas based on criminals and/or the grey areas of immorality and greed that the main characters’ face. You can see this in Goodfellas as Ray Liotta’s character Henry Hill is faced with the option to live within the law as a regular person, however he chooses the opposite route to have a life of luxury. A similar theme is in Casino with Robert De Niro’s character Sam Rothstein as his greed for power and money from running a casino takes over his life. Again, a recurring theme of deception is often portrayed in Goodfellas, Casino and Raging Bull as the main characters turn against each other for money (Goodfellas), power and women (Raging Bull & Casino).

Again, the theme of immorality is also portrayed in Raging Bull as the main character is arrested for introducing underage girls to men in his club. However, in Taxi Driver when Robert De Niro’s character Travis Bickle kills the gangsters involved in child prostitution he was still morally wrong for taking matters into his own hands even though he did it for the right reasons. Therefore, the theme of immorality is still there.

Textual Analysishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEbpXnJGEq4

This is an extract from Casino that includes slow motion which again is a way of enhancing subjectivity and telling the audience something about the character in the shot.