FFS- Scorsese

Martin Scorsese is no doubt one of the greatest film makers of all time based on awards, critiques and film fans alike. Three of Scorsese’s films made it onto the American Film Institute’s “The 100 Best Films of All Time” list (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas). Now obviously many things make him a great, his plots are deep and enthralling, he always seems to get the most out of his actors and his staging of shots are unbelievably good. However of all of the things Scorsese does well, I am going to talk about his use of lighting and staging of shots in Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Departed.

Now the focus/point of all three films are very different however Scorsese uses the same elements to achieve these effects. In Raging Bull, the point is to depict the emotional trauma of Jake La Matta’s life. Taxi Driver deals with social issues of Prostitution, Mental health, and the scum that inhabits the night life in the rough parts of NYC. And The Departed shows the workings of organized crime and the holes in our justice system.

Scorsese’s use of shading and lighting throughout all of his works is more than just a way to depict the emotions in each scene; they display deeper meanings in the overall theme of the story. I think that the most evident of these is in The Departed. In the final shot we see the justice building of Boston glowing in the vast sunlight and a rat on a rail covered in shadow perfectly in line with the dome of the building. In a story all about rats in crime and the law, its sums up the movie. But the lighting ads more than that, it becomes slightly political in nature just based on the shading. We see the Police as a place that stands for clean, wholesome, law-abiding people by definition. Hence the building is bathed in sunlight. However, organized crime doesn’t survive without rats in the government and that is what you don’t know about. The rat is bathed in shadow, hidden from plain view. Light is also probably the most important feature of Raging Bull. Probably some of the most obvious is Vicky especially early in the film. Everything about her is white when she first appears, from her hair to her dress to the bed that Jake seduces her on. This highlights her youth, her innocence and her standing in Jake’s mind as the girl who “you don’t just bang and forget about”. But let’s not forget Taxi Driver and all of its focus on night and day. Just as Travis says everything comes out at night. The strange red lighting during his conversations at night, when his mental state is rapidly deteriorating, is to alert the viewer of the way that this conversation is actually affecting him.

Now, let’s look at Scorsese staging in each film. In Taxi Driver, when Travis goes to see Palantine arriving in his limo and he talks to the Secret Service man, Scorsese stages the shot so perfectly to emphasize Travis’ lack of appeal and his inability to fit in society. He has an inspiring campaign poster of Palantine in the foreground, a very tall clean cut Secret Service man in the middle ground, and an awkward Travis looking very undersized and uncomfortable in the background. This shows the importance of each of these characters but also the roles and their importance in the mind of Americans. People like Senators are talked about all the time, government looks out for your average Joe but little attention is given to those like Travis who really need it. In The Departed we have so many of really interesting shots but the two I want to focus on are of Damon before he enters the force and just after Nicolson dies. In the first shot Damon is inside a circle, the circle then expands out to show Damon alone outside with a lot of sunshine in the center of the street in the city of Boston.  The second time we see Damon alone in the dark in his office with busy people crossing back and forth with many things around him, the shot then moves to the circle we first saw him in at the beginning. The flipping of these shots is ironic because at that time in the movie Damon has a lot of support, in fact he has the entire mafia behind him. But in the final shot he is all alone, the leaders of the mob have been killed and the only tie to the organization he just burned. The shot symbolized not only the switch of him standing alone among the mob to being just another cop but also his incredible isolation now.