The Hot Blog

Great post. I would argue that Day-Lewis in "Age of Innocence" also fits your paradigm. He returns to and accepts the benefits of family life instead of giving into the baser desires that have motivated his inner turmoil, namely an affair with Pfeiffer, in the film's final scene. Like DeNiro in "Casino", he decides not to 'mess up a good thing'. All these men seem to come to an epiphany, although their choice of what to do with it greatly differs.

Really intriguing, and possibly my all-time favorite Hot Blog post.

Dave I think you have hit exactly the very element of Scorsese's appeal. The myth he seems to be exploring is that the saints are the sinners because they recognize their own brokenness, if you'd like at the climax of the story. In their quest for redemption they become broken open by the journey and that is how the light of their redemption, that which they would do anything for, finally gets in. I think Scorsese's particular elevation of this theme is that he is able to discover it in so many different types of stories.
As JKill just said look even further it is writ large what drives the man's work. Great post!

Scorsese's always taken a very personal approach to the gospel. I was more offended by the Brooklyn accents in "Last Temptation" than the material, which was pretty tame compared to Genesis. Strange how that movie was vilified, considering his entire life's work has been a redemption of Christ's parables.

In a Film Noir course I took last year, we saw how this sort of dichotomy is present in a lot of those as well. The protagonist usually strays from his boring domestic life into the sordid life of the underworld, and is often punished for it.

Hmmm. How about that for the most part all of Scorsese's protagonists really don't change. Or even learn. Their epiphanies are so minor that by and large they are the same characters at the end as they were at the beginning. To wit, Travis is still the sociopath he was and forever shall be. Same Rupert... schmuck for a lifetime. Henry Hill still misses the life. Ace goes back to what he does best. Leo in Gangs literally disappears because without the trigger of vengeance in his life, he has nothing else to live for. And for me, at the end of The Age of Innocence, even though Newland has traveled across an ocean to see Elen, he is still trapped in that moment years before as he waited for her to turn around at the lighthouse.
The thing that intrigues me though is that after depicting their struggles, Scorsese so often ends his movies with a close-up of his characters' faces as if to say, see here, this is the map of their lives. And this is where it has brought them.
But you know, either way, the great thing about his work is that it is so open to interpretation and it can withstand all the different opinions we place against it.

Well played, DP. I sense Glenn Kenny working up a scuffawing retort that we should see any second now....

Though I'm not sure if you regard this central theme/dichotomy as a negative, I love the post and hope you do more like it soon. (please do a polanski version of this--would be very interesting).

Does anyone regard this recurring dichotomy as a negative? or perhaps an overwhelming positive? I feel that if one doesn't like this dichotomy, then they will naturally be turned off to a scorsese movie (or, I guess, not unabashedly venerate every work of his like many do) as Scorsese perhaps sees in his audience (or in himself) a reluctant sadism in each of his characters. Fuck if I know-- maybe we can get a roman catholic to elabroate...? (I'm not using this as a slight to catholicism--or any religion for that matter-- it's just that it isn't difficult to tell (and he says so himself frequently) that his catholic upbringing has played a major influence on his work, and may in fact be the central theme-- because it may be in itself emblematic of that dichotomy...? maybe...?)

Scorsese says something very similar in the director's commentary about the end of Aviator -- that Howard Hughes finally perceives himself and the trajectory of his life, and realizes that, for all the costs of the path he has taken, he would do it again.

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