I was underwhelmed by Martin Scorsese's 3D kids' (?) movie Hugo (here's my review from Taki's Magazine), but, boy, did sci-fi author Orson Scott Card really do a takedown on Hugo.
So the movie we were promised -- Hugo the orphan repairs a mechanical man to receive a message from his father -- turns into a movie we would never have paid to see: sad old forgotten movie director gets a round of applause.
Only a movie director would think he could switch us from caring about an orphan whose father was burned to death, to caring about an old man who is depressed because his career collapsed.
Dead father vs. career loss. Magical machines vs. endless self-pity. What idiot would choose to make the career-loss self-pity movie, when he has all the makings of the dead-father magical-machine movie?
"Cast Away" is really under-appreciated. The plane crash alone was magnificent.
ReplyDeleteAs Card points out, "Gangs of New York" was an awful movie as well, and frankly Scorsese hasn't done anything great in quite some time. But I don't think you can take away the incredible genius in the first half of his career -- from "Mean Streets" through about "Casino" -- by saying that he is generally bad with actors and he's only good when he's had DeNiro. He has gotten great performances out of actors as diverse as Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci. I think the real answer is that his artistic home is the Italian world of NYC from about the 50s to the 70s, and once he exhausted what he had to say on that topic he was tapped out artistically. (Note I have not seen Age of Innocence, which some have said was really good).
ReplyDeleteOrson is right about "Hugo," but maybe confusing late Scorsese with his whole career. Scorsese has turned himself into the world’s greatest second-unit director.
ReplyDeleteEvery panoramic scene was magic, from Paris on a winter night to the overheads of the train station. Every scene between characters was squirmingly embarrassing. Sacha Cohen looked like a bad imitation of a Peter Sellers imitation of a Monty Python imitation of a French cop. Even the Doberman gave a wooden performance. It is almost impossible to get a bad performance from a dog, but Marty did it.
When you get old enough to lose interest in people and dogs, it's time to retire.
Good point about Zemeckis. Though I get the feeling he hasn't seen many Scorsese flicks: Color of Money doesn't fit his complaint, nor does Shutter Island. Anyway, what's with the gigantic "oppressed Mormon" complex?
ReplyDeleteI can accept the charge that Scorsese has been critically over-praised but in his defense (not having seen the film in question) I would say that child actors rarely produce decent performances and CGI dominated movies doubly so. Of course, Of course, Scorsese chose a project featuring both so he put himself in harms way. I wonder whether he wanted to do a kids' story so he could show one of his films to his grandchildren. He doesn't exactly have much work in his back catalog suitable for a young audience (Taxi Driver? Raging Bull? Goodfellas? Even Age of Innocence would bore most pre-teens).
ReplyDeleteIts the political second part of the article that's the most interesting (I didn't see Hugo).
ReplyDeleteThe one thing about Mormonism that Card ignores (and which may be scaring its opponents the most) is its fecundity. And that's particularly odd coming from Card who's one of hundreds of descendants of Brigham Young himself.
Card has some interesting things to say about Romney, Mormons as the Jews of the GOP, and Gingrich on that page. Your thoughts on it?
ReplyDeleteGoodFellas was great. After Hours was funny. And Forrest Gump sucked.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what's with the gigantic "oppressed Mormon" complex?
ReplyDeleteI'll forgive him that because I'm so happy that there is still a conservative male author left in sci-fi.
Orson Scott Card wrote some very good books and short stories. He also believes that Jesus came to the New World, that there's a lost race of white Indians who left gold tablets in upstate New York for a dude to find, and that when he dies he gets to rule his own planet in the afterlife. So excuse me if I take his Scorcese criticisms with a grain of salt.
ReplyDeleteOrson Scott Card would persuade more if he screeched less.
ReplyDeleteI think I agree with MQ. Scorsese had a good first half of career (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, even Casino), but then once he stepped out of his element his films became increasingly bad. Or maybe he just got old, but other filmmakers of his generations still make good movies once in a while, while Scorsese hasnt made anything really good since the 90S. Shutter Island was very VERY bad, The Departed was mediocre, Gangs of NY, well, Day Lewis was good in it but that's all. I liked The Age of Innocence, though. Maybe part of the problem was exchanging De Niro for Di Caprio, I can't stand Di Caprio. However, Cape Fear was also not that good in my opinion, and that was with De Niro.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen Hugo, but I can't imagine Scorsese doing a kid's picture.
Anyway, I think Orson Scott Card was way too harsh, is he a good writer? Haven't read anything by him.
Dumbo
On the other hand, Shutter Island has a rating of 8.0 on IMDB, and Hugo a rating of 8.2, so apparently people liked those films, what do I know.
ReplyDeleteDumbo
Scorsese has certainly done great movies, but the hegemonic importance he's been given in the annals of cinema by fanboys like Siskel and Ebert is still wild overpraise.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that Scorsese somehow transcends De Palma, Bertolucci, Kubrick, Cimino, or Coppola, to say nothing of foreign-based and elder competitors (Welles, Kalatozov, Ophuls, etc.) is simply false. And I'm just considering the six-minute tracking shot crew here.
Funny enough, there aren't that many great extended takes in Scorsese's career. Maybe my memory's dimming on the earlier films, but that nightclub entry in "GoodFellas", though fun to watch, is really not that technically astounding. Kubrick could've sleepwalked his way through it.
Certainly he frames well; but carefully considered, much of his technique consists of jutting camera movements slicendiced in the editing room. Not exclusively, but it's never been unprecedented. Stone's mid-90s work looks more viscerally compelling and less affected to me than, say, "Casino."
Worse, there's always been excess, not simply of style but affect, in his work. "Cape Fear" is risible; even "The Age of Innocence" has some odd lapses (he uses Enya at one point, for goshsakes).
As for his moral vision, it stumps me. How his films are about "redemption" I'll never know. Jake gets fat and peaceful; but then his wife leaves him, and he winds up corrupting a minor (to put it forgivingly); finally, he's a joke.
"Casino"? He grows old and gross still making money for the (kinder, gentler) mob. "GoodFellas", he can't stand being a schnook. "Taxi driver"-- he's freakin' crazy.
How the devil is Scorsese a good Catholic anyay? But Ebert Et. al. eat that crap up.
And he's never been much of a moneymaker. He really could've used to shake about half his films out of his catalog. Maybe Thelma could do something about that?
"On the other hand, Shutter Island has a rating of 8.0 on IMDB, and Hugo a rating of 8.2, so apparently people liked those films, what do I know."
ReplyDeleteIsn't that really, really low? Rating inflation is rampant on the internet. An 8 is basically the reviewer saying "Meh". A 6 basically means a film was awful.
Anonymous / "Dumbo" @ 4:48 pm
ReplyDeleteOrson Scott Card is a solid genre writer, with much good material, only a bit of poor work, and two novels of towering genius (Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead). Science fiction readers usually like him.
Come to think of it, Card's own career peaked about 25 years ago. He didn't fall off drastically though.
takedown
ReplyDeleteIt's being touted today = Jan 25 as the Oscar favorite.
OT
In other news:
London 2012: GB's Sophie Hitchon on quitting ballet for the hammer
There's a film there no doubt.
"On the other hand, Shutter Island has a rating of 8.0 on IMDB, and Hugo a rating of 8.2, so apparently people liked those films, what do I know."
ReplyDeleteApparently you don't know that for some time now the IMDb has been largely the province of the young (i.e., the clueless, the pretentious and of course, the anti-racist--qualities not, of course, confined to the young but disproportionately present among them).
When I hit "Ender's Game, the soon-to-be-filmed," I had to go do a happy dance, so I don't know what the rest of the article said. It's easily in my top ten books. Finally movie goers may get to see a great sci-fi/fantasy story, instead of pedestrian stuff like Harry Potter. (Okay, they got Tolkein, which certainly qualifies as great, but honestly I didn't enjoy those books as much as many that they inspired.) Now give me screen versions of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Belgariad, The Garrett Files, and The Chronicles of Amber, and my childhood will be complete. (While we're at it, I'd like a version of Monte Walsh that's true to the book, just once.)
ReplyDelete"Orson Scott Card really do a takedown on Hugo."
ReplyDeleteNot a take down but making-a-fool-of-oneself.
I love AGE OF INNOCENCE and KUNDUN.
ReplyDelete"Isn't that really, really low? Rating inflation is rampant on the internet. An 8 is basically the reviewer saying "Meh". A 6 basically means a film was awful."
ReplyDeleteNo, your scale is all off.
On the imdb:
American Ninja 5 - 2.4
Leprechaun in the Hood -3.3
Rhinestone(with Stallone and Dolly Parton) -3.1
The Third Man -8.5
The Godfather -9.2
The Good the bad and the Ugly -8.8
Personally, I thought that After Hours was funny and really liked The Departed. Shutter Island was entertaining, but I haven't thought about it since seeing it. A lot of people seem to have liked The Aviator and Age of Innocence both of which I missed. I've thought most of his other movies were kind of self indulgent and a chore to get through, to varying degrees.
As for his moral vision, it stumps me. How his films are about "redemption" I'll never know.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Scorsese's greatest movies are in any way about redemption -- I haven't seen critics fish for this cheap moral but perhaps some do. His moral vision is dark, dark, dark. His greatest characters are human animals, more or less, but he loves them anyway for their sheer intensity. The achievement of Goodfellas was that it completely desentimentalized the mob (compare to The Godfather) but still made you feel the thrill of why we want to sentimentalize it. Pauline Kael's review of it was titled "Tumesence as Style".
How the devil is Scorsese a good Catholic anyay?
I've always thought of Scorsese as having at best a pagan Catholicism -- his characters are attracted to the mystical trappings (Mean Streets is best on this). But most of his post Mean Streets movies don't have much of a religious element, perhaps the religion is part of the sociological background of being Italian.
Maybe my memory's dimming on the earlier films, but that nightclub entry in "GoodFellas", though fun to watch, is really not that technically astounding.
ReplyDeleteIt was an homage to the opening scene from Fellini's I Vitelloni. (Or a ripoff, if you prefer.)