Some of the most famous movie scenes of all time feature originally composed music or lift pieces from older films and recontextualise them for a modern audience, such as Tarantino pinching all of Ennio Morricone’s back catalogue. But what happens when you abandon this approach in favour of utilising a soundtrack of pre-released popular songs? It’s an idea that has been utilised as a directorial trademark by the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Edgar Wright, but it is widely acknowledged to have been popularised in western cinema by Easy Rider (1969) and specifically the films of Martin Scorsese. The latter has many a trademarked needle drop in his repertoire, but his use of soundtrack was arguably at its height in his 1990 gangster thriller Goodfellas.

In Goodfellas, the meticulously chosen selection of 50s to 70s music plays a huge hand in creating the memorable moments that have stayed with us (and reached new audiences) across the past thirty-plus years. In an interview with Esquire, the film’s music editor Chris Brooks claimed that Scorsese “[…] knew every one of those songs two years before he shot a frame of film.” It clearly paid off…

Although primarily told in chronological order, Goodfellas opens in media res, with the three central protagonists – Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) – driving to dispose of a body in 1970. During the sequence, they realise the man is not dead, so they brutally murder him. After the job is done, Henry delivers the legendary opening line of “as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” and slams the car boot down. This is where we hear the first needle-drop: the late, great Tony Bennett’s “Rags to Riches”.

The lively brass selection that creates the opening of the song submerges us into the glamorous lifestyle of the gangster, allowing us to gaze with Henry’s childlike wonder at these powerful mobsters, making us forget about the brutality we just witnessed in the opening scene. As we are transported back to 1953, the lyrics of the song, coupled with the richness of Bennett’s voice, establish the running theme of the film: the ascent to, and descent from, power.

Through the use of doo-wop and crooner tunes popularised in the 1950s, we see Henry’s journey from a bullied neighbourhood kid into a fully-fledged mob associate.

Despite the flashy violence often seen in his films, Scorsese is an auteur renowned for authenticity, whether that be capturing Tibetan spiritual leaders, Gilded Age high society or Jesus Christ himself. When it came to Goodfellas, Henry’s upbringing mirrored Scorsese’s own in 1950s Italian-American neighbourhoods in New York. Therefore, the sequences of Henry’s childhood were soundtracked to Italian-language songs, reflecting the tradition and values set by the mobsters that Scorsese himself would have encountered.

The jump-cut to adult Henry takes us to 1967, significant in both the film’s timeline and the progression of music. In the 60s, music producer Phil Spector pioneered what is known as the Wall of Sound technique, where he would utilise studio recordings to make rich, orchestral tones that were designed to be played on jukeboxes and radios. With that, Spector used his formula to popularise several girl groups, including The Crystals.

In Goodfellas, Henry has seamlessly adjusted into his glamorous gangster lifestyle and his new challenge is his relationship with Karen Friedman (Lorraine Bracco). Whilst he was originally disinterested in her, her fiery attitude and “great eyes like Liz Taylor’s” prompted him to take her on a date to the notable Copacabana club. To emphasise his importance in the mafia world, Henry takes Karen through the back door of the club and through the kitchens before the waiter miraculously produces a table out of thin air for them to sit right next to the stage. This sequence is shot in an unbroken long take and accompanied by The Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me”. It is a sweet and romantic song, where context reflects that both the music and Henry are in a new stage of life.

This new stage of life culminates with Henry and Karen’s wedding montage, as The Harptones’ dreamy “Life is But a Dream” plays throughout. The Harptones were a fairly unsuccessful group, never breaking into the top forty, but their song is the perfect choice for how Henry and Karen’s lifestyle was too good to be true.

From this point, we rattle through Henry’s day-to-day mobster business, reflected through the use of more of the same doo-wop, adult standard tunes. Significant hits being Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” (a song originally written to be in the 1960 version of Ocean’s 11) and Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin’s “Baby I Love You”. Even when Henry and his associates are arrested, the breeziness of prison life for a gangster is reflected by “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin. The singer’s voice is as cool as you like.

When Henry takes a turn for the worse, however, the soundtrack keeps up with him. During his time in prison, Henry becomes mixed up in the drug trade. We see him snorting cocaine with his new girlfriend Sandy at her apartment, soundtracked by the Scorsese Staple “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones. Used again in his films Casino and The Departed (twice in the latter), the brutal anti-war ballad is a stark contrast to the easy-listening previously heard within Goodfellas, signifying how Henry has strayed from his original path of gangster to dealer.

What was there from the 60s and 70s still remains, but only just. Christmas tunes from Spector’s acts The Ronettes and Darlene Love play when the mafia are celebrating their Lufthansa heist victory. However, the joy is short lived for all three protagonists: Tommy is murdered to the sound of the piano exit from Derek and the Dominoes’ “Layla”, and Jimmy silently decides to murder all of his crew to the sound of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”. These iconic rock songs accompany pivotal and iconic scenes in the film, and all incidentally feature Eric Clapton, whose career spanned from the 60s and into the 70s. When filming, Scorsese played “Layla” on-set to synchronise the staging, blocking and camera movement with the instrumentals.

The climax of the film sees us hurtling into the 80s, as Henry has the day from Hell trying to juggle his family life, gangster life and drug-dealing life, until it all blows up in his face. The sequences from the chaotic day are amplified in tension by the use of high-octane songs from rock legends Harry Nilsson, The Rolling Stones, The Who, George Harrison, and Muddy Waters. The glamour is gone, Henry’s life is over; rock n’ roll is here to stay.

And so, that leaves us with the final song. The last shot sees Henry living as a ‘schnook’. Stuck in witness protection to save his own skin, Henry laments that everything he worked for was for nothing and that he is confined to living a boring, meaningless existence. Scorsese chooses to close the film with Sid Vicious’ cover of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. This is a spectacular song choice to end the film with as it is an imitation of a legendary crooner song associated with glamour and elegance, performed by an artist known for his notoriety and vulgarity. In the end, Henry becomes Sid Vicious, the outcast, desperately longing for the glamour that Frank Sinatra had.

The Goodfellas soundtrack is one for the ages. It illustrated how Martin Scorsese’s careful crafting of a soundtrack comprised of pre-released songs can elevate plot points, convey narrative changes, reinforce or signal developments to themes, and add a great deal of authenticity to a film’s world.

Alexa, play “Gimme Shelter”.

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

Taxi Driver (1976)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: Paul Schrader
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel

On a steamy street in New York on a hot summer night, a cab pulls into frame, followed by an intense shot of eyes bathed in neon light and a psychedelic rendering of the city’s ceaseless hustle and bustle. The American New Wave, or New Hollywood, was brimming with films that brought arthouse sensibilities to the American mainstream, and Martin Scorsese’s neo-noir crime thriller is among the best. More than a vehicle for star Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver represents a convergence of genre and style from across place and time, painting a dreary picture of its contemporary America that still resonates today.

Taxi Driver was the second of Scorsese’s films to feature Robert De Niro, and it’s the movie that really put Scorsese on the map as the best filmmaker of the “auteur generation” – the group of 70s American filmmakers who grew up loving and studying film in a way their predecessors hadn’t. By 1976, Scorsese had made Boxcar Bertha and Mean Streets, and his film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore had been nominated for Oscars. But Taxi Driver took his career to another level, scoring him the Palme d’Or at Cannes and another round of Oscar nominations.

The story, written by Paul Schrader, follows a Vietnam veteran named Travis Bickle who tries his hand at driving cabs. He is tortured by an inability to sleep and a lack of human connection beyond what he sees on TV or in a porno theater, which drives him to derangement, causing him to direct his inner conflict outward through violence. 

While Travis is not a character to be admired, he is certainly one audiences can sympathize with. He’s socially awkward, demonstrated by his early encounters with Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy, a worker on a Presidential campaign staff, and a talk with fellow cabbie Wiz, to whom Travis can’t quite explain his feelings of estrangement. In his search for connection, he stumbles upon a child prostitute played by Jodie Foster, and feels a misplaced sense of patriarchal protection for her. It’s through Foster’s character that Travis ultimately finds his outlet for his angst, creating a moment that challenges our preconceptions of heroics. His views, however, expressed through his journal, are abhorrent, filled with racist rhetoric and descriptions of New York’s citizens as scum and vile. 

But De Niro plays such a morally complex character to a T. De Niro is widely recognized for his charm, so it’s quite interesting to see him adapt himself to fit Travis’ socially inept characteristics. He has an ability to utilize his charisma as a front, like when Travis initially seduces Betsy, leaving viewers all the more embarrassed on his behalf when he doesn’t understand why she was upset he brought her to see a porno on their first date. De Niro captures Travis’ sense of alienation and impotence, but finds a way to humanize him. Part of the authenticity of Travis comes from Scorsese allowing improvisation, particularly with De Niro. Arguably the film’s most famous scene is entirely improvised, as De Niro stands before a mirror and says, “You talkin’ to me?”

Jodie Foster really steals the show in her role, one that had to be approved and monitored by child welfare professionals. She rehearsed and improvised with De Niro around New York, and feels entirely authentic and bright within the film despite the dark nature of her character. In one of her best scenes, she has breakfast with Travis at a diner wearing hilarious green sunglasses, and her teenage self is finally allowed to be expressed. She eats a jelly and sugar sandwich while Travis goes on about how she needs to be home with her parents, and in typical teenager fashion she calls him a square and starts talking about how she and her pimp get along because they’re both Libras. Speaking of her pimp, he’s played by Harvey Keitel in a wig sporting a ten-gallon pimp hat, and while it’s understandable why he doesn’t play a larger role, Keitel’s performance makes you wish he did.

Taxi Driver also serves as a symbol of the convergence of commercial American filmmaking, European new waves, classic Hollywood auteurism, and exploitation films. The film borrows from The Searchers through the protagonist’s quest to save a woman who may not want to be saved, and there are direct visual allusions to Psycho through an overhead tracking shot in the finale, drawing parallels between Travis and Norman Bates. A shot onto dissolving alka-seltzer has been compared to Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her, and clearly functions as a symbol of Travis’ simmering violence. It also features raw, unbridled violence that had been traditionally reserved for Italian horror and Corman flicks. The shot of Murray Motson’s mangled hand, an effect created by Dick Smith, and the spurts of blood from Travis and others elevated cinematic violence from The Godfather to a more intimate level.

Taxi Driver is also notable for being the final film score from legendary composer Bernard Hermann, best known for Citizen Kane and Psycho. His score creates the neo-noir atmosphere as Travis prowls the streets of New York for fares. Perhaps the best of the score is the music of the dramatic finale, punctuating the bloody shootout. It’s a classic, studio-era type of sound with tense horns, oscillating strings, and foreboding timpani drums. It’s a beautiful piece that gives audiences the sense of slipping into a dream, causing one to wonder if the scene or the film’s epilogue are even real. Hermann passed mere hours after completing the score, which earned him a posthumous Oscar nomination.

Through a modern lens, one might wonder what the value of Taxi Driver is? Its perspective from a nihilist racist feels particularly useless in a post-Trump world, where we seem to be constantly subjected to the inner thoughts of the more deplorable denizens of society. There’s an entire rant in the film, delivered by Scorsese (standing in for an injured actor), about shooting a woman in her vagina for having an affair with a black man. The value lies in its indictment of society’s treatment of men, how the structural patriarchal forces that create the idea of masculinity fail to truly care for America’s men, and how that leads to them finding inappropriate outlets for their feelings because they don’t know how to express themselves. America is still facing the problem of disaffected men turning to violence against women, or larger forces like schools or churches, and we seem to be out of ideas for how to solve it. Taxi Driver doesn’t offer solutions, but clearly elucidates the problem in incredible cinematic fashion.

Taxi Driver’s legacy may not endure. It was great for its time and place, but Scorsese is more popularly associated with Goodfellas and Casino, which feature two other spectacular De Niro performances. But Taxi Driver is an essential film when examining the career of Scorsese and De Niro, and the American New Wave. Its darker themes, violence, and style make it a landmark work in the history of American cinema.

Score: 21/24

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Martin Scorsese

During LaMotta’s fight against Janiro, blood spurts from the latter’s face in an unrealistic, exaggerated way – one that resembles a burst pipe more than a wound. The judge’s table is doused with such velocity that blood appears to have been hosed from behind the camera. We then see the glasses of ringside photographers simultaneously splattered with blood in an absurd, cartoon-like fashion. Expressionist techniques, of which these are an example, seek to diverge from objective portrayal and distort visual reality in order to convey the psychological states of characters. In this case, the exaggerated presence of blood acquires thematic value to illustrate LaMotta’s excessive appetite for violence. Kasia Boddy points out that exploding flash bulbs and powerfully amplified punches not only act as ‘scoring music’, but make the violent display even more ‘surreal and abstract’.

The use of black-and-white dampens the appearance of graphic violence by making blood less visually prominent than if it was red. The monochromatic, high contrast duality embodies the motif of LaMotta’s internal struggle between good and evil. Even in the most nauseating instances of violence, monochrome gives the film something of an aesthetic quality, evoking early cinema such as German Expressionism and Film Noir. To give blood a stark appearance, Scorsese used Hershey’s Chocolate – the same material used in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The classical opera that underscores much of the film, most notable of which is Pietro Mescagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, instils Raging Bull with an artistic sense of grandeur.

But aestheticizing violence is not the same as glorifying it. Despite the use of conventional Hollywood techniques to make fight scenes engaging, such as fast cutting and amplified punching sounds, Scorsese presents violence unfavourably. This is done by aligning our subjectivity with the characters on the receiving end. After LaMotta knocks Janiro unconscious, a slow-motion descending pedestal shot follows his fall to the ground. Starting at eye height, the camera descends at the same speed as Janiro’s fall, rotating ninety degrees in unison with his head as it hits the canvas. By forcing us to incur Janiro’s subjectivity, somewhat of a shared experience is created between him and us, furthering our detachment from LaMotta.

Expressionist temporal manipulation is used in the Sugar Ray Robinson fight. The shot of LaMotta waiting for Robinson to stand after being knocked down runs in slow motion, conveying LaMotta’s impatient subjectivity as he waits for the violence to resume. Similarly, slow-motion shots from Jake’s point-of-view are used when Vickie interacts with other men at the bar, conveying Jake’s paranoid gaze. Through Jake’s perennial eye of distrust, Vickie’s interactions appear longer than they are in objective reality, making all men she speaks to a self-perceived threat to his marriage.

After LaMotta’s loss to Robinson, a hazy shot shows his anger at the judges’ decision. The visual distortion resembles the blurry mirage of hot air above a fire. This rippling technique, accomplished by lighting a flame beneath the camera, creates the impression that the film stock itself is alight. This not only symbolises LaMotta’s anger, but evokes imagery of his ring as a hellish inferno.

Despite the monochrome majority of the film, the home video scene is shot in colour. This found footage sequence was deliberately desaturated and optically degraded to mimic the fading effects of older films – Scorsese even scratched the negative with a hanger to bring about the grainy, aged look. We see the LaMottas’ happy moments, such as barbecues, weddings or children playing. These warming shots are the only parts of the film where the family appear happy, offering the audience brief respite from the antagonism everywhere else. The sequence is interspersed with black-and-white shots from LaMotta’s boxing career. Two consecutive shots show Jake with his hands raised as if in victory – one after a boxing contest and the other at a family gathering. If the colour footage represents what Barbara Mortimer reads as Jake’s ‘fantasy and idealisation,’ then the failed father and abusive husband’s only victory is in the ring.

The use of these aesthetic techniques is one of the film’s ambiguities. We are not given a stable, external portrayal of LaMotta. Instead, our perspective oscillates between his subjectivity and a more neutral one. Steve Neale argues that our identification with characters is ‘multiple, fluid and contradictory.’ By forcing viewers to briefly witness the destructive, frightening subjectivity of LaMotta with expressionist techniques, Scorsese draws a clear image of LaMotta’s warped psyche. During his jail cell soliloquy, a tearful LaMotta insists, ‘I’m not an animal.’ His behaviour throughout suggests something different.

Written by Callum McGrath

Website: Reel – Studies in Cinema

Bibliography
Boddy, Kasia, Boxing: A Cultural History, London: Reaktion, 2008
Mortimer, Barbara, ‘Portraits of the Postmodern Person in “£”Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The King of Comedy”, Journal of Film and Video, 49.1-2 (1997), 28-38, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20688131.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: Terence Winter
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley, Cristin Milioti

What is there to say about Martin Scorsese’s three-hour, instant classic The Wolf of Wall Street that hasn’t been said before? If you were young in 2013, you would understand this film as culture itself. From putting Margot Robbie on the map to introducing the song “Jordan Belfort” to every high school basement party in America, Wolf of Wall Street defined a generation of simultaneously wealth-obsessed and wealth-repulsed youth.  

Scorsese succeeds at a have your cake and eat it too approach to satire. His sprawling biopic of financial criminal and multimillionaire stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is both braggadocious and reflective. On the heels of the 2008 financial collapse and the subsequent Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, the film examines America’s obsession with wealth – the good, the bad, and the drug-fueled. Belfort’s lifestyle enthrals us – the mega yachts, three-day parties, even the crime. The film approaches everything with a larger-than-life approach. The score is boisterous, we hear a foul-mouthed Belfort narrating his trials and tribulations with the feds, and everything is dialed up to the nines. 

We do see the eventual fall of Belfort, but it’s as stylized as ever. In perhaps one of the most iconic scenes in modern film history, Belfort is confronted with the gravity of his financial crimes and the eventual ruin of his criminal empire. Just as this realization kicks in, so do the quaaludes that Belfort popped 90-minutes ago. Earlier in the film, Belfort brags about the many benefits of the retro drug but now he has entered a new phase of intoxication: the “cerebral palsy phase.” Belfort drags himself like an infant toward his white Ferrari. We see him crumble to the ground; gone is the the fast lifestyle of a degenerate and in his place lays a helpless man at the mercy of his own hubris. 

The scene is both funny and ironically sobering. We finally watch Belfort answer for his crimes in the most physical sense. Scorsese plays perfectly with tension and humor. We hold our breathe, wondering if Belfort will make it to his Ferrari or drive off into the sunset. We don’t root for him, but we have no choice but to be at the mercy of his storytelling. 

The script functions as a mere skeleton for this ambitious film, making it an absolute treat for any viewer. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers one of his career-best performances. He skilfully adlibs his way through Belfort’s life, adding many a “fuck” or New York slang to make the character feel that much more real. On his first day at a brokerage firm on Wall Street, Belfort goes to lunch with his magnanimous boss, Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey). Like everything they do, the scene is filled with popping pills and downing champagne in the middle of the day. At one point, the two even break into full song in the middle of the restaurant. The best part of the scene? It’s almost all improvised. McConaughey and DiCaprio have an undeniable chemistry that makes the scene impossible to look away from. They play up on each other’s ludicrous energy and take turns trying to outdo the other’s performance, all for the benefit of the viewer. 

More than ten years after its release, The Wolf of Wall Street holds up as an incredibly fun watch and a decisive voice on class in the United States. It underscores how the people at the top will exploit the system until the bitter end and those at the bottom will be forced to pay the price. Scorsese is a master of humor and pacing, making the three-hour run feel like nothing. 

Score: 23/24

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Martin Scorsese

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriters: Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Cara Jade Myers, Janae Collins, Jillian Dion

Is there any greater betrayal than the betrayal of someone who loves you? This is the central question at the heart of Martin Scorsese’s newest epic, Killers of the Flower Moon. Starring the renowned director’s long-time and dearly loved collaborators Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, alongside Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon is an adaptation of David Grann’s explosive book of the same name. 

The book, published in 2017, investigates a series of gruesome murders in Osage County, Oklahoma, following the discovery of large oil deposits on Native American land, alongside the birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Although the book is credited as Scorsese’s source material, Killers of the Flower Moon reads more as a companion piece to Grann’s novel, with Scorsese finding a unique perspective from which to access this insidious tale. 

Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour-long true-crime epic finds its footing within the love story between Ernest and Mollie Burkhart. Ernest, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is a newcomer to the small but affluent Osage County. Upon arrival, and with much encouragement from his persistent uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), a man who insists that his friends and family call him King, Ernest meets Mollie (Lily Gladstone, Certain Women). Mollie, an Osage-born native, like several members of her tribe, is a multimillionaire, owing to the plentiful amounts of black gold found upon her family’s land. In antithesis to the barren western town upon which our stage is set, First Nation people ride around in chauffeur-driven cars and wear expensive furs. They appear as the image of wealth and prosperity, although access to their money must be first justified and requested through their white trustees. 

Ernest, fresh from the war, is upfront about his desire for wealth: ‘I just love money’ he declares playfully throughout the film, slowly revealing himself as a man willing to scheme and bend the law to get the cash to flow in his direction. William Hale, a wealthy cattle farmer in his own right, is consumed by a desire for the oil deposit ‘headrights’ on Mollie’s land, the pursuit of which he considers fair game. The only thing standing in his way is Mollie and her family. Hale, well versed in the legal benefits of marriage, encourages his family to pursue the young and stupidly rich Osage women so they might reap the benefits of inheritance should any unfortunate event befall them. One by one, Mollie’s family starts to dwindle: unexplainable illness, murder, and unprecedented explosions begin to plague the family until all of the headrights conveniently rest with Mollie and her husband Ernest. 

Leonardo Dicaprio, who ran from the set of Titanic directly into Martin Scorsese’s arms, gives one of the best performances of his career as Ernest. The melancholy downward turn of his mouth and slow southern drawl indicate a simpleton, incapable of fully understanding the atrocity of William Hale’s plot against his wife and her family. DiCaprio presents us with the enigma of a man consumed with love for a woman he is actively trying to murder. Across from him is Lily Gladstone, who plays Mollie with a steadfast sensibility and awareness of the men around her. She has Earnest and his family pegged from day one, her wry smile and persistent calmness indicating that she is always one step ahead of any danger that might present itself. Yet love, which has the power to hoodwink even the sharpest of minds, gets in her way.

As the murders progress, so does Molly and Ernest’s relationship. In between harrowing scenes of grief and murder, we see them cling to each other desperately for comfort. He takes her into his arms while she struggles with the agony of her grief. He learns her language and traditions, and they parent three children, who they protect and adore fiercely. With each fresh death, Mollie’s circle grows smaller, and Ernest becomes the last man she can trust. How couldn’t she? We watch as he begs and pleads with her to take a life-saving new drug (insulin) that will regulate her diabetes, as if he isn’t the one also spiking the medication with a poison that will slowly kill her. ‘I love this woman’ he tells his uncle sincerely, as Hale explains the uncanny way Osage women never manage to live to a ripe old age.

As Hale, Robert De Niro circles like a vulture, conjuring the same chilling presence he portrayed as Max Cady in Scorsese’s remake of the revenge classic Cape Fear. The potency of his performance bleeds out of the screen, filling all empty space with a feeling of looming threat. Hale has seeded himself deeply into the Osage community as a friend and ally, offering up reward money to anyone who might have information about the suspicious deaths creeping up all around them. Like Jack Nicholson’s Costello in The Departed, Hale is above the law, and he’s become cocky and psychopathically devoid of loyalty and love.

Killers of the Flower Moon is nothing short of a masterpiece from our greatest living filmmaker. Although the film’s stealthy runtime might feel harsh on our bladders, the film is extremely well-placed; the story blooms organically and doesn’t waste a single second. Scorsese’s mastery of filmmaking is apparent in every single frame; he understands exactly where the camera needs to be, and it dances beautifully within the story, offering us an immensely satisfying masterclass in storytelling. This is the first time Scorsese’s two best boys have shared the screen in a Martin Scorsese picture, and the result is electric. The film feels like an extension of their friendship and shared legacy. There is a collective sense that the three men are comfortable enough with one another to experiment and take chances with our expectations. Gladstone, alongside an impossibly talented supporting cast, keep the boys on their toes, taking the iconic trio to unseen heights.

The film’s greatest strength is the unique vantage point from which it approaches the atrocities. Although the crimes depicted on screen happened many years ago, the treatment of the First Nation people throughout America’s vast history is still an open wound. Scorsese, like Grann, approaches his work with the utmost respect and care. To escape the connotations of Westerns and crime dramas, which typically circle the white-lead adventures of cowboys and lawmen, Scorsese dives right into the heart of the truth, presenting Killers of the Flower Moon as a love story. While the great filmmaker still utilises the atmospheric soul of the Wild West, by presenting a more human perspective, he cuts right to the centre of the raw open heart of a woman in love, and we feel the sting of betrayal tenfold. 

Score: 24/24

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Martin Scorsese

The Age of Innocence (1993)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriters: Jay Cook, Martin Scorsese
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder

Martin Scorsese is a prolific filmmaker, known for making movies infused with violence and passion, filled with characters who live outside of the law and the rules of society. From classic gangster pictures like Goodfellas to movies about corruption like The Departed, to the violence of Taxi Driver and the unrestrained wealth, privilege and power in The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese has made a career out of exploring the extremes of human nature, the catharsis of explosion. In a lot of ways, The Age of Innocence, released in 1993, is an outlier in Scorsese’s filmography. It is not about acting with abandon, but about restraint, discretion and control. It is not about the mean, dirty streets of New York and the bowels of society, but instead about high society, about people trapped in very beautiful, gilded cages, desperate to scream, yet unable to. In other ways, The Age of Innocence is, in Scorsese’s own words, the most violent movie he has ever made.

Adapted from Edith Wharton’s classic novel of the same name, The Age of Innocence stars Daniel Day Lewis as Newland Archer, an affluent lawyer caught between his impending marriage to the respectable, mild-mannered May Welland (Winona Ryder) and his desire for her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). Set in the 1870s, during a time in the United States of great economic growth, industrialization, and a growing divide between the new world and the old often referred to as the Gilded Age, The Age of Innocence explores a world of rituals and class. The film was a great success for Scorsese, proof of his emotional intelligence and range as a filmmaker. It received numerous accolades, including the Oscar for Best Costume Design and the BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Miriam Margolyes. In Scorsese’s hands, The Age of Innocence is a masterclass in visual cinema, more than your typical costume drama, one of the best page-to-screen adaptations of all time.

Like the rose that blooms in the center of the screen in the beginning of the film, The Age of Innocence is beautiful – until it draws blood. Scorsese uses the color red throughout the movie as a kind of shorthand for romance, desire, and destruction. It’s bold and searing, much like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948). Red velvet drapes hang from the walls, signifying that a dinner party and a blood bath are essentially the same thing to these wealthy society folk. The color also plays a substantial role in the costuming as well. When Ellen makes her social comeback at a party hosted by the extremely wealthy Van der Luydens (Alexis Smith and Michael Gough), she does so in a form fitting red silk dress. Ellen is the embodiment of the desires Newland tries to ignore. She is unconventional, trying desperately to rebel against a rigid, unforgiving society. In contrast, May is typically dressed in white, highlighting her innocence and her unblemished reputation.

But there is something sinister lurking beneath May’s naïve, soft-spoken exterior. Winona Ryder’s performance is deeply layered and probably one of the most complex in the film, which no doubt contributed to her earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. There is something hidden behind May’s wide-eyed, girlish face, something knowing and intuitive. While Newland continuously describes May as being young and impressionable, Ryder is subtly steering us in a different direction. What she says is not what she means, and Ryder is able to capture that dissonance effortlessly – where her character ends up in the end is the most satisfying bate and switch. Day-Lewis and Pfeiffer are deliciously tragic in their mutual pining for one another. Their obvious romance, their painful longing, puts every modern onscreen pairing to shame. It would be easy to see May and Ellen as mere archetypes rather than real people, and they are to a certain extent, but Ryder and Pfeiffer imbue them with vibrant inner lives.

Though this love triangle is at the center of the drama of The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese often moves his camera away from them in favor of the things that surround them. Particular attention is paid to the food, the silverware, the artwork, the furniture – the utter wealth and decadence. Appearances are everything. Things are more important than people. It’s a striking contrast to the laidback, sneakers and hoodies depiction of the uber rich of today. A certain level of spectacle is to be expected in period dramas, but Scorsese uses this spectacle to say something, and that subtext is everything.

Gilded Age New York is a character in the film, and the way Scorsese makes it come alive speaks to his understanding of the novel. The Age of Innocence is an internal story, it is told through stolen glances and near touches and almost kisses. The voice of the narrator is important, and Scorsese opts to keep that narration, beautifully delivered by silver screen star Joanne Woodward. Whole chunks of text are taken right from the novel, and it is delightful because Edith Wharton’s writing is spectacular. It would be a crime to do away with the original text or change it in any substantial way, and Scorsese knows this; The Age of Innocence is quite literally the novel come to life.

Adaptations are tricky and it isn’t easy to figure out how to translate something to screen. Do you keep the story exactly as it is? Is there any fun in that? Or do you move the pieces around so much that you make something completely different and new? There doesn’t seem to be one correct answer, but in this instance, Scorsese and writer Jay Cocks opted to change virtually nothing and it works.

In a 1993 interview with Charlie Rose, director Scorsese described the violence of The Age of Innocence as refined emotional and psychological violence. It is just as powerful and deadly as a bullet from a gun, and because Scorsese understands that, the film is incredibly affecting and devastating. It is a romantic tragedy brought to life by one of the best filmmakers of all time and, thirty years after its initial release, deserves a spot among his most accomplished works.

Score: 24/24

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Martin Scorsese

Vertigo (1958)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Screenwriter: Alec Coppel, Samuel A. Taylor
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones

The name “Alfred Hitchcock” carries a level of prestige that makes it difficult to view his films with anything but an overwhelming weight of expectation. He has been praised as a master of the craft by most filmmakers and critics with any right to bestow such a title, and the breadth of films that can be traced back to him by a line of direct influence is astronomical. His 1958 film Vertigo is one that carries a particular weight of its own. In 2012 it was crowned number one in Sight & Sound’s prestigious critics poll, the Greatest Films of All Time list, ending a fifty-year reign of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and becoming only the third film to top the poll since its inception in 1952. Vittoria De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves was its inaugural champion.

If any one film can be used as an example of just how far and wide Hitchcock’s influence spreads, then Vertigo is a solid choice. Fans of David Lynch will notice a dreamy familiarity in Mulholland Drive, whereas Tommy Wiseau enthusiasts might find their ears perk up when a protagonist named Johnny asks a friend whose name begins with M how their love life is. The San Francisco backdrop also helps make the case that The Room was probably made with some reverence for Vertigo, even if it did turn out to be terribly different.

Starting with a situation that has since become a trope in its own right, we meet Johnny, played by James Stewart, who has just retired as a police detective following a traumatic incident which led to him finding out that he has acrophobia, an extreme fear of heights. There are a few dead giveaways of Vertigo’s age in its highly expositional dialogue – it is almost reminiscent of ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’, the director’s mystery anthology TV show. Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) stands out early on as a character who is essential in highlighting Johnny’s flaws – she’s intelligent, supportive, and completely wasted on someone so self-centred and easily distracted by his own shortcomings.

An old college classmate, Gavin Elster played by Tom Helmore, asks Johnny, or Scottie as he’s known to his acquaintances, for help with a personal matter. His wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), has been acting strangely lately, to the point that he’s starting to believe she may have been possessed by a dead family member, and he wants Johnny to follow her to find out what’s going on. It all goes wrong when the two find a special connection with one another.

Although upon release The Hollywood Reporter described Vertigo as “One of the most fascinating love stories ever filmed,” what it actually grows into is a story of blind obsession. Johnny doesn’t care about the woman in front of him nearly as much as he cares about his own idea of who that woman should be. The mastery of craft behind it begins to shine through in dialogue that becomes equally as brilliant as it is heartbreaking – it almost seems as if the early exposition exists to set our expectations at a level that allows us to be blown away later on.

As would be expected from a Hitchcock thriller, there are twists and turns that take the clues laid out in front of us to unusual heights. Although the term is associated with a more derogatory meaning since Martin Scorsese’s criticism of the superhero genre went viral, Vertigo is essentially a theme park movie. Everything exists to create an experience of shock and awe, but where it differs from the typical modern interpretation of how to achieve those emotions is that it appeals to them on an intellectual level. We have to take an active role in Vertigo because our thought processes about what’s happening are part of the narrative itself.

Perhaps that’s why Vertigo is so revered today. It exists in a space occupied by multiple forms of entertainment – it has the highs and lows of a rollercoaster, the audience participation of a magic show, and the love plot of a Danielle Steel novel – but it is also a tremendous piece of art in its own right.

Vertigo wasn’t always held on such a universal pedestal, though. Writing in The New Yorker upon the film’s initial release, John McCarten described it as “far-fetched nonsense”, and other magazines at the time were even more scathing in dismissing it as little more than fantastical dross. Even Sight & Sound’s editor, Penelope Houston, was fairly cold on it, writing that its plot was of “egg-shell thinness” and that “One is agreeably used to Hitchcock repeating his effects, but this time he is repeating himself in slow motion.”

Vertigo’s rise to a status that can command the top spot on the Greatest Films of All Time poll that she was instrumental in setting up is partly attributable to the reputation of Alfred Hitchcock as a filmmaker changing over the years. Although difficult to imagine now, he wasn’t always considered a serious artist. It wasn’t until the French New Wave movement, spearheaded by François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, that Hitchcock began to be given the grace of a closer look. In drawing inspiration from his work and giving credit where it’s due, Hitchcock’s use of suspense, his focus on his characters’ psychological states, and his innovative camerawork were finally lauded as more than just consequential elements in throwaway entertainment.

Vertigo is therefore arguably Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest achievement on volume alone. Everything that could have been reassessed as Hitchcock the Auteur rather than just Hitchcock the Entertainer is present, and to a degree that makes it a perfect case study for how perception changes art.

Score: 21/24

Recommended for you: Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films

Written by Rob Jones

You can support Rob Jones on his website: rbrtjones.com
Twitter: @rbrtjones

The Cannes International Film Festival will premiere new films from influential British filmmakers Jonathan Glazer and Ken Loach, as well as Japanese Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda, as part of its 2023 festival line-up.

Announced by general delegate Thierry Frémaux and incoming president Iris Knobloch during a press conference from Paris, France on Thursday 13th April, the 2023 Cannes International Film Festival will also debut new films from Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson and Wim Wenders.

Of the films listed to be in competition at the festival, six have been directed by women. This is a new record. Press and visitors can expect new films from former Palme d’Or-nominated directors Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) and Jessica Hausner (Little Joe) among others.

The opening film of the festival will be Jeanne du Barry from French actress and director Maïwenn, about the last official mistress of Louis XV (set to be played by Johnny Depp).

Jeanne du Barry will be presented out of competition alongside Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Kim Jee-won’s Cobweb, Sam Levinson’s The Idol, and James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

There will also be a special screening of the latest film from British filmmaker Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Occupied City, a documentary about life in Amsterdam, Netherlands during the Nazi occupation of World War II.

The debut of Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’ “The Zone of Interest” will mark the first feature release by the Sexy Beast director since 2013’s critically-acclaimed Under the Skin. The Zone of Interest tells of a Nazi officer falling in love with the wife of the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp and will star Toni Erdmann’s Sandra Hüller.

Meanwhile, Kes director Ken Loach will debut his first film since before to the pandemic. The British filmmaker, last at Cannes with Sorry We Missed You, directed Palme d’Or winners The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016). His latest film, The Old Oak, will see him reunite with screenwriter Paul Laverty to tell of the tensions between UK immigrants and the small north east village they are housed in.

Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose films have been nominated for the Palme d’Or six times, is another former Palme d’Or winner (Shoplifters) returning to the south of France in 2023. Kore-eda’s latest film, Monster, is currently being kept top secret, though it will reunite the Japanese director with his Shoplifters star Sakura Ando.

The only other Palme d’Or winner to return in 2023 will be Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose film Winter Sleep won the prestigious award in 2014. Ceylan also won Best Director at Cannes in 2008 for Winter Sleep.

The line-up for the 2023 Cannes International Film Festival is as follows:

In Competition

CLUB ZERO Jessica HAUSNER
THE ZONE OF INTEREST Jonathan GLAZER
FALLEN LEAVES Aki KAURISMAKI
LES FILLES D’OLFA Kaouther BEN HANIA
ASTEROID CITY Wes ANDERSON
ANATOMIE D’UNE CHUTE Justine TRIET
MONSTER KORE-EDA Hirokazu
IL SOL DELL’AVVENIRE Nanni MORETTI
L’ÉTÉ DERNIER Catherine BREILLAT
KURU OTLAR USTUNE Nuri Bilge CEYLAN
LA CHIMERA Alice ROHRWACHER
LA PASSION DE DODIN BOUFFANT TRAN ANH Hùng
RAPITO Marco BELLOCCHIO
MAY DECEMBER Todd HAYNES
JEUNESSE WANG Bing
THE OLD OAK Ken LOACH
BANEL E ADAMA Ramata-Toulaye SY
PERFECT DAYS Wim WENDERS
FIREBRAND Karim AÏNOUZ

Un Certain Regard

LOS DELINCUENTES Rodrigo MORENO
HOW TO HAVE SEX Molly MANNING WALKER
GOODBYE JULIA Mohamed KORDOFANI
KADIB ABYAD Asmae EL MOUDIR
SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN Monia CHOKRI
CROWRÃ João SALAVIZA; Renée NADER MESSORA
LOS COLONOS Felipe GÁLVEZ
OMEN Baloji TSHIANI
THE BREAKING ICE Anthony CHEN
ROSALIE Stéphanie DI GIUSTO
THE NEW BOY Warwick THORNTON
IF ONLY I COULD HIBERNATE Zoljargal PUREVDASH
HOPELESS KIM Chang-hoon
TERRESTRIAL VERSES Ali ASGARI; Alireza KHATAMI
RIEN À PERDRE Delphine DELOGET
LES MEUTES Kamal LAZRAQ

Out of Competition

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY James MANGOLD
COBWEB KIM Jee-woon
THE IDOL Sam LEVINSON
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Martin SCORSESE

Midnight Screenings

KENNEDY Anurag KASHYAP
OMAR LA FRAISE Elias BELKEDDAR
ACIDE Just PHILIPPOT

Cannes Premiere

KUBI Takeshi KITANO
BONNARD, PIERRE ET MARTHE Martin PROVOST
CERRAR LOS OJOS Victor ERICE
LE TEMPS D’AIMER Katell QUILLÉVÉRÉ

Special Screenings

MAN IN BLACK WANG Bing
OCCUPIED CITY Steve MCQUEEN
ANSELM (DAS RAUSCHEN DER ZEIT) Wim WENDERS
RETRATOS FANTASMAS Kleber MENDONÇA FILHO

The 2023 Cannes International Film Festival will take place 16-27 May, 2023.

Martin Scorsese was part of the 1970s American auteur wave, and is arguably the most successful of the bunch as an artist. He exemplifies the traditional idea of the film auteur. While Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were working on Hollywood blockbusters, Scorsese was making Taxi Driver, New York, New York, and Raging Bull, three different films that varied with audiences and critics but were undoubtedly Scorsese films. As a lifelong cinephile, his films have always been informed by Hollywood’s past, and have continuously alluded to film history through style, genre, and direct homage. In addition to cinematic fascination, his films have inspiration from his own upbringing. His gangster films reflect the ethos of his Italian youth and culture converging with the big dreams and excesses of American society both in style and content. His editing and cinematography pack as much of a punch as any of the characters, each of whom are driven by powerful performances.

There are all kinds of places to go within the cinema of Martin Scorsese. The goal of this piece is to start at the roots, to really get a handle on what made Scorsese such a great filmmaker and storyteller, and to grow towards his magnum opus. This is Where to Start with Martin Scorsese.

1. Mean Streets (1973)

Mean Streets was Martin Scorsese’s breakout third feature following early recognition for his student films. He wrote the story and collaborated on the screenplay, and this is thought to be the first film upon which he was truly in control of production. In his 1979 book “American Film Now”, critic and author James Monaco described Mean Streets as Scorsese’s one great achievement, noting its status as a personal and original film (154).

Harvey Keitel stars as a small-time gangster in Little Italy, and the character’s practical outlook at the beginning of the film speaks to Scorsese’s own views on Catholicism: “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.” Keitel’s Charlie struggles with living his best on the streets, his problems exacerbated by Robert De Niro’s character Johnny. The film is rough around the edges, but brimming with style. The red lights of a bar and street-level gangsters offer a different look at the gangster genre than Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, released the year prior. 

It’s important to see Mean Streets because of how the film works as a foundation for Scorsese’s future work. This was the filmmaker’s first collaboration with Robert De Niro (with whom he’d partner on some of the most iconic films of the era), it was a new take on the gangster genre, it took the then-unusual route of featuring hip music in its soundtrack, and its narrative truly drives home the tragic nature of the human condition. If you’re a cinephile, this is exactly the kind of movie people like us were gushing over, the latest film from one of the hottest young directors.

2. Italianamerican (1974)

Martin Scorsese has a body of documentary work almost as large as his feature filmography. His best is his most personal, Italianamerican.

Italianamerican is quite simple: Scorsese puts cameras in front of his parents in their New York apartment and interviews them about their lives and the lives of their family. The parents, Charles and Catherine, were the children of immigrants from Sicily. They have such a fascinating perspective on life because of the working class circumstances in which they grew up, and the film shows how people like his parents were able to achieve what they saw as the American dream.

Scorsese’s parents are natural in front of the camera despite Charles’ protestations that Catherine is putting on airs. The two are honest, and give the impression that we’re sitting down beside them in the kitchen to listen to their stories directly. You can almost taste the meatballs and sauce that Catherine cooks – there’s even a recipe for them at the end.

Italianamerican is important as a window into this great director’s work as it allows you to see another side of his creative output; a soft side that aims to tell real stories of everyday people, to blur the lines between film and reality.

3. Goodfellas (1990)

Goodfellas Review

Goodfellas is Martin Scorsese’s greatest creation as a filmmaker, and the result of the perspective that making a documentary film and making a fiction film are the same process.

In this 6-time Oscar-nominated film, Scorsese tells the dramatized true story of half-Irish, half-Italian gangster Henry Hill, based on crime reporter Nick Pileggi’s novel “Wiseguy”. Goodfellas has all the style of Mean Streets, but it’s incredibly polished after nearly two decades of filmmaking experience. The silhouette of the male leads digging a grave against a red light is just as striking as Mean Streets’ club scene, but its darker nature creates a more provocative image.

Ray Liotta is outstanding as Henry Hill, hitting a variety of emotional beats that are capped off by a frantic, paranoid coke binge at the film’s end. Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are highlights of the cast, but it’s Lorraine Bracco as Henry’s wife Karen who really steals the show. There’s no true star in the ensemble cast, making the place and lifestyle the film’s central focus. Goodfellas presents the allure of the gangster lifestyle, and hits all the beats expected of the gangster genre by the late 1980s when audiences had perhaps seen it all.

Martin Scorsese’s past and future films address similar themes to Goodfellas, but none are quite so compelling visually. The film is dynamic, the editing and cinematography evolving with the characters over the course of the film, and its function as a representation of reality makes it unlike Mean Streets or even genre great The Godfather, the natural performances elevating the film beyond a general desire for unintrusive acting. Catherine Scorsese herself even makes an appearance in a fully improvised scene. When it comes to Martin Scorsese’s filmography, Goodfellas cannot be beat and is a must for anyone seeking the opportunity to experience this great American director’s unique filmmaking for the first time.

Recommended for you: Where to Start with David Lynch

You can’t go wrong watching anything in Martin Scorsese’s filmography, but these three films will give the most insight into this legendary auteur’s interests, background, and outlook on life. Should you take the advice of this piece, then Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Casino are great places to go next.

Growing up as a wee boy who wanted to make films in Scotland was not easy. Though the state of Scottish cinema is much healthier today, making the decision to study film after leaving high school in 2015 was not as easy as you would think. At the time, as far as mainstream Scottish films would go, Sunshine on Leith and Brave were pretty much it. At least that’s what I, a cinema-obsessed seventeen-year-old, was led to believe.

Luckily for me, it was that summer in between leaving high school and entering college that I would discover the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). Attending live Q&As, meeting the likes of Haskell Wexler, Seamus McGarvey and Ewan McGregor (who, not only had I grown up with, but was the star of the greatest Scottish film ever made, in my eyes) and seeing films with hundreds of others in attendance, was like something I had never experienced before. I knew right away that I needed more of it. Two weeks every summer where I could breathe, eat and sleep movies – how on earth had I gone my whole life without realising that an entire world of cinema was right on my doorstep? 

The Edinburgh International Film Festival introduced me to films from all around the world, brilliant pieces that I may have never seen if not for the festival. More importantly, it showed me that Scottish films were being made, and it also gave me a place to see them. Over the years I would discover such delights as John McPhail’s Anna and the Apocalypse, Ninian Doff’s Get Duked and Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun. 

Aside from cementing my choice to study film, both EIFF and its home the Edinburgh Filmhouse did so much for me as far as film education and my own career in film go; EIFF introduced me to one of the very first international films I saw (The 400 Blows), sparked my interest in film programming and hosting Q&As, screened films I had directed and acted in, allowed me to share a room with brilliant filmmakers and actors such as John Landis, Joe Dante, Oliver Stone, Kevin Bacon and Richard E. Grant. Furthermore, these institutions allowed me to see classics on the big screen for the very first time – movies like The Seventh Seal, The Exorcist, There Will Be Blood, A Nightmare on Elm Street, 2001: A Space Odyssey – as well as providing a venue for new found favourites such as Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Bait, Uncut Gems, Spencer and Licorice Pizza. 

With all that EIFF and Filmhouse introduced me to, you can only imagine the devastation I felt on the morning of the 6th of October 2022 when I heard the news that both EIFF and Filmhouse had ceased trading immediately. How could two things that mean so much to me simply just stop? There wasn’t even a chance to say goodbye…

The history of both institutions, but specifically Edinburgh International Film Festival, is astonishing. It is the longest continually running film festival in the world, beginning in 1947 and running until this year. It is a landmark that keeps Scotland on the map, a cultural landstone that has helped Edinburgh remain famous as a city renowned for its art and culture. The influence that the Edinburgh International Film Festival has had on film culture not only in Scotland but the world over is undeniable, bringing filmmakers such as Orson Welles, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Kathryn Bigelow and Bong Joon-Ho to the capital and introducing films like Jour de fête, Pather Panchali, Wild Strawberries, Easy Rider, Alien, Blade Runner, E.T. and Reservoir Dogs to the UK and the world. John Huston once said “I rarely go to film festivals. The only one as such that’s worth a damn is Edinburgh. My god, it’s unique”. It was always easy to see why.

I am not the only one affected by the news. Many filmmakers have come out in support of both institutions. Edgar Wright tweeted “The @edfilmfest was the first festival to ever show a film of mine and I have had so much support and great screenings with the amazing @Filmhouse cinemas since, so this is a terrible blow. My heart goes out to those who love film and have lost jobs. Hoping for a resolution soon”. French Animator Sylvian Chomet stated in an interview that the closures were “a bitter disappointment for the city of Edinburgh and its wonderful people.” Before a screening of Aftersun at the London Film Festival, Charlotte Wells made a tribute to both EIFF and the Filmhouse in saying “These are spaces that mean a great deal to me, it’s where I saw my 1st film, it’s where this, my first feature, played. I wouldn’t be standing here without them”. Further filmmakers such as Mark Jenkin and Mark Cousins have also voiced their disappointment, with Cousins himself writing an article for The Guardian on the matter.

Many others have taken the news as a call to arms, organising groups designed to help save the Filmhouse, hosting candlelit vigils outside of Edinburgh Filmhouse, and starting a petition that now has over 20,000 signatures. Furthermore, the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she would engage with Edinburgh city councils and the financing entity Creative Scotland to determine any paths forward to salvage the institutions.

The outpouring of support is a good sign and certainly shows that many do care about both the Filmhouse and EIFF, but whilst the Filmhouse remains closed the threat remains. Not only to the Filmhouse but to cinema in general. Earlier this year Cineworld Group plc announced that they were filing for bankruptcy, putting Cineworld, Picturehouse Cinemas and Regal Cinemas all at risk. Thankfully all three remain trading to this day, but in the year 2022 there is a very clear and very real threat to what we have long understood to be cinema.

Martin Scorsese recently denounced what he calls the “focus on numbers” in the film world, calling it “repulsive” and “insulting”. This is a world that runs on money and so the money that a film and a cinema makes is important. If one type of movie makes a lot of money then Hollywood bankrolls more of that kind of movie – if it doesn’t, then so long hopeful cinematic universe. Moreover, cinemas rely on films making a lot of money; more people buying tickets and memberships mean that the cinemas are earning money, and the cinemas earning money means they can afford the cost to run the cinema itself, and being able to do that allows the cinema to show more movies, and so on and so forth. 

It is this focus on figures that leads Scorsese to believe that “cinema is devalued, demeaned, belittled from all sides, not necessarily the business side but certainly the art”.

Look back at the past twenty-one years of the worldwide box office. Every year the top 5 (and sometimes even more than that) are not only major blockbusters but major blockbusters almost exclusively designed for audiences 12 and under. Harry Potter, Shrek, Lord of the Rings, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Toy Story, Marvel. These are all very much films in which audiences of all ages can attend, but are designed for children to beg their parents to go see, doubling the tickets sold and money made in one foul swoop. 

To the outside, this change clearly works. Movies are making more money than ever, the ten highest-grossing movies of all time is constantly changing, the U.S. domestic box office recorded its highest ever earnings only four years ago. That’s all great, but only certain types of movies are making that much money. 

Imagine if Jackson Pollock’s paintings were selling for the highest amount so Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso decided to paint only in the style of Pollock. You’d tire of seeing the same thing, and these other artists wouldn’t stand out for their originality. As a culture, as a society, we’d be left without these great artists and the uniqueness of their work, we’d be lesser as a whole. 

Occasionally you’ll get smaller and more unique films making good money at the box office, such as Everything Everywhere All At Once or Get Out, but the gap in overall gross between films like these and films like, say, Thor: Love and Thunder is astonishing. Before 2000, films like Saving Private Ryan, The Fugitive, A Few Good Men, Pretty Woman, Ghost, Rain Man were all top ten highest-grossing films of their respective years. They feel like they are a million miles away. Would they possibly be in the same position today?

The current era isn’t without quality filmmaking either. There are brilliant films out there that go practically unnoticed at the box office, films like You Were Never Really Here, Dope, Blindspotting, The Vast of Night, Never Look Away. These are the kinds of films that are most likely to screen at a place like the Edinburgh Filmhouse or the Edinburgh International Film Festival. 

Film is an art form, not a commodity. Not everyone is going to like the same moving pictures and that is fine, but there needs to be a variety. Such places that you could find variety were Filmhouse and EIFF. With that being said we must support independent cinemas, cherish their unique approaches and the independent films they often showcase; these are the few places that offer what you will not experience anywhere else in the world, the institutions that support and celebrate the work that makes up the majority but is seen by the minority.

The future of both Filmhouse and Edinburgh International Film Festival are uncertain, but if they are given the second life they deserve then we must hold them near and dear to our hearts and support them however we can.

Regardless of what happens, this wee boy from Scotland will be forever indebted to both EIFF and the Filmhouse, as both institutions played a major role in the movie fanatic I am today; widening my movie palette, strengthening my passion for cinema, providing me with numerous opportunities that I never would have had otherwise and, most importantly of all, helping me to realise that a life in the movies was possible where I was from and not just a pipe dream. Thank you Filmhouse and thank you Edinburgh Film Festival.