The Essentials: Martin Scorsese’s Best Films

“The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988)
Brazenly controversial and still banned in several countries around the world, Scorsese’s reimagining of the last period of Jesus’ life, and of a hypothetical life beyond the crucifixion, is his most blatant attempt to contend with the issues of faith and doubt that his Catholic upbringing instilled in him. Famously at one stage wanting to be a priest, Scorsese instead pursued filmmaking with an almost religious zeal, but has frequently said that the mystery of the Passion and spirituality in general has never left him. It seems Marty works these mysteries through in his films rather than from the ambo, leading not only to ‘Temptation,’ but to “Kundun,” George Harrison documentary “Living in the Material World” and possibly to his next potential project, “Silence.” ‘Temptation’ is the first and most overt of these, portraying a doubting, often despairing Christ (Willem Dafoe) and reinterpreting Judas’ (an awkward Harvey Keitel) role as betraying him at Jesus’ behest. Most “blasphemously” (according to several Christian fundamentalist organizations which boycotted and protested the film, to the point of setting a Parisian theater on fire), Scorsese’s adaptation of the novel of the same name posits a scenario in which Jesus is rescued from the cross by his guardian angel, marries Mary Magdalene and after her death, marries Mary and Martha, having a family and living into old age. It is only on his deathbed that a visit from Judas reveals that the guardian angel had in fact been Satan in disguise, whereupon Jesus begs God’s forgiveness and is returned in near-ecstasy to the cross as a young man. So the ‘Temptation’ is in fact that of life as an ordinary man, outside of Messiah-dom and the whole last section works rather like a very sombre version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” as it’s implied that Jesus essentially hallucinates what his life would be like without the burden of being part of the Godhead. It’s weighty, heavy stuff and Scorsese spares none of its density, so the film is wordy and brimming with a sense of Catholic crisis. But it’s also very beautiful at times (the pared-back budget contributing to a spartan, impressionistic look complemented by washes of monochrome reds or yellows over the image) and Willem Dafoe is quite extraordinary as the tortured Son of God, along with an Oscar-nominated Barbara Hershey as a surprisingly realistic and sympathetic Mary Magdalene. There is nothing easy about ‘Temptation,’ nor should there be, and if it remains among Scorsese’s least approachable works, its complexity, enigmatic tone and troubled, questing thorniness are in this case, totally justified. [B]

“New York Stories” (1989) (segment: “Life Lessons“)
Scorsese’s contribution to “New York Stories,” which also includes shorts by Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen, is the unquestionable champ among the trio. Sensual and uplifting via a keen musical selection (Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”), Scorsese drops us into the life of shaggy-haired painter Lionel Dobie (Nick Nolte), his art, and Paulette (Rosanna Arquette), a former lover Lionel wishes to possess once again. It’s a character study immeasurably enlivened by Scorsese’s roving camera, mining crucial urgency when depicting Lionel’s creative process. Nolte delivers a typically gruff yet sensitive performance, making a louse of a man sympathetic, or at least relatable in his hearty pursuit of art and listless groping for the next ingénue to half-heartedly seduce. Lionel leaves his heart on the canvas and Scorsese poignantly illuminates the divide and the struggle. For those tested by runtimes, this short might be a proper antidote, an introduction to Scorsese that lures them to sample more significant works. [B]

“Goodfellas” (1990)
Even among the very highest echelons of the canon of accepted film “classics,” there are gradations. Many films are undeniably great, but how often do we have a burning desire to rewatch them? Many others we’ll fight to death for, but can scoot past them when they show up late at night on cable. Amongst those, we’d even count some of our favorite Scorsese films: “Taxi Driver,” and “Raging Bull,” for example, are peerless classics, but there’s not a part of us that always wants to be watching them. Then there’s “Goodfellas”, which manages to do, for our money, everything that these other touchstones do, but also to be relentlessly, almost insolently entertaining: infinitely rewatchable, quotable and recommendable to old and young alike. Even broken up into its constituent parts the film is unassailable on so many levels: greatest ever Joe Pesci performance; ditto Ray Liotta; best-written voiceover; most dizzyingly inventive but apropos camerawork; sharpest script; the superlatives can go on. Adapted for screen by Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi, from Pileggi’s non-fiction book “Wise Guy,” “Goodfellas” is also so sharp and zingy in terms of how it bristles with its own manic energy that it’s maybe the fastest 2.5 hours you can spend at the movies. For the uninitiated (we can’t believe there are any, but still) the film is told through the eyes (and voice) of Henry Hill (Liotta) and charts his rise through the ranks of the local New York mob scene from his mid-fifties childhood (he’d “always wanted to be a gangster”) right up to his ignominious fade-out as “a schnook” in the early 80s, via violence, betrayal, coercion, murder, drugs, prison, adultery and the thinnest-sliced garlic ever captured on screen. It’s Scorsese and his cast firing on all cylinders and as sobering as the moral of the story may be, nothing can dampen the sheer joy in filmmaking that’s on display here: this is a film that would have been simply impossible from anyone who loved movies less. Yet despite all the quick edits, the freeze frames, the bravura long-takes, the detail-rich locations, despite the crazy skill and planning that had to have gone into its creation, the technique is somehow so completely transparent as to seem effortless and we are wholly immersed in a story of such gloriously gonzo excess that it seems to blast by on a cocaine high. If Scorsese had never made any other film, we’d follow him to the ends of the earth just for this one…Aaaand, now we have to watch it again. [A+]