Tony Zhou, he of the examination of Spielberg’s long takes, is back with another meticulous look at a great director and an underappreciated aspect of his or her work. This time around: Martin Scorsese and silence (an appropriate subject, given that his next film is titled “Silence“—the long-gestating drama starring Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver and Ken Watanabe, which is meant to start filming in Asia in the next few months.
Scorsese is known for his use of—and interest in—music in his movies, but as Zhou points out, Scorsese also has a history of making silence work powerfully for him, starting in “Raging Bull” where it compliments the intimate, almost-POV camerawork with silences that echo like the ringing in Jake’s ears. There’s also the tension of silence in more recent pieces like “The Departed” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” where the soundtrack drops away at key moments as characters agonize and ultimately damn themselves, the way they always do in Scorsese movies. Check out the video, and Zhou’s others, for a quick and well-made masterclass. [Cinephila And Beyond]
This is a great article and a great video.