Martin Scorsese and the Virtues of Curiosity
Martin Scorsese is 81. His latest movie, Killers of the Flower Moon, is extraordinary, among the best he’s ever made, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Its 206 minute run time is muscular and indulgent, but it’s never boring. It’s a master work by one of the best filmmakers alive. Is that worth an afternoon? Of course it is. What else were you gonna do with that time, huh? Take care of your child? Fuck you. That’s Marty’s time.
With SAG still on strike, Scorsese has been out there on his own, dutifully promoting the film without DiCaprio, De Niro or Lily Gladstone. This one profile from GQ is the most intimate portrait of the guy I’ve ever read. It depicts Martin as an old man more conscious than ever of his mortality, trying to balance time spent in rest, time spent with loved ones and time pursuing his vocation. Why keep making films with a legacy as secure as his, with as much money as he’s got? “I’m trying to keep alive the sense that cinema is an art form,” he said bluntly, in another interview with AP. “That it should be taken that seriously…I think cinema can enrich your life as works of art. This can really be something beautiful in your life.”
Not all of his New Hollywood peers have the same passion, or the same opportunity. Many of them are retired or semi-retired. Most are just dead. Some are producing big, ambitious projects, but they’re all treading familiar waters. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, Terrence Malick’s Jesus movie, even Spielberg’s upcoming Bullitt remake are all very...characteristic. Another historical epic from Ridley, another obsessive professional from Mann. Terry’s whispering about divinity, Steven is exhuming his childhood, Coppola is raving about human creativity. These men are capable of making exceptional films, even now, but there’s a lack of curiosity to them. They have talent, but they might have run out of things to say.
Killers of the Flower Moon is familiar in some ways. Like most of Scorsese’s films, it’s a story about greed, violence and loathsome antiheroes. But it is also very new. Marty evolved into a different filmmaker in the 2010s, abandoning his signature camera moves, frantic needle-drops and lurid violence for something more contemplative and mournful. In Silence, The Irishman and now KOTFM, Scorsese is content to let scenes play out without cutting to bright lights and gaudy interiors. When violence happens, it’s presented dispassionately in locked-off wide shots. The colors are desaturated. The sets are plain. All that’s left is human drama, presented simply and memorably.
The content is also unfamiliar. KOTFM is an unconventional western, a rural story of violence, greed and love. That’s a world Scorsese hasn’t earnestly probed. The film’s protagonist, Ernest Burkhart, is not a raging, obsessive antihero but a dumb, greedy rube, easily manipulated into killing, stealing, and destroying his loved ones. Scorsese has never made a movie about Native people, but in KOTFM he presents his Osage characters with honesty, humanity and complexity. Mollie Burkhart is particularly fascinating; cynical, savvy, but lonely, desperate for comfort, susceptible to flattery. Her White husband, Ernest, provides her with some company in trying times, but not much else. I won’t spoil things, but…it doesn’t end well.
All of this is new. But then again, for a guy who’s frequently pigeonholed as a hyper-violent gangster obsessive, Scorsese’s work is wide-ranging and unclassifiable. Just when you think you’ve pinned the guy down he makes something like Hugo, Kundun, The Age of Innocence or Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. He’s often drawn to self-destruction, but self-destruction is such a common impulse that it can find its expression anywhere, in gangsters, Portuguese missionaries, musicians, billionaire industrialists and Jesus Christ Himself. There’s affinity for certain subjects, yes, but there's also a willingness to explore.
That curiosity, I think, is what separates him from every other filmmaker of his age and stature. It’s very common to stop growing as you get old, make money and win accolades. Habits harden, egos swell, new skills are tough to learn, trends arise that you don’t like or understand. Scorsese’s not immune to this. He admitted that he only started answering his own emails this year, but he’s answering them now, under protest. He has his lanes: obsession, violence, masculinity, Catholicism, but he departs those lanes often, sometimes radically. He’s made anywhere from three to nine mob movies, depending on the parameters, but he’s made 26 movies total. There are delightful surprises in that 26. More than you’d expect.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that all all writers are doomed to repeat themselves. “We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives,” he said, “then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen.” I don’t think that’s true. I think that was true for F. Scott Fitzgerald, but not generally. If they have the humility to listen and learn, any artist can find new territory. It will always be reflected through the prism of their personality, sure, but they don’t have to keep retreading the same old ideas. It takes diligence, humility and curiosity, but it’s possible to keep learning and growing for an entire lifetime.
There are great artists in the F. Scott Fitzgerald mode, but Scorsese isn’t one of them. I don’t think you can create a body of work as long, rich and wide-ranging as Scorsese’s while obsessively rehashing the same old ideas. He’s 81 years old, and he’s still finding new possibilities. Maybe he feels he has to for the good of the art form, maybe he’s doing it because he wants to. Regardless, we’re lucky to have him.