Pretty Much Pop #29: Martin Scorsese the Auteur w/ Colin Marshall

We consider the highly lauded 2019 film The Irishman in the context of Scorsese’s body of work and the styles and themes that his films tend to exhibit.

Writer/podcaster Colin Marshall joins Mark, Erica, and Brian to talk about what we do and don’t connect with in Scorsese’s work and how these films qualify as “art films” despite their watchability, not to mention the big budgets and stars. We cover CGI age alteration, the connection to The Joker, his comments about the Marvel franchise vs. him being a franchise unto himself, his use of music, and making films as an old guy. We hit particularly on Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Bringing out the Dead, The King of Comedy, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York,  The Departed, Casino, Silence, and Cape Fear. (There are no significant spoilers about any of these other films, just The Irishman.)

Beyond just watching or re-watching a lot of films, here are some articles we used to prep:

Colin recommends the books Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Scorsese on Scorsese, and Gangster Priest: The Italian American Cinema of Martin Scorsese. Read Colin’s openculture.com articles on Scorsese. Also, Colin reviews The Partially Examined Life in 2012.

Here’s that clip from Singles about “the next Martin Scorseeze.” Here’s Peter Boyle in Taxi Driver giving “Wizard” advice. Watch Abed in Community consider whether Nicolas Cage is good or bad.

This episode includes bonus discussion that you can only hear by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.

Comments

  1. A British TV writer/director used the characters performing songs, Dennis Potter. Most famously in Pennies from Heaven, and The Singing Detective (my favourite is The Singing Detective).

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