Taxi Driver made Scorsese’s name in 1976, but lacks momentum or moral, relying for its gritty power on the shock value of Jodie Foster’s child-prostitute character and on it constituting by simple happenstance a snapshot of a Big Apple that then seemed on an unstoppable ride to dystopia. Because it suits Scorsese’s narrative convenience for them to not give chase, the hardened thugs stay on the floor like overturned tortoises. Witness the contretemps in the pool hall when Charlie and Johnny Boy push over Joey Scala’s men to make their escape. It’s not just overly episodic but in places actively badly directed. Perhaps we can forgive the gaucheries of Mean Streets (1973) on the grounds that it was Scorsese’s first proper feature film. The truth, though, is that his directorial talent has never been as great as occasional masterpieces like Goodfellas (1990) tricked us into believing it was. The result is a debasing of his talent: new Scorsese films are routinely an hour too long. No studio dares utter the word “no” to him. Of history’s all-time greats is seemingly unassailable. Now, those days of the low-budget, narrow-horizoned After Hours are long forgotten: his position as one In 1985, Martin Scorsese’s career was at such a low ebb that he had to take the movie-director equivalent of a menial job. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. This article is taken from the October 2022 issue of The Critic.
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