Situation Theory

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2010)

Scorcese is an accomplished cinematic mind. There is no question of this. When he dies, we will celebrate the loss of a talent.
But his life has been compromised by limits in the depth of his religion of cinema. This has haunted him, and he will not be happy to die until he conquers this.
The problem is simple. I'll call it the curse of the character, and link it to Dante, or even Homer. That it dominates much written narrative is purely an accident of war. This is the idea that humans exist as complete, each one of us carrying a universe within us that some of us are able to project and carry around us.
If we build stories, then, the stories are about the nature of the worlds attached to characters. The characters can actually be tragic, manipulated by their own world forces, or even uninteresting. But no matter how you slice it, the narrative follows people and the containing world is an annotation, an effect. I believe this is "Italian" in film-making and Scorcese was captured by it. Unfortunately for him, the cult of the actor in Hollywood (and associated market forces that support critics) feeds this. So he adopted deNiro and made films that were at least competent. But the camera could only follow bodies.
But all the real juice in cinema is in this idea of noir. It has penetrated everywhere to some extent because it matters. The religious cosmology of noir has a world that exists apart from any humans. It pre-exists, has its own laws and dynamics. Being external to the souls of humans who appear, it blows them around and tinkers with those souls.
It has the advantage that the film's narrative can entangle the existence of the world with the viewers and their needs. It brings the film to the viewers in a sort of contract, a dialog that cannot be refused. It also allows the camera to exist in a world apart from the characters. Thus, the filmmaker can inform us of the situation. Space matters. Texture, color, light all have their own lives.
Scorcese has been bothered by the fact that his films did not do this; could not. Here he was with the craft, the skills, but not the vision. So in one of the most intriguing inner stories in Hollywood, he attempts to escape his own limits.
He shifts from deNiro-like actors to deCaprio style. He tries, really hard to discover. His "Gangs" was a noble attempt, but a failure because of problems with funders. "Aviator" was his first noir success, helped by the influence of Cate (playing Kate). Check out the story, which mirrors Marty's plight. Marvel in that cool scene where the room is filled with strings.
The rat movie was a retreat. And now this. It is a pure victory, an personal achievement. Some of us have been rooting for the man in his encounter with himself and are doubly rewarded with this film.
There are elements in the story that reflect this quest of the filmmaker. I wouldn't want to focus on them too much here, because the reader may think that the story itself matters more than it should. But see the references to Spielberg's similar quest with "Close" and "List?" See the imposition of the noir narrator and the notion of slippery trust? See the folds in the anagrams? Look how at the end, we have shifted truths but the ambiguity remains. He could indeed still be the investigating cop, now compromised. In fact, this could be a flashback to the episode we learn happened nine months previously. (Note in particular how the tie changes toward the end.)
Those story elements would have made a good comment. I'll do that elsewhere. Here the point is to look at how Marty has a new eye. Look at how the camera is almost never anchored to a person. Look at how it always — always — starts with some focus on an element of the world then slips to catch a person (always Teddy, then his focus). Look at how well we understand the importance of location, architecture, place, space, situation.
Look at how for the first time ever, Marty shows space: flying paper, ash, dust, hail, leaves, trees. Look at how he even explores the architecture of water a bit. Watch with admiration as he announces his love for Thelma (his editor), and allows her some rubato in how the thing is paced because she owns the clock of the world, now hers.
My immediate context: I saw this in a theater with a pride of chattering young Marines. They could not follow the story and left laughing at themselves.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.