Shutter Island, due for wide release in February, brings the number of director Martin Scorsese’s features starring actor Leonardo DiCaprio up to four. That’s only half the number made with the performer many fans would consider Scorsese’s most important collaborator, the dynamic powerhouse Robert DeNiro. Like the quartet of DiCaprio films, the eight DeNiro/Scorsese movies focus attention on obsessed characters who vainly try to adjust the world according to their vision of how it should be, no matter what destruction it brings.
In DeNiro and Scorsese’s first collaboration, the semi-autobiographical Mean Streets, the film’s principal obsessive, Charlie, is played by Harvey Keitel. The religious and sensitive Charlie is a small-time hood who desperately tries to rein in his best friend (and id) Johnny Boy (DeNiro), an irrepressible and irresponsible prankster who could not care less about his debts to the mob. DeNiro was promoted to leading man for Taxi Driver, and his Travis Bickle, driven to violence he thinks will help purify a trash-filled New York City, is one of the most disturbing characters ever depicted on film.
Though prone to volatile moments, Jimmy Doyle, the jazz saxophonist in New York, New York, might be the most likeable character DeNiro ever assayed for Scorsese, but Jimmy’s search for a “major chord” keeps him from being happy in his marriage to singer Francine (Liza Minnelli). Likewise, it’s an all-consuming but groundless jealousy that destroys the marriage of boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, still the director and star’s most celebrated film together.
Perhaps the most underrated of their combined efforts, The King of Comedy remains the most relevant for today’s audiences in its depiction of marginally talented comedian Rupert Pupkin’s unstoppable quest for fame through television.
After a seven-year hiatus from Scorsese, DeNiro took a secondary role in the now-classic mob epic Goodfellas. Though Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill provides the film with its comically uninhibited and amoral spirit, it’s DeNiro’s greedy and paranoid thug Jimmy Conway who raises the specter of death.
Cape Fear’s revenge-obsessed and Bible-quoting ex-con Max Cady just might literally be the Angel of Death, and DeNiro put himself through a punishing physical regimen that makes the sinewy and tattoo-covered Max all the more frighteningly real. Casino brought Scorsese back into gangster territory for his eighth and (to date) final pairing with DeNiro, whose Ace Rothstein is the classic control freak brought down by loyalty to his less-than-reputable friends and wife.
These stories of obsession can also be viewed as allegories for the filmmaking process and the director’s difficult task of keeping everything under control. Scorsese’s reliance on the spontaneous, unpredictable, and often improvisatory behavior of DeNiro offers an example to any single-minded director who might resist creative input from his cast. Scorsese, with his powerful editing, pulsating soundtracks, and constantly roving cameras, will always be a technically dazzling auteur, but he understands that it’s the actors’ performances that really bring his films to life.—Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department
Screenings: All films are at 8 p.m. unless otherwise listed.
Wednesday, January 6
MEAN STREETS (Martin Scorsese, US 1973, 110 min.)
Wednesday, January 13
TAXI DRIVER (Martin Scorsese, US 1976, 113 min.)
Wednesday, January 20
NEW YORK, NEW YORK (Martin Scorsese, US 1977, 164 min.)
Wednesday, January 27
RAGING BULL (Martin Scorsese, US 1982, 129 min.)
Wednesday, February 3
THE KING OF COMEDY (Martin Scorsese, US 1983, 109 min.)
Wednesday, February 10 20th Anniversary!
GOODFELLAS (Martin Scorsese, US 1990, 146 min.)
Wednesday, February 17
CAPE FEAR (Martin Scorsese, US 1991, 128 min.)
Wednesday, February 24
CASINO (Martin Scorsese, US 1995, 182 min.)
