What’s a mook? Are you talking at me? How am I funny? Only in the crime movies of Martin Scorsese does a question take on such a patina of surreal threat. In Scorsese’s world, desperate men commit desperate deeds and pursue their ends with an off-kilter vitality matched only by the fervour of the filmmaking.
Legendary Australian film critic David Stratton sums Scorsese up as a tension between faith and impulse. “One the one hand, his Catholic upbringing leads him to tackle religious subjects,” Stratton says, “while the Saturday matinee kid in him revels in the trashy gore of gangster films.”
This June 9-19, Sydney Film Festival returns ten seminal features by this great American director – including Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and Raging Bull – to the big screen in specially imported 35mm prints. The features in Essential Scorsese have been chosen by Stratton, who will be on hand to introduce selected screenings at the Art Gallery of New South Wales over two weekends.
“Scorsese is widely considered one of the most important filmmakers of all time,” says Sydney Film Festival director Nashen Moodley. “His groundbreaking films and meticulous filmmaking style are essential viewing for all film fans.”
The program offers a rare chance to experience the best work of Martin Scorsese in the way it was intended – on the big screen. It also provides a powerful explanation why people hold Robert “Dirty Grandpa” De Niro in such high esteem – his work with Scorsese is a catalogue of incredible performances.
