Martin Scorsese makes man a phenomenon in his cinematic ruptures. The main idea is to locate a man in undignified, uncouth situations. it is the not-so-virtual potrayal.It is his endearing habit to let the actions of his characters dictate the narrative through aggression, hard-bitten feats, pugnacity and ruthlessness. Such acts constitute the heart and soul of Scorsese lineage. On other hand he would never deny the fragility residing in every man. We find copious of it in the fleeting frames. His creative manifestations are heavily reliant on the man who won’t just listen to his mother and his wife and better be the rainbow of his indiscretions. He just renders others defunct through escapades. More emphatically he never makes foray into truth. Not being a fixture truth brings dilemma to his character and steady indecisiveness. He can displace his antecedents with ease and no qualms. In the end he dilutes the stigmatic man into an infirm, indissolubly cathartic, dependant and yielding character.
Taxi driver
Travis bickle - a recluse who veers through streets in the night. The reflection of Travis Bickle in the rearview mirror and the depiction of american streets during night is a spectacle of rare magnificence in its own right. The only movie(In my opinion) which has demonstrated equivalent allusions was Jafar Panahi’s ‘the mirror’ where camera scours the streets of Iran personifying the city through momentary insights into common man’s conversations, political discussions, family plight. Travis doesn’t wish to be a part of the entire scurry and is merely portrayed as being empathetic with the helplessness and compulsions of prostitutes. There is nothing to suggest, even a sliver by his motion and countenance that he desires to be in the same despotic position wielding indiscriminate choices. The rearview mirror captures the strength of those moments when he drives past the streets lined with the soliciting prostitutes. In simplistic parlance the rearview mirror does the talking. His conversations with himself and the rearview mirror depiction of his frigid face profusely personify his alienation in the wake of Vietnam war and persisting insulation. What is even more impelling is the way Scorsese chisels the character through four disparate stages- Travis as an eccentric lover, him as so naïve a person as not to understand the underbelly of politics(what is the one thing about this country that bugs you the most?
‘I don't know. I don't follow political issues that closely.
There must be something.
Well, whatever it is, he should clean up this city here...
because this city is like an open sewer, it's full of filth and scum.
Sometimes I can hardly take it.
Whoever becomes the president should just...
really clean it up, know what I mean?
Sometimes I go out and I smell it. I get headaches, it's so bad.
It's like-- They never go away.
It's like the president should clean up this whole mess here.
He should flush it down the fucking toilet.
Well, I think I know what you mean, Travis.’
), him as an elusive revenge-seeking person, him as a unstinting crusader and a reckless reformer(‘someday rain will come and wash this scum off the streets’). Yes at the end we fail to decipher or we simply don’t wish to tinker much with the underlying motives and his perceptions. He makes me utter at the culmination ‘ a mirage, a firefly that flickers too much, a discretion that knows no fetters’.
Raging bull
When I foisted on the sofa for watching ‘raging bull’ I being convinced by the title and thought it would redress the same streaks of a man. There was an assemblage of few words in my mind –‘ aggressive’, ‘impetuous’, ‘undaunted’, ‘irrepressible’ and ‘unpredictable’. And there was the fiery man, a pugilist, wrenching the scenes and wreaking havoc in family life. There were cuss words galore. Who better reels it of better than Robert de Niro. He makes unthrifty employment of such words. Sometimes I feel if he could just be made the progenitor of cuss word. No other person on earth can utter the word with such inflammable propriety as him. He seems to have elevated the word to a monstrous level. it is a rare verbal design with him enjoying the indefensible copyrights. He crowns it with an easy glory. Here surprisingly the character doesn’t traverse many terrains. It experiences a great leap from being a menacingly aggressive man defined by boundless rage, wrath and recklessness to an emotionally staggering, childishly submissive and refuge seeking man
‘why are you so angry?
Be friends. You're my brother.- Your brother?
- Yeah, you bum.
Give me a break.
Kiss me. Come on.
- Let me call my wife and kids.
- You gonna forgive and forget?
It's a long time ago. Forget it.Come on.
You're my brother. Come on.
Give me a kiss.- How's everything?
- Good.
Everything all right?
Your family? Come here.
Come on, don't do this here.
We'll get together soon.
- Call me?-
I will.
- Don't forget.
- I'll call you.
All right....legitimately, and nobody can
take that away from me. Nobody.Some people aren't that lucky.like the one Brando playin "On the Waterfront,"
It wasn't him, Charlie.
It was you.You reach a peak,
then it's downhill.
It was you, Charlie.
You was my brother.
You should've looked out
for me just a little bit.
You should've
taken care of me...
instead of making me take dives
for short-end money.
You don't understand.
I could've had class.
I could've been a contender.
I could've been somebody instead of a bum.Let's face it.
Scorsese pits one extreme against another extreme tearing a character beyond our comprehension. He isn’t too comfortable with the idea of allowing a consequence flowing from one streak of the character. He borrows the contradictions obliviously keeping it unarmed by any definite conforming consequence and shielded by our varying reciprocating systems. We don’t make a hero out of him. There is nothing to eulogize, nothing to envy, nothing to rave about, nothing to emulate and nothing too delusional. And in the end when we ask ourselves ‘is or can he be remorse-smitten’ and Scorsese retorts ‘I'm the boss. I'm the boss.’(RAGING BULL)
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