It’s a self-evident truth that it’s a looooong time since De Niro and Scorsese did anything as powerful and memorable as their holy trinity of movie male self-loathing: Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull. And they’re not going to are they? Falling in Love? Analyse This? The Colour of Money? Bringing Out The Dead? You get the picture I think.
Let’s not kid ourselves. De Niro’s and Scoreses’s reputations are built on three movies and three alone. And no one but no one can take that away from them. We’re talking reputations made in Mount Rushmore stone. Which is just as it should be. But c’mon, after the Big 3, it’s strictly downhill. (Okay, I’ll give you Goodfellas, but it sure as hell ain’t De Niro’s movie like the Big 3 are).
Those early movies have one obvious thing in common; they’re deeply uncomfortable to watch and yet you can’t take your eyes of the screen. So how did we end up with The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwhinkle? Maybe you can’t sustain that level of intensity for long: psychopaths, loners, losers, and bums takes it out of you. Or maybe it’s the Golden Age of movie-making that’s gone, the fabled 70s where the Director ruled the earth and Hollywood just said yes. Everybody knows what would happen to Taxi Driver if it was made today. Travis would cop off with Cybil Shepherd and after a few ups and downs (a little bit of an incident with a gun but nothing serious) he’d settle down and maybe stop doing night shifts.
Of course De Niro and Scorese are soooo good they only need three movies to secure their place in cinematic iconography. And that’s the thing. Everything after seems…well…a little tame. I keep harking back to the old days, like a lover who can’t accept it’s over. Hey, Bobby, remember that scene in Taxi Driver where you watch the dancing couples on TV with a gun in your hand and it's Jackson Browne’s Too Late For The Sky on the soundtrack?
Ever wanted a really memorable definition of great acting? Mick Jagger’s character Turner nails it in the film Performance:
“The only performance that makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness”
Don’t get me wrong, De Niro and Scorsese still make good movies, it's just that they’re a little too normal for me.
Let’s not kid ourselves. De Niro’s and Scoreses’s reputations are built on three movies and three alone. And no one but no one can take that away from them. We’re talking reputations made in Mount Rushmore stone. Which is just as it should be. But c’mon, after the Big 3, it’s strictly downhill. (Okay, I’ll give you Goodfellas, but it sure as hell ain’t De Niro’s movie like the Big 3 are).
Those early movies have one obvious thing in common; they’re deeply uncomfortable to watch and yet you can’t take your eyes of the screen. So how did we end up with The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwhinkle? Maybe you can’t sustain that level of intensity for long: psychopaths, loners, losers, and bums takes it out of you. Or maybe it’s the Golden Age of movie-making that’s gone, the fabled 70s where the Director ruled the earth and Hollywood just said yes. Everybody knows what would happen to Taxi Driver if it was made today. Travis would cop off with Cybil Shepherd and after a few ups and downs (a little bit of an incident with a gun but nothing serious) he’d settle down and maybe stop doing night shifts.
Of course De Niro and Scorese are soooo good they only need three movies to secure their place in cinematic iconography. And that’s the thing. Everything after seems…well…a little tame. I keep harking back to the old days, like a lover who can’t accept it’s over. Hey, Bobby, remember that scene in Taxi Driver where you watch the dancing couples on TV with a gun in your hand and it's Jackson Browne’s Too Late For The Sky on the soundtrack?
Ever wanted a really memorable definition of great acting? Mick Jagger’s character Turner nails it in the film Performance:
“The only performance that makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness”
Don’t get me wrong, De Niro and Scorsese still make good movies, it's just that they’re a little too normal for me.
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