22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
good but padded..., November 11, 2008
This review is from: Scorsese by Ebert (Hardcover)
This book includes Ebert's reviews of Scorsese's films, more recent reconsiderations of some of the movies, and transcripts of interviews with Scorsese. All of this material is interesting, thoughtful and thought-provoking, and well written. However, the book has been padded with "introduction" chapters that tell you exactly what you'll find in the reviews and reconsiderations, sometimes using almost exactly the same words. This is unfortunate because in effect you will have already read what follows before you read it.
If you haven't seen all of Scorsese's movies, it might lead you to seek out the ones you haven't seen. If you have, it might lead you to follow in Ebert's footsteps and "reconsider" them by watching some of them again.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scorsese by Ebert - a life long passion, May 24, 2010
Scorsese's foreword of Ebert about this book, is one of admiration and respect, from a highly praised film director to an equally highly regarded film critic of all time, for chronicling his works in such a way as to make you understand how Scorsese works and how his films have such charisma to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
(Amazingly, both have known each other since 1967).
Ebert chronicles Scorsese's films with the precision that even the film director remarks as being highly commendable; each film is summarised with the critic's eye for details and like Scorsese himself, the real life portrayals, situations and characters make the films what they are:
a remarkable `story' of characters and dramas which Ebert finds intriguing in the films.
What does come across well, is Ebert's fascination with Scorsese's films, from the moment his first feature, `Who's That Knocking at My Door', was canned, which already shows that instinctive nature for placing the camera in such a way as to get the shot he needed, for that particular scene.
Here you can sense the rapturous applause for such an incredible film director, with all the trimmings delicately applied.
Hard work and dedication is what we get from the reviews; of the toil, trials and tribulations of even the cameraman, down to their sprained knees and the sound man with ear infections - the nitty gritty of 3 days of sheer hard work. What emerges from Woodstock is 7 hours of genius.
The films reviewed tells of the development of ideas and themes such as that of anarchy, violence and sex as in Boxcar Bertha; the survival of a sub culture of boredom, mediocrity and death, sometimes seen as imminent, in Mean Street; the parody of fame through the eyes of Alice Hyatt in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and broaches contemporary thoughts of liberalism in women who had dreams as a child and later enacted them, with, at times, humourous consequences.
The intensity of vision which Ebert notes of Scorsese, on first meeting him, can perhaps be seen in the darkly melodramatic feature,Taxi Driver, which almost sends the viewers cowering beneath the seats for shelter, as the main character's fierce reprisals for the haunting episode of experiencing rejection, unfolds in stark reality. Raging Bull, follows closely with its brutal showing of men's physical violence in the essence of men's incomprehensibility of women's roles in life: 'virgin or whore' (p65).
After Hours and The King of Comedy are two of Scorsese's comedy films which Ebert reviews with reservations at times and points out how the characters convey a `kafkaesque' quality in the first and `emotional desert' in the second.
The Color of Money, which continues the story of `Fast Eddie' Felson in Robert Rossen's The Hustler, is seen by Ebert as Scorsese's mainstream work and which depicts the story through its early scenes, especially, convincingly well except for the `timeworn genres....of standard Hollywood situations' (p91), whereas films like Raging Bull shows how Scorsese can turn a `steak-cooking episode....into a sociological microscope' p226). Other notable films being, of the legendary, Bob Dylan, in No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and Shine a Light, which makes you want to see these and other films from a different perspective and with an insight into Scorsese's way of working.
Interestingly, the controversial, The Last Temptation of Christ, is seen as portraying Christ as a real human being and not some postcard image we see of an `emasculated' image, which pampers to the public's view of Christ, the Divine Being, set apart from us and Ebert finds this film more challenging than others on this matter. Ebert believes though the film with all its spiritual splendour, Kundun, where the 14th Dalai Lama is seen as an icon, that we see a series of breathtaking `visuals' described as `pure cinema'.
In Cape Fear, Goodfellas and The Aviator, The Color of Money and The Departed, which we usually associate most with Scorsese, they come across on screen, effortlessly, as only Scorsese can do and as Ebert says, in the way that only `a master in command of his craft' (p 236) can do but not so evident in, Gangs of New York.
Now having read Ebert's book on Scorsese, I see films like Goodfellas, differently and see how the camara is used to focus on thematic changes in the characters and scenes, the moral issues behind some actions and the cultural background of many of the films. Truly astounding.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
