Dear Mr. Scorsese

Dear Mr. Scorsese

I change my mind, I was stupid, I was impulsive, I am an idiot and I apologize. I have to retract my earlier statement. “The Irishman” is not my favorite movie, in fact I don’t have a favorite movie. You changed things for me. Your excellence, your gift, your creativity, your longevity, your passion, your movies. I am only a human being and I can’t resist the urge to compare, but you, your movies, they confuse me so much. I don’t know which is better. I use to think “Casino” was my favorite movie. Sharon Stone as Ginger was inspiring. I truly loved her performance. She taught me a lot about life. I will never forget her. Joe Persci and Robert De Niro were of course excellent so there’s no need to make a comment there. Robert De Niro was one of my favorite actors but now I don’t have any. That goes for you too DiCaprio, you mean nothing to me now. Things changed in 2013 when “The Wolf Of Wall Street” came out. I was obsessed with it. I will never forget that conversation between Mark Henna and Jordon Belfort. It shattered reality for me. It was like realizing that the moon landings were faked, it was awesome! I used to watch it every year on my birthday, it was a ritual of mine. I love how you can teach me about life sir. “The Wolf of Wall Street” was amazing! It was quite an experience, it was grand, provocative, truthful and fearless. Critics claimed that it perpetuated a lot of morally unacceptable behavior but they are wrong! That’s what greed does to a human being. You depicted the greed beautifully. I love how you made me identify with Jordon Belfort. I wanted to be him, I felt like him and then you took everything from me; the hot blonde, the kids, the expensive piece of real estate, the money and my profession. The tragedy! Oh Mr. Scorsese, only you can make me feel that way. I wish I could relive the experience of watching that movie again. It was a once in a lifetime movie. At least that’s what I thought, until I watched “Silence”, 3 years later and I was blown away! I loved “Silence”. It was so challenging. It covered the subjects of religion and morality. Wow, it is a powerful movie. I thought that was your best movie. But then fast forward 3 years later and you release “The Irishman”. Damn! You bring in Robert De Niro, Joe Persci and Al Pacino. You explore powerful subjects like our impending old age and death. That’s not all, you also cover love, loyalty and the mafia. That movie really touched me. It opened up the world for me. I learned a lot. Truly speaking it was the greatest movie that I had ever seen. Better than “The Godfather” trilogy, Scarface and Tarantino’s epic Inglorious Basterds. It was a big omission to concede on my side, it was hard. However, “The Irishman” deserved my number one spot. With that I was done, surely no movie is better than “The Irishman”. I proceeded with watching your other movies. I watched “The Last Temptation of Christ”, “Shutter Island” “Bringing out the Dead”, “The Color of Money”, “After Hours” “The Departed”, “Taxi Driver”, “The Aviator”, “Raging Bull”, “The King of Comedy” and “The Gangs of New York”. I was back to square one. I thought they were all legendary movies. I was confused, perplexed, “The Irishman” was no longer my favorite. I didn’t know which movie was my favorite. And so Mr. Scorsese, I would like to make things right. I don’t have a favorite anything in the world anymore. I don’t have a favorite actor. I don’t have a favorite director. I don’t identify with anything. I am a spectator now. I am neutral. I am a fence sitter. I live life without attachments. I will never judge and compare art ever again in my life! I will only enjoy, appreciate and applaud. This extends to all affairs in my life. I am now truly open-minded. I look forward to seeing more of your films and I thank you for what you have done for film. God bless.

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Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese

No one is better than Martin Scorsese. His films are just wonderful. They are bliss. He has this ability of making you identify with the bad side of the hero. The undesirable, repulsive, murderous, greedy side of the hero. His films dive deep into human psychology, they challenge morality, they make you see the other side – they make you think, what if? You feel a Martin Scorsese film. It is in your senses. His camera shots are amazing. Remember the 360 view on “The Wolf of Wall Street”? It drove me crazy! I felt like I was in the offices of Stratton Oakmont. My mind couldn’t understand what was going on or how he had accomplished that. What was the thought process? That 360 view was an attempt to make the viewer experience the madness first hand, to get lost in the chaos. On “Goodfellas” he uses a continuous shot that illustrates the hero’s powers to seduce. Henry takes his girlfriend Karen on a date at this underground spot and the camera follows from behind. To get to this restaurant they navigate through a lot of chaos and make a lot of turns – turns that make Karen dizzy. Henry pays someone $20 just to open the door to Karen’s amazement and when they finally get in, a waiter organizes a table just for them. The place is a full house, filled to the brim with esteemed people. It makes Karen feel so important and she is induced with this euphoria that takes her to heaven. That scene is the ultimate definition of seduction. Martin Scorsese uses a lot of camera techniques in his movies to make them legendary. He uses a lot of freeze frame shots to illustrate the importance of a scene and slow motion to freeze time. He has that ability – to freeze time, imagine that! What about his insecure masculine heroes who always chase these beautiful, ungraspable blondes? The blondes have become a theme in his movies that the hero always projects on. We see the use of slow motion to communicate how time slows down when these heroes meet or see these blondes. These blondes are mystical and perfect. On the “Wolf of Wall Street” one of Jordon’s friends states “I’d let her give me AIDS” upon seeing the blonde who would go on to being Jordon’s wife for the first time. On “Casino”, Ace’s world slows down when she sees Ginger – the blonde she would later marry for the first time. The heroes have self-destructive tendencies that ruin the lives of these beautiful blondes and they always leave the hero alone and dejected. The heroes have jealous streaks, they are control freaks, they are violent and they are driven by their impulses. Martin Scorsese forces us to see the bad and evil in ourselves. The violence in his movies is so explicit, so real, and so horrendous. On “Casino” we see a man senselessly beaten with baseball bats before he is stripped off his clothes and buried alive. In his movies, he makes you feel like “the man” through the hero and then strips you off all that power, leaving you with nothing. On the “The Wolf of Wall Street” he perpetuates all the greed, the drug use and random sex of the hero before taking it away. Jordon Belfort, loses everything – the money, his estate and his hot blonde wife. He also goes to jail and is banned from his profession, Investing. On “Goodfellas” Henry loses the lifestyle, respect and acclaim that comes with being a gangster. He also gets arrested and lives out the rest of his life at a Police Protection detention system. “Cape Fear” is about a guy who has moral justifications for ruining the life of the lawyer who didn’t fight for him in court when he was trailed for rape. Max Cady, the convicted rapist goes on a psychopathic rampage – he targets, stalks, kidnaps and torments the lawyer’s family. It is Robert De Niro at his most frightening and sadistic, he is sick but you understand him. Your understanding comes from the experience of also being wronged. Just like how you understand Jordon Belfort’s greed. If you were granted everything you have ever wanted, wouldn’t you go a little overboard? Martin Scorsese explores the human condition. He challenges the viewer to really think. There are also these rich and authentic dialogues that his characters always engage in. The dialogues are so entertaining. The dialogues are always in “real time”, it doesn’t feel like they are exchanging cues – they feel natural and flow. And what would a Martin Scorsese movie be without the narrator, the voice over that propels the story to greater heights. I love it – the narrator is the hero and he always speaks in the first person, so you can understand his mind and thought patterns; so you can hear the heroes insecurities and dreams. It is so powerful. It links you to the hero whether you like it or not, it is done at a subconscious level. Now to hate the hero means to hate yourself and the ego won’t allow that. So you watch the movie with complete objectivity. Martin Scorsese bewitches your mind first and then strings it along. The soundtracks on a Martin Scorsese movie are just awesome. Those rock n roll songs, they are iconic and signal a change in the plot or a characters plan of action. I see a lot of technique in Martin Scorsese’s movies. I see his passion through his movies. I see the mathematic equations, he just takes me straight to movie heaven. I love that guy. I love his creativity. I love the subjects in his movies. I love his impartiality. I love how he explores human nature and flips the script of the hero. The best flip of the script of the hero can be seen on “Silence” where the hero is reduced to suffering until death. He is forced to abandon his belief system and values and he is indoctrinated into foreign systems. I appreciate Martin Scorsese’s’ vision. In my humble opinion he is the greatest film-maker of all time.

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