I was privileged enough to attend a Q & A with Thelma Schoonmaker and she let us in on how specific to detail Scorsese can be. In the taxi scene in After Hours, Griffin Dunne puts a twenty dollar bill in the tip area. It ends up being taken by the wind out of the can and dances in the air until it's gone for good. Scorsese wanted the movement of this flying twenty dollar bill to match the movement of the flowing wedding gown billowing out of the train in I Know Where I'm Going!
It's fairly obvious how attuned the director is to detail just by watching his films, but hearing how in tune he is to it is still spectacular. There's a reason behind every cut and camera move. From the pan away from Travis Bickle on the telephone into an empty hallway to the cocaine- high energy of the May 11, 1980 sequence in GoodFellas. As detailed he in shot selection, it applies just as much to his song selection.
Combing through the countless montages and tributes on youtube, there is one constant thorn in my side: the use of music. Never mind the edit having no flow or taking the short route and making it wall to wall match cuts. If you're going to make a tribute to something, why are you using your favorite Radiohead song? If it doesn't use a piece of music in the movie, then I'm already out of tune with it.
Marty knows what all the great directors know: it's not about your favorite song, it's about the right song for the scene. Here are 10 examples of it.
1. Contempt by Georges Delerue
Repurposing a song from a previous film is something new for Scorsese. The central conflict in Godard's Contempt occurs when a rift develops between a screenwriter and his wife. It's the closest parallel we can draw between that film and this one.
The drums added to the scene sound like the street drummer from Taxi Driver disrupting a serene string section. Kind of like a car trailing dust across a desert plain.
The second time we hear the theme is the most disturbing part of the film. And this is a movie with that baseball bat scene in the cornfield. Any editing flourishes are wisely disposed as Bob and Sharon make this domestic dispute utterly horrific to watch.
These three scenes, taken together, represent shifts in power dynamics. The desert scene ends with Nicky's car kicking up dust over Sam, showing how Sam has to eat Nicky's shit and take it. The fight between Sam and Ginger shows his delusional paranoia. The third and final time we hear the score is when Sam has lost everything. Nicky has been beaten and buried alive. Ginger is forced a hot dose in a hotel. In the end, any semblance of power a character had has been stripped away by corporate America. We close on Sam Rothstein telling us he can still pick winners.
And that's that.
2. Can't You Hear Me Knocking by The Rolling Stones
In a movie filled to the brim with process and minute detail narration set to pop songs, this is the crown jewel. And if you think it isn't, you better clean your fucking loop cause there's no flaws in it. In the span of six minutes and 45 seconds, we get the whole rise of Nicky Santoro and his crew, how he got bellmen, valet parkers, pit bosses and secretaries to tip them on when and where the score was. The editing choices of showing his crew drilling enough holes in concrete so they can knock it apart with a sledgehammer, then cutting to an exterior with the cops, cut to a camera bulb flashing, then dollying in on the hole in the wall as Sam tells us "nobody out there was expecting a guy like him" is such a riveting sequence, I find myself holding my breath.
3. House of the Rising Sun by The Animals
Every rise has to have a brutal fall and Casino is no exception. In fact, what happens to Nicky Santoro is as brutal as anything Scorsese has done in any of his films.
House of the Rising Sun has been in my top 3 favorite songs for as long as I can remember. So to see it being used to such effectiveness was a delight.
The codes these wise guys claim to live by are meaningless. You can be as loyal a soldier as Andy Stone, but at the end of the day, your fate will be decided by your superiors in the back of a courthouse with the words "Why take a chance?" There is a specific part of the montage that has haunting synchronicity with the song. As a drug addled Ginger comes out into the hotel hallway and braces herself against the wall, the echoing effect in the lyric 'to wear that ball and chain' and 'weeeellll there is a house...'. After seeing Casino, it's been hard to separate the music and the image.
4. Can't Get No Satisfaction by Devo
"Oh fuck you. Fuck you Sam Rothstein. Fuck you!"
This is when things get really messy. So messy, even Frank Vincent has to get in on the narration. The booze, the coke, the broads. The "baby, baby, baby, baby, baby" matching up to the rat-a-tat of the gunfire on the cop's house is *chef's kiss*. Once again, Marty is having fun with music. This time it's a cover of Satisfaction by Devo and he doesn't just use it once, he chops it up into three scenes.
5. Mathaus Passion
The opening and ending to the film are scored to this piece, originally for Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew. When Casino came out, many critics saw it as GoodFellas Pt. 2. Besides the distinct difference in photography- switching from Michael Bauhaus to the master of soft light, Robert Richardson- this had a scope and sweep worthy of the majesty of a piece like this. There is nowhere in GoodFellas where you can insert this piece of music, or Theme for Contempt for that matter, and not just have it flow rhythmically, but tie into the broader picture. This is the tale of the fall of an empire and it couldn't fit more perfectly.
6. Without You by Harry Nilsson
"We're not going to see any fucking elephants, ok?" mighty be my favorite line of the whole movie.
They could make a whole movie out of Lester taking Amy to see The Elephant Man and Amy making Lester's life a living hell. I'd watch it. She has zero respect for him and Woods plays off the young actress brilliantly. "And I'm sending this kid to Bolivia in a fucking box!"
The scene is undercut by Nilsson's Without You playing softly in the background. When Ginger is screaming about how naive Lester is about Sam, the soundtrack kicks into the foreground as Nilsson cries "I can't liiiive!"
7. I Ain't Superstitious by Jeff Beck
8. Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael
I can't think of a better song to sum up the preceding 3 hours of betrayal, loss, and tragedy.
9. Ain't Got No Home by Clarence "Frogman" Henry
There's a story Tarantino tells where he visits the set of Casino to meet Scorsese and Don Rickles spots him and says "Quentin, thank God you're here! This guy doesn't know what he's doing at all! Thank God a real director has finally showed up!"
Rickles is just right for the part of casino manager. His facial expressions are on point. This scene in particular shows just how well a song can carry the rhythm of a scene. "Take this one and stick it up your sister's ass."
10. Love Is Strange by Mickey and Sylvia
Kicks off an incredible streak of songs. Heart of Stone by Rolling Stones follows this and is then followed up by Love Is the Drug when they introduce Lester the Pimp.
'Love is strange. Lot of people take it for a game' they say in the lyrics. Sam Rothstein is a man obsessed with controlling every little thing in his casino. "He bets like a fuckin' brain surgeon." Nicky would say. So when he sees Ginger and falls for her, all bets are off. She throws Ace up in the air like the many chips from the dealer and we spend the rest of the movie watching those proverbial chips fall. And when it happens, it's not pretty.
Fantastic.
ReplyDeleteThe movie's so dense that an entirely different top 10 could be compiled without being obscure