Scorsese – The Martin Scorsese Film Collection (MGM)
Picture: Sound: Extras: Film:
Boxcar Bertha (1972) C+ C+ D C+
New York, New York (1977) C+ B- B+ B+
The Last Waltz (1978) B B B B
Raging Bull (1980) B B- A- A-
Martin Scorsese is a director’s director, one of the most
cinematically literate of all filmmakers and has been a huge crusader for both
filmmaker’s rights and film restoration.
It has been a long time for his work to be truly appreciated, though
those in the know have always respected him.
His work is often misconstrued, but now two DVD boxed sets of his films
on DVD have arrived on the market.
Following Warner Bros. mixed set of his classics like Who’s That
Knocking On My Door?, Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here
Anymore (each in Dolby 1.0 Mono!?!), After Hours and Goodfellas,
MGM has followed with an equally competent set called Scorsese – The Martin
Scorsese Film Collection. It takes
one of his very early works and adds three of his most personal.
Boxcar Bertha (1972) is not always considered
the beginning of Scorsese’s work as auteur, but it is a competent independent
work on a low budget with good actors.
An attempt to cash-in on the success of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie &
Clyde (1967), Barbara Hershey and David Carradine are good together as two
lovers who are on the take. However,
its low-budget limits are somewhat overcome by Scorsese’s ambitions, but this
is usually not considered his first full-fledged film, but it was his second
after 1969’s Who’s That Knocking At My Door? His next two films would be at Warner Bros., followed by Columbia
Pictures, and the first of those is Mean Streets. That is considered the beginning of Scorsese
as Auteur, but this film has hints of the direction he was heading into. It should also be noted that though Bonnie
& Clyde comes to mind every time the film is mentioned, Robert Altman’s
1974 film Thieves Like Us with David’s brother Keith Carradine is also
worth noting in its look and feel more so than Arthur Penn’s classic.
New York, New York (1977) is the first big-budget
Scorsese epic, a tribute to, goodbye to and salute to the Hollywood Film
Musical. Originally made for United
Artists, Liza Minnelli is cast as the singer who is alone at a V-Day party when
she is approached by a almost politely persistent Robert DeNiro, who wants her
number and turns out to be a saxophone player.
She is just as persistent in saying no, but all this turns out to
indicate is that they are a match. Too
bad part of that match is a huge capacity for dysfunctional behavior, which
will haunt them throughout the film.
The usually cinematically literate references fill the long, but always
fascinating picture. There are many
deconstructive moments of the Classical Musical that bring a darkness to the
film that gives in a certain ominous quality that makes it fascinating, a
Backstage Musical that goes more backstage than any other. Minnelli’s intertexual representation in
place of her mother, the late Judy Garland, is the darkest thing of all. She gives one of the best performances of
her career and her singing is underappreciated. The title song was actually snubbed by the Academy Awards, but is
one of the most remembered movie songs of the 1970s belatedly, especially
thanks to Frank Sinatra. The film just
happened to open against Star Wars and died too quickly. This special edition was previously issued
as a 12” LaserDisc boxed set, and this DVD has everything from it, plus a sound
upgrade exclusive to this disc. You do
not even need to be a Musical fan to appreciate the first true Scorsese epic, something
he would not attempt again until his almost-as-underrated Casino in
1995. Fans of old Musicals and Hart
To Hart will recognize Lionel Stander, who was Max on that show, and
appeared in his share of films before being sadly blacklisted. One of them was the 1938 version of A
Star Is Born, which this film owes much to. The film is ageless in its serious examination of dysfunctional
relationships and the kinds of misery couples will agree to in order to have a
“happy” relationship, for which Scorsese seems to believe The Musical has more
problems with and is built more on than any other type of filmmaking. This is an unrecognized minor classic, where
the love the people have is as artificial as this fantasy version of New
York. Thanks to the Earl MacRauch/Mardik
Martin screenplay (from MacRauch’s story), the film takes the long road in all
this and goes all the way.
The Last Waltz (1978) is what we may safely
call the last authentic Rockumentary, as Scorsese films the last performances
of Robbie Robertson and The Band, breaking up for what was supposed to be their
final time together. Scorsese had done
the montage editing on Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock (1970) and that
became a signature of such films, split-screen included. He forgoes such form for an outright pursuit
of what is happening here and a final farewell to the music of the
counterculture. The guest stars are
stunning and it is also one of the great concert films, as The Band is joined
by Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Neil Young, The Staple Singers, Neil Diamond, Joni
Mitchell, Paul Butterfield, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Van
Morrison, Ringo Starr, Ron Wood and Bob Dylan.
Even if you do not like Rock and Blues, the film exceeds any music genre
in the achievement it is in capturing a music act about to hang it up in an era
and cycle of Rock about to succumb to Disco and Star Wars.
Raging Bull (1980) is often considered one
of his masterpieces, if not his absolute masterwork. Some people have wrongly criticized it for lacking a
“journalistic” edge in telling us about the life of boxer Jake LaMotta, but
that would have made it like any other formula biopic. One of the biggest claims to fame the film
continues to have is being a great black and white film, and it certainly is
one of the last (give or take some brief color shots) in a time where real
monochrome film stock was still being produced. More important, it is a complex character study that furthered
the legacy of Robert DeNiro as one of America’s all-time greatest actors. As for the film itself, it is very
multi-faceted, and deceptively so, considering it is a boxing film and about
character as much as anything. From
ethnicity, to class division, to human sexuality, to La Motta’s inability to
integrate into society, the Paul Schrader/Mardik Martin screenplay uses all
those themes to take this film beyond the conventional biopics of the
past. This is why it is considered one
of the best films of Scorsese’s career and one of the best of all of the
1980s. This side of America and Italian
America in particular, had never been committed to film so well. Now, it is a full-fledged classic that still
too few people have seen.
Except for the 1.66 X 1 image on New York, New York,
all the titles in this set are anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 and the two
more recent films have been remastered to some extent. Laszlo Kovacs, A.S.C., who went out of his
way with Scorsese to make sure it had a three-strip Technicolor look, though
the actual process at the time was discontinued four years earlier, shot
it. If it were not for that
consistency, this would be the worst of the four transfers, as it recycles the
analog professional NTSC master used on the LaserDisc where the colors and
image looked more natural. Boxcar
Bertha has cinematography by John Stephens, while the cinematographers on The
Last Waltz are Michael Chapman, A.S.C., who is joined by Kovacs, A.S.C.,
Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C., David Myers, Bobby Byrne, Michael Watkins, and Hiro
Narita. This was the first documentary shot
in 35mm. It took all of them to get the
coverage Scorsese and the film needed.
That leaves Chapman shooting the monochrome stocks (and a few color
shots) on Raging Bull, which is improved, but still has some
issues. The white still looks a bit
blown out and the DVD can still only capture all the subtleties of the black
and white so much.
Dolby Digital is the only sound signal on all four
titles. Boxcar Bertha has fairly
good Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, while the other three titles come with Dolby 5.1
as their best sound. The Last Waltz
and Raging Bull were Dolby Stereo theatrical releases, but Waltz
was recently upgraded to DTS, Dolby and Sony Dynamic Digital Sound for recent
theatrical re-releases. As a result, it
has the best sound of all four films here, though Rhino/Warner Bros. also
issued a DVD-Audio of the soundtrack that offers 5.1 Dolby and MLP (Meridian
Lossless Packing) that exceeds this DVD-Video.
Too bad MGM could not have included that with this title, at least in
this set. Raging Bull always had
great sound design and the music by Pietro Mascagni is underrated. That leaves previously monophonic New
York, New York remixed in 5.1 from its original 3-track monophonic sound
master. Considering how poor Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono can be, this was a welcome upgrade and the only new extra on
that disc. Also, Liza Minnelli does
some of the best music work of her entire career here.
Though Boxcar Bertha only has its original trailer,
New York, New York has one of the fine scholarly audio commentaries
before the major studios discovered such an extra full-fledged for DVDs and
they became dumbed down. Scorsese is
joined by Carrie Rickey, though they are never together. Instead, the commentary cuts back and forth
in their observations and this holds up very well. An introduction by Scorsese, stills gallery, original theatrical
teaser, original trailer and some alternate and deleted scenes. That is 15 in all, and all of which are
worth checking into. The Last Waltz
has two audio commentaries, one with Scorsese and Robbie Robertson, the second
with many of the other musicians from the film, plus some music scholars to
boot. A photo gallery, the long
original theatrical trailer, a TV spot, “Archival Outtakes Jam 2” with 5.1
option, and a Revisiting The Last Waltz featurette in 1.33 X 1 that was
made recently. It is terrific and lasts
22 minutes.
Raging Bull originally had an elaborate 12”
LaserDisc set from The Criterion Collection, but this DVD offers different
extras. That set offered the original
theatrical trailer, a Scorsese/editor Thelma Schoonmaker audio commentary,
archival interview and fighting footage of La Motta, the shooting script,
original storyboards, and a stills section.
This is the only double set here and offers much of the same
extras. DVD 1 has that commentary by
Scorsese/Schoonmaker, joined by a La Motta/Schrader/Martin storyteller’s
commentary and Cast/Crew commentary brand new to this set. With those three and the audio options, we
can see why no DTS is on the film. They
are all outstanding must-listens. DVD 2
has a La Motta Defends The Title newsreel, four new featurettes (Before
The Fight, Inside The Ring, Outside The Ring, After The
Fight) a shot-by-shot comparison of DeNiro and La Motta amusingly dubbed DeNiro
vs. La Motta and The Bronx Bull is an outright making-of
documentary. That is a stunning set of
extras, but a great film calls for that.
As for that screenplay, well, you can always buy the shooting script on
line, right?
All included in a sturdy double slipcase box, Scorsese
– The Martin Scorsese Film Collection is one of the nicest multi-film DVD
collections we have seen to date and is of serious reference quality that
belongs in every serious film collection.
This is also one of the best releases MGM has issued to date.
- Nicholas Sheffo
