Trading Anger for Tolerance - Essay on Scorsese

This was written a few years ago, obviously before Scorsese won an Oscar for The Departed. However, I keep it around because it's one of my favorites. Mind you, I wrote this for a prof who was embittered about her heritage and devoured anything that pointed out prejudices or racism against Italian Americans -- she often saw racism when it wasn't there, so I was just feeding into her interest with this one. Please to Enjoy.

HUI336
Cafarelli
20 December 2006

Trading Anger for Tolerance- How to be a Successful (and Objective) Auteur

In a recently published article in Blender Magazine, “Martin Scorsese: The Rock and Roll Years”, author Michael Collis includes various high (or low, as it seems) milestones of the director’s career, often flinging left-handed compliments and using stereotypically Italian American terminology. “Is the ‘mob’ auteur qualified to make a Dylan film?” the introduction asks. Apparently not, as the author of the article then instructs the reader to “Fuhgeddaboutit!” Collis’s use of the word “mob” is interesting because it reminds the reader of thematic elements throughout many of Scorsese’s films, but it also carries with it implications of the mob affiliation of Scorsese himself.

Such repeated associations of the Italian American with not only the world of gangsters and the “mob”, but also with other typical iconography such as sex, drugs, and violence, is detrimental to the identity of the Italian American and helps to perpetuate negative stereotypes. The reality that many gangster films such as Goodfellas, Mean Streets, and Casino are in fact being directed by Italian Americans themselves is a matter of great significance; it reinforces the audience’s belief that this is a true portrayal of authentic Italian American culture. Perhaps if such films were directed by non-Italian American auteurs, people would be more likely to disregard such associations, however therein exists the catch-22: such films might then ultimately be criticized as lacking in authenticity for that very same reason.

For instance, because a director is not Italian American, but chooses to take on the same kind of subject matter, he — theoretically — cannot possibly fully comprehend what the culture is like. Because of this people might subconsciously be biased, whether or not they realize it, and may therefore not put as much stock in his work. When reading a clearly biased article such as Collis’, it is important to understand that the author is acknowledging yet criticizing Scorsese’s reputation, using his Italian heritage as ammunition. While this is obnoxious and unfair, I think that it is important to recognize that Collis makes reference only to actual events or scenes that Scorsese has directed or taken part in himself. In this respect, one might say, Scorsese has had a hand in it all, and is more than a little to blame.

The imagery of the Italian American in the silk suit, blazer and cufflinks is one we are all familiar with—characters in virtually every gangster movie dress in this dapper manner. Collis recounts a mocking anecdote about which Scorsese wears such a getup to Woodstock, ultimately “losing [a cufflink] in the mud”. Here he is implying that Scorsese unfortunately made the predictable mistake of radically overdressing, in like fashion of the gangsters portrayed in his movies. Is Collis just being smug, hinting that Scorsese takes himself too seriously and is unable to extricate himself from the characters in his films? Certainly, many have criticized him for that same personality element — although he has received much critical acclaim and is one of the most recognizable names in the film industry, he has never won a single Academy Award. Scorsese himself has said that he thinks he will never win an Oscar for Best Director in his lifetime. Moreover, he practically stands alone as one of the “great American award-less directors” of Italian descent: virtually all others that immediately come to mind — Coppola, De Palma, and Capra, for instance — wield this trophy.

Why is this? What do these other Italian American auteurs have that Marty doesn’t? What do they put in their pictures that the Academy is more than willing to award them for, while giving Scorsese the snub time and time again? I believe the answer lies not only in the content of his films and how they are portrayed, but in the nature of his personal attitude and his outlook on American society: specifically his bitter quest for justice, even vengeance, for Italian American culture. Ironically, the icons that Scorsese chose, or, more correctly, were chosen for him, have been used as a weapon against him (Krase 3). It is possible that the Academy is not only turned off by this highly visible and hostile attitude, but wishes to “teach him a lesson” in a way. Perhaps they think he takes himself too seriously, and that giving him an award would promote social prejudices. Perhaps they don’t want to give him the satisfaction of “justifying” his anger and resentment. In any case, the situation is one that has provoked much public speculation by viewers, critics, and social activists alike.

Tellingly, Spike Lee (another celebrated auteur nominated for Best Director several times) also has yet to reach that gold ring of cinematographic achievement. What do the two have in common? For one, glaring anger and resentment towards American society, as a direct result of oppression and racial injustice. Lee’s films are famously rousing and incendiary — almost parodies of themselves — public service announcements about prejudice and oppression of Blacks in America. Unfortunately in the cinematic world, in order to sell any culture to a conglomerated, ethnophobic audience such as the US, one must “sell one’s soul”; that is to say, give the people what they want — even if it means sacrificing authenticity or adhering to (and consequently, preserving) stereotypical imagery. Unfortunately this ideology trickles down to all Italian Americans in the public eye. Comedian and actor Jay Leno jokes in his book Leading with My Chin that his casting agency had him “listed under ‘Greaser type’” (Leno 177). Even though Leno is only half Italian, his name automatically influenced the casting people as to how he would appear to the public, namely as an Italian stereotype Basically, there are several go-to themes a film (especially one centered around Italian Americans) must address: they must “cater to what are believed to be the fantasies of the mainstream” (Mangione/Morreale 410) in order to be successful.

Frank Capra on the other hand, one of the most respected and dearly-loved directorial figures of all time, never allowed his Italian American “ness” to show (at least not visibly) in his films. As Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler affirm in their charming collection “The Italian American Family Album”, Capra focused on “love, family, and honesty” as being “more important than money”—in contrast, money and the criminal pursuit of it is one of Scorsese’s “darker, more serious themes”, recurrent in many of Scorsese’s crime dramas (Hoobler 96-7). Although Capra probably did harbor similar feelings of oppression and resentment, he never made them publicly apparent; instead of letting his anger fester and show unabashedly through his work by creating acid-tongued social commentary, he chose to make “American” films with lighthearted themes (and next to no ethnic connotations). Whether this was a healthy decision on the part of Capra is neither here nor there, but it certainly won over the Academy: throughout his lifetime, Capra won an astounding 6 Best Director Oscars. The Academy, so it would seem, was and is ready to deal with the Italian American director, so long as it is in this context. Scorsese, in contrast, seems to embrace this stereotyping—in spite of his attempts to create more “highbrow” pieces like Kundun, The Age of Innocence, and The Last Temptation of Christ, he always “returns to his roots” with films focusing on crime, a move that ultimately pays off for him (at least in terms of directorial acclaim and box-office success). In his widely popular crime films such as Taxi Driver and Casino, Scorsese virtually beats the viewer over the head with stereotypically Italian American imagery, and antagonistic thematic devices such as violent crime and the mafia.

Peter Travers, the principal film reviewer of Rolling Stone magazine, states in one of his most recent articles that “crime in the streets” is a “Martin Scorsese Specialty, from Mean Streets to Goodfellas”. He loves the movie, and seems to feel somewhat positively about Scorsese in general, yet he is probably blissfully unaware that he is using a derogatory comment and, on some level, compromising the director’s ethnicity. It is interesting to note the inherent alignment of Scorsese’s Italian American ethnicity; even though one of his most highly acclaimed movies of late (the Gangs of New York) was also focused on street crime, it focused primarily on Irish Americans and Marty’s recount of this is somehow inauthentic. Even though the crimes of the Irish are as violent as the Italian crimes of mean streets, society and the media has come to prefer the exploitation of the Italian criminal stereotype more so than that of the Irish. As Joe Paterno states in Paterno: By the Book, the street gangs in the neighborhood of his youth often clashed with each other. Yet, even though “they were mostly Irish…tougher and more working class than our mostly-middle class Jewish and Italian neighborhood” society would have us assume that Italians are always the toughest and most criminally inclined (Paterno 60).

Unfortunately, it is in part Scorsese’s own fault that he is not taken as seriously in his covering of Irish American crime, because he (along with others such as Coppola) himself is one of the prime propagators of such stereotypes in the first place. Because I find it so offensive, I’ll only briefly mention the giant cartoon caricature of Scorsese featured in this same article. It is extremely large (taking up a quarter of the page because it was Travers’ number one movie) and features Scorsese in typical “mobster” dress—a snappy suit and tie. However, even though the Marty in the cartoon is putting on a good face with his shiny suit, in true “gangster” style he is hiding a handgun behind his back! Why include this handgun in the picture at all? Travers seems to be lauding his directorial skills, calling it a “model of… craft [raised] to the level of art” (Travers 116). But I don’t know of too many ‘artists’ that insist on wearing shiny suits and brandishing weapons. Honestly, it’s enough to make someone want to write a letter to the editor, but at the same time it is important to realize that Marty employs this pigeonholing himself, a tactic he probably is indifferent about due to its public draw and ability to market his films. The illustration featured in this article represents Scorsese as being so aligned with gangster culture that the stereotype has transcended being offensive (ostensibly, even on the part of Scorsese himself) and become a source of amusement, funny enough to immortalize in a cartoon.
Collis observes that the mark of Scorsese himself is “less evident” in the Bob Dylan Documentary. This is definitely true: how would he incorporate mobsters into a story revolving around someone from a completely different lifestyle and ethnic background? This ideology is probably responsible for society’s not taking him seriously in his other, non-crime oriented films. Collis has hereto implied that Scorsese’s life experiences are inextricably linked to what he shows us in film, and can never therefore be viewed objectively as being unrelated. In her essay “Writing to a Brick Wall”, Helen Barolini quotes a film review written by Caryn James of the New York Times, “It is too obvious to say that Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese capture…Italian American families more sharply [than the director of Once Around]. What matters is that The Godfather and Goodfellas create believable ethnic characters instead of shallow ethnic types” (Barolini 100). James’ statement is ridiculous, as it defeats its own point, again perpetuating the idea that due to his Italian ethnicity, there is a conscious association of Scorsese (and, in this instance, Coppola) with being inherently a master of depicting crime.

Whether or not these statements are specifically directed at Scorsese’s Italian-ness is debatable, yet I feel they are an implicit stab at the integrity of the director: Perhaps the opinion that Scorsese is only really capable of portraying gang violence and drug use in New York is why Collis is so skeptical about Scorsese’s ability to create a biopic about Bob Dylan (whose life experiences are so radically different from the director’s own). Perhaps the Academy is of the same school of thought, of the opinion that neither Martin Scorsese nor Spike Lee can create something past what they immediately see; and that neither one will ever win the award for Best Director until he can learn from his past and deal differently with the anger which “he has not yet learned to understand (Mangione and Morreale 418)”.

Although Scorsese’s The Aviator from a few years ago did get worldwide acclaim and generated praise from audiences and critics alike, it seems everyone is breathing a sigh of relief at his having directed the recent film The Departed, a crime drama taking place in Boston. Lou Lumenick of the New York Post states that with this film, Scorsese “stops chasing Oscars long enough to return to his roots with a corking crime thriller”; although Lumenick liked the movie and writes a glowing review, there can be found in his comment an implication that anything out of Scorsese’s “box,” as it were (that is to say, a literary period piece such as The Age of Innocence or a cultural epic like Kundun) is simply “chasing Oscars”. Furthermore implied is that even if Scorsese does stick to what he “knows”—even if it is more acceptable to and enjoyable for the public—such efforts are not respected, and thus will never garner him an Academy Award.

Anger breeds anger, so perhaps Scorsese is angering the Academy, and vice-versa. Perhaps all the members of the Academy subscribe to the same ideology as the rest of society—that Martin Scorsese is Italian, can therefore only be recognized for creating films about crime. At the rate they’re going, perhaps neither he nor Spike Lee will ever lay claim to the Oscar. Perhaps this year with The Departed and a “return to his roots”, Scorsese might actually win the award for best director. But I doubt it — it seems that he has been pigeonholed into only being respected for films about crime (a position he himself has played no small part in subscribing to) yet his crime films ultimately fall short of being “respected” by the Academy and society in general. The fact remains — within not only the Italian Americans’, but in every ethnic community — there has come to exist a blanket of stereotypical opinions, in no small part due to the imagery we see on film. In this particular case, Italian American labels such as alleged mafia connections and corrupted slang terms such as “fuhgeddaboutit” are still acceptably in use, and not necessarily in a humorous way.. Yet these same stereotypes are perpetuated by Italian Americans themselves, when these are the people in the public eye, those who have the power to change. A collective and non-violent attempt to move past these labels in the future is clearly needed by those who know the cultures from the inside, and promote education about them to the outside. As long as directors such as Martin Scorsese continue to follow the lead of adhering to stereotypical trends (while at the same time harboring obvious resentment about doing so), the problem becomes a vicious cycle that will prove difficult, if not impossible to solve.