Happy Birthday Martin Scorsese



The great American director is 68 today and he's still releasing great films -Shutter Island anybody? Maybe it's time to name a street after him or something, because as far as I'm concerned this guy has contributed far too much to the American arts and their overall impact around the world. I still think the man has another genuinely great film in him and that it won't take long for that film to get released. Maybe one last Deniro collaboration? that would be one anticipated film, although I do genuinely like what he has done with Leonardo Dicaprio the last decade or so with Gangs Of New York, The Departed, The Aviator and the aforementioned Shutter Island (which will surely make my ten best list when I publish it next month).

One thing that has always astonished me is how Scorsese always seemed to adjust with the times. His style has somewhat changed and adapted to the 80's, 90's and today but whatever the change, when watching something like -say- The Departed, it is a Martin Scorsese picture through and through. I don't know many filmmakers that have learned to adapt so well, decade after decade. Which brings me to my next point, which is that we don't have many like him left anymore. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the mavericks that shaped the 70's are slowly fading away, what with the deaths of Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick, a now irrelevant Coppola and Woody Allen and Sidney Lumet getting turning 85 and recently hospitalized. What are we left with? Scorsese and Polanski, whom incidentally have made two of the best pictures this year and are still making personal, relevant statements in the art of cinema.