Come June, film fans in Sydney will have the chance to revisit ten classic films from Mr. Scorsese on the big screen, in a program curated by David Stratton.
The retrospective program titled Essential Scorsese: Selected by David Stratton will kick off with the filmmaker’s breakthrough feature, 1973’s Mean Streets, which saw Harvey Keitel’s protagonist torn between the Mob, the Church, and his family. His follow-up feature Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, which stars Ellen Burstyn in her Oscar-winning performance, has also been programmed.
The filmmaker’s electrifying and enduring collaboration with actor Robert De Niro, which began with Mean Streets, will be on show at the retrospective with Taxi Driver, New York, New York, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Goodfellas and Casino all scheduled to screen.
The filmmaker’s 1993 masterpiece The Age of Innocence starring Daniel Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Rider, will also play, while he most recent film to make the cut is 2004’s The Aviator, which saw the filmmaker indulging in his greatest passion – the cinema itself – in his depiction of Howard Hughes’ Hollywood career over twenty years, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Scorsese talks in a rapid-fire style as though he doesn’t have enough time to describe everything he knows,” Stratton says. “He’s like a character in a 1930s movie. His films are passionate too. His best are explosive in their impact, crammed with information and detail.
“On the one hand, his Catholic upbringing leads him to tackle religious subjects [The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun] while the Saturday matinee kid in him revels in the trashy gore of his gangster films.”
The films will screen at the 2016 Sydney Film Festival (June 8-19) and in Melbourne at ACMI (May 27 to June 12) to coincide with their exhibition SCORSESE (May 26 to September 18). Tickets are now on sale for screenings in both cities.
