Martin Scorsese Tribute (Martin Scorsese, 2012): US

Reviewed by Nathan Chinchilla at the Arlington Theater, Santa Barbara

A tribute was held at the beautiful Arlington Theater to commemorate one of the centuries’ most famous and loved director, Martin Scorsese. The entire theater was filled with many attendants, fellow friends of the infamous director, and of course the man himself, Scorsese. Everyone lined up in their seats to see Martin Scorcese be the first director to receive the American Riviera Award and be named once again one of film’s most powerful and influential directors of its time. The director of the fim festival, Roger Durling, started with a small introduction then a montage of his great films were played such as Goodfellas, Taxi Driver,  The Last Waltz, Raging Bull, etc. He then was brought out on stage to be greeted with a high applause and appreciation.

The night continued with questions of how far he has come when he started back  in the late 1950’s directing a short called Vesuvius VI and which started as the starting platform for him. The interview then followed more questions of what inspired him to do such great films and he pointed out influential directors like Kurosawa, whom he then later did a documentary on. The curator then continued to show clips from his famous works and began by showing “The Last Waltz; and the scene of the blue-grass band that started the “rock-n-roll” genre in the south with song displayed.  Next, the showed the scene of Goodfellas of where the main character is taken his date to the Cocohavana and woos her with his high status around the town.  Another famous clip showed was from Taxi Driver and they showed the infamous “You talking to me?!” scene played by Robert De Niro. Each one of these clips touched on how different each work may be in their own respective film genres but how great Scorsese was to be able to create such a powerful scenes.

Each one his films from No Direction Home to The Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese has truly been able to direct or document whatever he wishes and create a brilliance. Capturing the perfect moments of Bob Dylan or displaying the aggressiveness of Robert De Niro, he is able to give his audience a feeling of wonder whenever they see his films. One of the movies highlighted for its cinematography is The Raging Bull and its fighting scene with Sugar Ray Robinson. The highlight on how crucial and powerful it was to capture these scenes where the main character, Jake LaMotta, is one of the peaks of his career and Scorsese captures the best of De Niro’s performance into this role. Scorsese is doing an excellent job with all that he has directed and I know that he will only continue to better. Upon receiving the award for his work, it is another career booster for that already high acclaimed director who will always leave the audience in great mystery of what his next projects will be.