Film Review
The name Martin Scorsese automatically calls to mind bleak and brutally
realistic forays into nihilistic machismo, through such films as
Mean
Streets (1973),
Taxi Driver (1976),
Raging
Bull (1980) and
Goodfellas (1990).
Scorsese is not a filmmaker you would expect to hanker after directing an
adaptation of Edith Wharton's 1920 novel
The Age of Innocence, a bitter
piece of social commentary in which one man's romantic yearnings are
frustrated and ultimately crushed by the hypocritical conventions of
polite New York society of the 1870s. Yet Scorsese had long been
fascinated by Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning novel and within this literary masterpiece it
is not too difficult to see some connections with the themes
underpinning much of his work - in particular, the power of the family
and the struggle to assert one's individual freedom in a milieu that
expects compliance and conformity. It is interesting to compare
this film with the 1934 adaptation directed by Philip Moeller and
starring Irene Dunne and John Boles.
Being attuned to the ways in which human beings hurt, manipulate and
exploit one another, Scorsese was admirably suited to bringing
The Age of Innocence to the big
screen, and, far from being atypical it fits comfortably into his oeuvre as
one of his most brutal and pessimistic films. There are no
outlandish fights, with litres of gore spilling over the set as the
bodies pile up, but there is just as much malice and cruelty in sight,
dressed up in society decorum in a way that makes it even more
distasteful and shocking. It is psychological, not physical,
violence that Scorsese indulges in here, and the destructive impact of
this invisible onslaught on the three main protagonists is powerfully
conveyed by the trio of great actors in the principal roles - Daniel
Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder. Beautifully
photographed, with lavish costumes and sets which mock rather than
revere the excessive opulence of the period,
The Age of Innocence is Martin
Scorsese's most visually alluring film, but beneath the gilt-edged
surface elegance he shows a glimpse of humanity that is more grim and
barbaric than any contained in his hard-hitting gangster films.
© James Travers 2015
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Next Martin Scorsese film:
Mean Streets (1973)
Film Synopsis
New York in the 1870s. The forthcoming marriage of the successful
lawyer Newland Archer to May Welland, the scion of a great American
family, is sure to be a major society event, but Newland's commitment
to May wavers when he takes an interest in her unconventional cousin,
the Countess Ellen Olenska. After a disastrous marriage to a
Polish aristocrat, the Countess has returned to New York and would have
been a social pariah were it not for the generous support of the
Wellands. Newland is as taken by the Countess's rebellious spirit
as he is by her beauty, but when she reveals her intention to divorce
her husband family loyalties compel him to dissuade her. By now,
May has begun to suspect that there may be another woman in her
fiancé's life...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.