Martin Scorsesehas been one of the most recognizable names in cinema for decades now, and it didn’t take long for him to achieve notoriety. From his early work such asTaxi DriverandRaging Bull, there is a clear interest in exploring violence andcrime. Of course, he explores other themes and genres, with a variety of documentaries under his belt, but violent thrillers are something that appear again and again throughout his filmography. However, they are not just depicting violence for the sake of it, there’s meaning behind every move in Scorsese’s work.
It’s for this reason that it simultaneously made perfect sense for Scorsese to direct the Gilded Ageperiod drama,The Age of Innocence, while audiences were also shocked at the apparent shift in interest.The Age of Innocencewas released followingGoodfellasandCape Fear, two intense crime dramas that contrast greatly with a high-society period piece. On the surface, it seems like the polar opposite of what Scorsese usually works on, moving from gritty, murderous movies to one about the wealthiest sector of society that is ruled by manners. But the reality is that the two sides of the coin are more similar than we might think. Here’s how Scorsese went from crime thriller to costume drama.
The Upper-Class Mafia
Just becauseThe Age of Innocencetakes place in society’s upper echelons, it doesn’t mean the story is free from violence and cruelty. It centers around Daniel Day-Lewis as Newland Archer, an engaged man who falls for his fiancée’s cousin, the ostracized Countess Olenska. But because it’s the 1890s, he can’t admit his feelings and break off his engagement. Instead, he’s stuck in a torturous labyrinth in which he’s forced to spend time with the woman he’s engaged to but doesn’t love and the woman he loves but can’t be with, all the while he must conform to rigid social rules. Moreover, the mechanisms at play that are actively punishing the Countess for the crime of wanting to be happy away from her husband are perhaps the most sinister component of the entire scenario.
In an interview withRoger Ebert, Scorsese discusses the way the Gilded Age’s culture of manners acts in a similar way to the violence of mob culture. He says, “What has always stuck in my head is the brutality under the manners,” adding, “It was so cold-blooded.” In comparison, he says of his own experiences growing up in Little Italy, “when somebody was killed, there was a finality to it […] in a funny way, it was almost like ritualistic slaughter, a sacrifice.”
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While there was no physical murder inThe Age of Innocence, there is a denial of passion that results in a kind of death, because the characters end up living empty lives. Both society inThe Age of Innocenceand the mob culture of Scorsese’s youth had carceral ways of approaching those who stepped out of line, but one would sever their ties with society and the other would sever their ties with the living world.
Scorsese Masters Restraint
Columbia Pictures
From a distance, the words “restraint” and “Scorsese” might not seem like they go well together, he’s known forintense and extreme visualsin his movies. But where he really knows how to exercise restraint is in his dialogue. This doesn’t necessarily mean his movies have less speech in them than others — it is more about the way his characters speak. Rather than explicitly stating exactly how they feel, Scorsese’s characters will talk around things in the same way as we do in real life; people rarely say exactly what they mean. InThe Age of Innocence,this is done by veiling everyone’s speech in layers of mannered evasions.
However, where Scorsese’s typical style clashes with what we see inThe Age of Innocenceis with the movie’s action. If they’re not even allowed to get divorced, it’s evident that these characters can’t get into physical altercations with one another like others might. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the “action” here is any less important. Like the characters' speech, their physical behavior also means more than it seems to on the surface. Some of the movie’s most tension-filled moments involve a simple brush of the hand or a longing stare. So much emotion is infused into Newland and Countess Olenska’s interactions that it becomes intoxicating, but also tense. This movie might not be a capital-T thriller, but it is most certainly thrilling.
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Continued Critiques of Masculinity
Scorsese’s movies are often misconstrued as being for men, or a celebration of masculinity, endorsing the violence and misogyny that they depict. But this is an unfair and surface-level assessment of movies that have greater depth than that. If you takeGoodfellasas an example, it might appear that the aggression of mob life is being glorified and presented as appealing. However, this is to help the audience understand the appeal of the lifestyle and how Henry Hill gets so caught up in it, only to reveal its darker side later on. Whether this is entirely successful when countless people interpret the movie as an endorsement of masculinity is up for debate, but in many ways, it’s incredibly clear.
While it takes a different approach,The Age of Innocencealso has a lot to say on the subject of masculinity and misogyny. The two central women, Newland’s fiancée, May Welland, and the object of his desire, Countess Olenska, fit snugly into two opposing poles: “pure” and “promiscuous.” Both Newland himself and the society depicted contribute to the categorization and dehumanization of these women; there’s no room for women to have an entire personality. There are several Scorsese movies that depict men struggling to understandwomen as whole human beings. It’s another common theme that tiesThe Age of Innocencein with the rest of his filmography despite its drastically different appearance.
