The Wolf of Wall Street

Martin Scorsese – 2013 – USA

Now in his 70s, Martin Scorsese still has a thing or two to teach young cineastes.  What elevates this familiar material above the routine – above the predictable cautionary melodrama it would have been in anyone else’s hands – is not the director’s way with actors, nor his social consciousness, but his feeling for the tools of cinema itself.  Throughout this long film, you are seldom unaware of Scorsese’s passion for the nuts and bolts of cinema; the frame and the shots and how long they are and what difference it makes putting them next to other shots.  This is the lifeblood of not just Scorsese’s films but of all great directors’ films.  This is why certain films are simply watchable regardless of their content; the films of auteurs captivate you on an intuitive level and make you less and less interested in the checklist of do’s and don’t’s maintained by middlebrow critics and film school teachers.  Personally, I've never been able to relate to Scorsese’s recurring angst-ridden male protagonists and their pathetic contempt for women.  This keeps me from embracing him as warmly as I do my favorite directors, but it’s all the more evidence of how strong Scorsese’s style is.  With its kinetic movement and abrasive cutting, it always draws me in.