Ok, saying that something is better than a film school sounds excessively disrespectful to the work that is done by teaching, and it is not the intention. However, you are going to allow me the boutade of affirming that spending hours listening to Martin Scorsese talk about cinema and his history is a more enriching and entertaining experience than most things.
Scorsese is not only one of the best directors ever, capable of getting us into powerful stories with moral chiaroscuro with a narrative and visual verve that few can match, although it is nonetheless tremendously influential in commercial cinema. He is also a scholar of art, of industry, and also a restorer willing to help us get to really lost jewels and help us understand them.
A trip to the very modern past
Its informative and most accessible facet are in the little more than three hours of ‘A personal journey with Martin Scorsese through American cinema‘, a fabulous documentary miniseries that we can see through Filmin. Produced by the British Film Institute and Miramax, Scorsese stands before the camera to offer three episodes that dissect the history of American cinema.
With the help of several of his favorite tapes, introduces us to the figure of the director through its different facets: the director and his dilemma between creativity and the film industry. The director as an illusionist, exploring the pioneers of the techniques we take for granted. The director as a smuggler, studying those who subtly introduced transgressive messages in times of repression. And finally, the director as an iconoclast, those who directly attacked conventionalism.
From western to musical. From DW Griffith to Sam Peckinpah. From Douglas Sirk to Stanley Kubrick. With the support of testimonials from some famous contemporaries, such as Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood and Brian De Palma, Scorsese paints a multifaceted portrait of the figure of the filmmaker and, by extension, of all the possibilities of cinema. There is no qualitative difference between a gangster film and a melodrama, there is emotion behind it or there is not.
‘A personal journey with Martin Scorsese through American cinema’: learning from the best
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This blurring of borders shows that his conception of art is rabidly modern, despite the fact that certain Twitter sectors frame it as a relic of the past. Scorsese introduces us to all of this through an exquisite use of editing, which alternates his comments and testimonials with footage of the commented films, creating a dynamic experience as well as a didactic one.
But its didactic part is also fascinating and enriching. Scorsese is able to speak with presence and elegance, but he does not hide how much he is passionate about what he is commenting on. And that enthusiasm is contagious. While he is enriching your language, he leaves you amazed with images from the past that do not lose an iota of force. It’s just the kind of class you need to truly enjoy classic cinema.