Few ace directors use music as masterfully into their body of work as does Martin Scorsese, the unquestioned legend of American cinema, who has mastered the genre of crime and urban drama even as he rolls out equally superior fare dealing with subjects other than masculinity and violence. It has to be said that his numerous successors- Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher and Richard Linklater- have, in some way or the other, tried to replicate his absolutely spot-on and thrilling use of music in their own choicest musical selections. They have succeeded in a large extent, but not fully. As it happens, Marty also has a truly terrific style in which he lets his music tell the tale itself, instead of dialogue or histrionics. There have been numerous unforgettably iconic moments when he lets only his hyper-kinetic cinematic eye and his choice of music to portray all the chaos, drama and violence unfolding on the screen. Here are ten great musical moments from Marty’s extraordinary oeuvre-
10- Mean Streets (1973)
Song- Rubber Biscuit (The Chips)
The entirety of Scorsese’ breakout film is considered as a wealth of usage modern pop and rock in American cinema but there is this one scene in which crazy doo-wop beats take the centre stage. It is perhaps the orgasmic zenith of ‘Mean Streets’- a bunch of third-generation mobsters, essentially direction-less youngsters, coming together for a big party in the neighbourhood. Then, Tony (David Proval) drunkenly asks Michael (Richard Romanus) to play only old ones from the juke box. Out bursts this jaunty, swinging number and the camera swings, now zooming voyeuristically to the face of Harvey Keitel’s Charlie, stone-drunk, red-faced and kissed and smothered by the girls around him, the frame rising and falling with the movement to thrilling effect. It is just right that a crazy number with the freakiest lyrics, about ‘ricochet biscuits’ and ‘wish sandwiches’ sums up the entire chaos of Charlie’s twisted mind as well as the ensuing party of animalistic excess. Guy Ritchie and Anurag Kashyap would use the same camera technique in their films but this can’t be bettered.
9- Raging Bull (1980)
Song- Cavalleria Rusticana (Pietro Mascagni)
A hard-core rock lover at heart (just cast a look at his admirable documentaries on The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan), Scorsese nevertheless went back to his Italian roots when it came to a piece of convincingly sublime music to kick off his magnum opus- a fierce yet poetic portrait of middle-weight boxing champion Jake La Motta. This 19th century opera performance by Mascagani was one of the most iconic musical acts of the era. It is then apt for Marty to use it as background music for the introduction of his protagonist. We first see the credit titles come over the screen, while somewhere in the misty black and white distance a robed prizefighter is shadowboxing. The static camera, the sad swells and the fixedly admiring yet elegiac gaze all combine to make this one of Scorsese' most poignant musical moments ever. Also, it is like a prematurely fitting summation of a man's tragic life, of his vulnerability to demons inside and around him. Guaranteed to move even the hardest hearts.
8- The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013)
Song- Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Callin' You (The Jimmy Castor Bunch)
Like so many things in this crazed, darkly comic capitalist satire, the music bursts from the speakers often without warning. Like in this wild and wacky scene. Half-drugged, half-crazed Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is literally prancing around on the office floor, rallying his workers like tribal soldiers, egging them to push Steve Madden stocks down the throats of their customers. After a hell lot of incredible cussing and swearing and shouting, the room erupts. There is a moment of silence and then we hear the first lyrics of this funky 60s number, beckoning us to the crazy celebration that follows. As a moment of classic Scorsese zing served in a heady, breakneck fashion, the camera soaring over the desperate brokers making their relentless calls. Like so much in 'The Wolf of Wall Street', this moment pops right out of the frame and hits you hard between the eyes.
7- Goodfellas (1990)
Song- Rags To Riches (Tony Bennett)
A great piece of dialogue is all it takes to let a really great song explode on the ears. Ray Liotta's perturbed Henry Hill closes shut the trunk of a car, containing a body that has been repeatedly stabbed and shot, setting the brutal, reckless tone of Scorsese' masterpiece early on. And then, in narration, Hill announces his intention- 'As far as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster'. And that's it. The music begins to swell and soar and the speakers start honking out Tony Bennett's saucy version of 'Rags To Riches'. All the while, Marty rolls out the opening credits which zoom on the screen at breakneck speed. And we follow young Hill's adolescent gaze from his shuttered window to the mundane world of neighborhood crime and influence, all the while Bennett continues to pour his song's great words, summing up the rise and fall of the film's protagonist in a mere matter of some minutes of classic 50s music. This is also a really snazzy beginning to an already slick and incredibily stylish crime masterpiece.
6- The Departed (2006)
Song- Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)
With 'The Departed', Marty returned to his incredible taste in vintage rock and roll and while the film is scattered with many classic moments (John Lennon's 'Well, Well, Well' plays in the backdrop while Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello quotes the rock legend verbatim in a conversation), it had to be Pink Floyd for a fierce and sexually-charged scene in this racy crime thriller. We can hear the first notes of David Gilmour's epic chorus, with the lines, 'There is no pain, you are receding', as we see a fiercely desperate Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) pay a nocturnal visit to his shrink Madolyn (Vera Farmiga). The situation is already loaded with adulterous sexuality, the two inevitably mouthing off not-so-sweet nothings and then sparking off in a love-making scene of such searing intensity that it rivals even some of Marty's orgies of violence in the past in poetic force. All the while, the progressive rock masterpiece continues playing with the same poignant power. The whole scene ends up making this as perhaps the closest to romance that the band ever came, even as the real intent of the song was completely different.
5- Goodfellas (1990)
Song- Then He Kissed Me (The Crystals)
It is one of the most famous scenes in film history. And it is also Marty at his most gushingly romantic. For once, his eye shifts from a male perspective to that of a woman, that of Karen (Lorraine Bracco), a hot-headed Jew broad who gives her man Henry Hill a severe verbal lashing but can't help but be awed by the affluence of his life that sweeps her off his feet. As in this extraordinary scene. Instead of going through the normal entrance to the Copacabana, Henry tugs along Karen through the back-door, going down a flight of steps, passing through back alleys and kitchens and eventually reaching the dining hall, with its guests awaiting Hill's ceremonious arrival. All of this takes place in one terrific unending shot-take and while most people see it only as metaphorical of Hill's penultimate illegitimate arrival in the world of wealth, there is more to this moment. Do not forget the song that plays in the background. A classic 60s number with lyrics about a girl being seduced and charmed by a particularly dashing man, this wonderfully sublime track is just perfect for the moment of stunning exuberance all around. And it sums up Karen's- and our- wide-eyed wonder at Hill's ascent to wealth and power. Truly mesmerising.
4- Casino (1995)
Song- The House Of The Rising Sun (The Animals)
Empires are falling apart in Scorsese's epic 'Casino' when the director chooses to play one of the most haunting psychedelic rock masterpieces in the backdrop, setting the tone for a violent end of an era with a seriously high body count. Inside a court, the mob bosses decide to get away with Andy Stone, the man who helped them make a killing in the playgrounds of Vegas for so many years. And so it is done- against Eric Burdon's sneering vocals of The Animals' rendition of a classic folk song on sordid life in the deep South, we see the bullets fired, blood spurted, knifes flashed and abuses hurled. It is down and dirty for the mobsters as all of them go down their graves, betrayed and murdered by the very folks with whom they hung out after killing innocents. It is the apocalyptic fall of an illegal empire and along with its ruins are meshed the skeletons out the closets of skimmed-off cash. And as this thudding, heart-pounding number reaches its orgasmic upsurge, we see Sharon Stone's depraved Ginger McKenna eventually breathing her last in a seedy motel, a final tombstone on the bloodied corpse of naked wealth and excess. I wonder if anyone can ever forget this moment in cinema or this song in the future.
3- Taxi Driver (1976)
Song- The Full Soundtrack (Bernard Hermann)
After a lifetime of composing thrilling, entertaining scores, most of them for Hitchcock classics, the late and great Bernard Hermann delivered his greatest work at the wee end of his life and handed it over to Martin Scorsese for his finest film yet. Devoid of all sneaky flourishes of menace- except maybe for the thudding beats when the film actually opens, the front fender of a New York cab looming from the swirling mists of smoke from the Manhattan streets- this is a score that oozes with heart-rending sadness. The fine elegiac swells of jazz give voice to Travis' (Robert De Niro) desperate quest for love and redemption as well as his subsequent heartbreak and a last bid to save himself from utter anonymity. But in turns, it also turns pitch-dark, nightmarishly deathly and tense as the film itself turns more morbid by each plot turn. Even as it is sad, wistfully romantic and utterly heartbreaking and beautiful, this is nevertheless the score that a dystopian journey into a man's lonely mind needs to be a really incredible thriller. Along with De Niro's powerhouse act, Jodie Foster's star-making turn as the 12-year old hooker Iris, Paul Schrader's scathing narrative and Scorsese's iconic portrait of the Big Apple's rotten core, it is Hermann's work that makes 'Taxi Driver' so vitally organic even after 4 decades of its release.
2- Mean Streets (1973)
Song- Be My Baby (The Rosettes)
For once and for all, 'Mean Streets' set the Scorsese template forever- fast long-takes, furious characters, fiery violence and fantastic pop and rock strewn all over the frames. In many ways, it is the opening scene of the film that itself does a lot to nail the director's trademark style. After a haunting line that starts the film, Harvey Keitel's harried Charlie wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of police sirens and then goes back to his bed. As his head hits the pillow, the drums roll, the music kicks off and we are instantly tugged to a truly mesmerising credits sequence, shot on scratchy home-video format, perfectly capturing the little quirks and details of a mundane life in the neighborhood. Along with the authentic Italian-American flavor, with its street carnivals, its thick-browed protagonists and the Catholic overtones, this scene is also scored terrifically to The Ronettes' classy and oomph-filled rendition of one of their greatest hits. Together with the gritty credits scene and that incredible rock music blaring in the backdrop, Scorsese helped to create the blueprint for all his great works to follow after that.
1- The Departed (2006)
Song- Gimme Shelter (The Rolling Stones)
No matter how much Marty use this Stones classic in his other films (Henry Hill snorts cocaine as the opening guitar solo thrums in the backdrop in 'Goodfellas'.), the way he uses it to open his 2006 stunner of a crime thriller is simply unbeatable. Remaking an acclaimed Chinese cops-and-criminals thriller was always going to be hard for the legendary director but the marvel often lies in how he took the simple mathematical premise of the original source and grounded it, along with William Monahan's fierce and foul-mouthed script, into an American (not just Irish-American) template that felt truly authentic, Scorsese-style. Of course, the film's musical selections go a long way too and this is the most glittering example of the same. Like how he kicked off 'Mean Streets' with scratchy video format, Marty starts with plunging the dark reality of Boston's social strife on our face, after which we hear Jack Nicholson's addictively creepy voice, doling out platitudes, as we first hear the familiar notes of that immortal Keith Richards guitar solo. And now, as the song's dark laments, with implicit meditations on war and social pathos, begin to rise, we are introduced to the unforgettable Boston of Scorsese, teeming with mediocrity and possibly ruled by Nicholson's Frank Costello, having his way in this lawless world. It is something of a marvel- a moment that redefines the very meaning of that great song, lets us see a master actor back in blistering, nasty form. And above all, it reaffirms Scorsese as one of the greatest urban artists of modern cinema.
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