A brief history of America according to Martin… | Little White Lies

A brief his­to­ry of Amer­i­ca accord­ing to Mar­tin Scorsese

19 Oct 2023

Words by Paul Risker

Composite image of 5 people, with red and blue colouring over their faces.
Composite image of 5 people, with red and blue colouring over their faces.
Across sev­en decades, Mar­tin Scors­ese has been con­struct­ing his own vision of the Unit­ed States’ blood­stained mythology.

Mar­tin Scors­ese has firm­ly cement­ed his place as one of the great­est film­mak­ers of his gen­er­a­tion – pos­si­bly all time. Killers of the Flower Moon, the first nar­ra­tive fea­ture in the sev­enth decade of his sto­ried career, recounts a dark chap­ter in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, tak­ing place in 1920s Okla­homa. It’s a dis­turb­ing account of the vio­lence per­pe­trat­ed by white Amer­i­ca against the pros­per­ous Osage tribe. Once more Scors­ese shows his unflinch­ing will­ing­ness to chron­i­cle the dark­er side of the Amer­i­can iden­ti­ty – a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion which has seen him tack­le series from the Civ­il War years through to mod­ern-day finan­cial corruption.

A group of men wearing vintage attire, including top hats, frock coats, and plaid trousers, gathered in an outdoor setting with buildings in the background.

It was five decades into his career before Scors­ese jour­neyed deep into New York City’s past, albeit he’d planned to adapt Her­bert Asbury’s expose about the city’s 19th-cen­tu­ry gangs as ear­ly as the 1980s.

Scors­ese and screen­writer Jay Cocks glimpse the hell that was The Five Points of New York, a hotbed of vio­lence and pover­ty in the mid-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. Hav­ing already depict­ed the gang cul­ture in Mean Streets and Good­fel­las, here he tracks the ori­gins of New York’s vio­lent his­to­ry to its roots, before the Ital­ian mafia took hold, when Irish Catholic immi­grants grap­pled for pow­er with the Protes­tant Con­fed­er­a­tion of Amer­i­can Natives (a move­ment which had noth­ing to do with the actu­al Native Amer­i­can people).

New York in Scorsese’s film, with its vio­lence and divi­sions, is a micro­cosm of the larg­er pic­ture of a divid­ed Amer­i­ca in the midst of the Civ­il War. The present-day polit­i­cal tur­moil that divides the coun­try, espe­cial­ly the weapon­i­sa­tion of immi­gra­tion, pro­vides Scorsese’s mid-nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry hell with an endur­ing time­less­ness. Bill the Butcher’s (Daniel Day-Lewis) words as he turns up to fight the Irish gangs at the begin­ning of the film, denounc­ing Catholi­cism and describ­ing the Irish as for­eign hoards defil­ing the land, are not so out of touch with the present-day xeno­pho­bic and nation­al­is­tic stir­rings, that reveals the irony of America’s dream of lib­er­ty and free­dom for all, sup­pos­ed­ly equal under God.

Two people, a man and a woman, sitting on a bench and looking at each other.

Before depict­ing the grime and pover­ty, the vio­lence and racism of nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry New York, Scors­ese and Cocks’ adap­ta­tion of Edith Wharton’s 1920 nov­el shows the city’s polite and man­nered side. There’s a pris­tine del­i­ca­cy of eti­quette in social cir­cles, over­seen by New York’s old­est fam­i­lies. It’s a lifestyle The Gangs of New York only gives us a glimpse of, when Ams­ter­dam (Leonar­do DiCaprio) fol­lows Jen­ny (Cameron Diaz) from the squalor of The Five Points, into the home of a wealthy fam­i­ly to steal valu­able belong­ings. The Age of Inno­cence reveals a dif­fer­ent, albeit per­ilous world of social pol­i­tics, in which char­ac­ters can find them­selves shamed, snubbed or ostracised by soci­ety. Beneath the pris­tine lives of the New York elite, the world is gov­erned by human nature’s angels and demons, and like Ams­ter­dam, The Age of Innocence’s New­land Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) must also assume a role. Where­as Ams­ter­dam in Gangs of New York is moti­vat­ed by revenge against Bill the Butch­er (Daniel Day-Lewis), the Native gang leader who killed his father in a Five Points street fight, New­land is moti­vat­ed by father­hood, even if it means giv­ing up the woman he loves.

For Scors­ese, who recalls as a young boy the blood and bro­ken glass on the side­walk, this view of New York is alien. It’s fit­ting that he’d draw on his per­son­al expe­ri­ence of a dystopi­an New York in his cin­e­ma, and togeth­er, The Gangs of New York and The Age of Inno­cence com­plete the director’s look at nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry New York as a tale of two cities. The con­trast of lifestyle and cul­ture afford­ed by wealth, between those who have and those who don’t, is still divi­sive in Amer­i­ca today, as the wealth gap con­tin­ues to com­pound inequal­i­ty, that threads togeth­er past, present and future.

Two people in traditional Native American clothing, standing and talking in a wooded setting.

Set in Okla­homa, this is the clos­est Scors­ese has come to chart­ing America’s fabled fron­tier. Ser­gio Leone, an inno­v­a­tive direc­tor behind the Spaghet­ti West­erns, spoke about how – unlike the Amer­i­can direc­tors who roman­ti­cised the sav­agery of the Amer­i­can West – for­eign direc­tors could take a con­trar­i­an posi­tion. In Killers of the Flower Moon, Scors­ese (who is Ital­ian-Amer­i­can) explores the cul­ture of xeno­pho­bic vio­lence and white enti­tle­ment behind the sus­pi­cious mur­ders of the wealthy Osage tribe.

Despite the pres­ence of insti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty, the FBI and a for­mer Texas Ranger inves­ti­gat­ing the mur­ders, the film is a grim look at Amer­i­ca, whose moral integri­ty is thwart­ed by the demons that the first white set­tlers and suc­ces­sive white migrants brought to vio­lent­ly bear on Amer­i­ca and its native inhabitants.

Two well-dressed individuals, a man in a brown suit and a woman in a vibrant blue jacket, conversing and smiling at each other.

The sheen has long worn off the image of old Hol­ly­wood and the illu­sion of its stars as aspi­ra­tional fig­ures to be fawned over. It was an image the stu­dios fas­tid­i­ous­ly worked to cre­ate, and Howard Hugh­es, film­mak­er, pilot and avi­a­tion entre­pre­neur, is a metaphor for the fragili­ty of this man­u­fac­tured mirage. DiCaprio plays the obses­sive Hugh­es, who aban­dons films to pur­sue avi­a­tion ven­tures and winds up a reclu­sive fig­ure. His per­son­al tragedy, crack­ing under his obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der, is a well-known part of Hol­ly­wood lore, which even The Simp­sons humor­ous­ly reference.

Unlike Bil­ly Wilder who fired a dark satir­i­cal shot across the bow of Hol­ly­wood with Sun­set Boule­vard, Scorsese’s cri­tique of Hol­ly­wood is a sub­tle and indi­rect metaphor. Hugh­es leaves film­mak­ing behind and takes con­trol­ling own­er­ship of Transcon­ti­nen­tal & West­ern Air (TWA). Scors­ese again expos­es cor­rup­tion, this time in the deal­ings between (Hugh­es’ com­peti­tor) Pan Am’s Juan Trippe (Alec Bald­win), and Sen­a­tor Brew­ster (Alan Alda), who intro­duced the Com­mu­ni­ty Air­line Bill to impede fair com­pe­ti­tion on inter­na­tion­al flights.

Two men in suits standing and talking amidst bright lights and decorations.

Scorsese’s gang­ster films, a sig­na­ture of his oeu­vre, are insep­a­ra­ble from sur­vey­ing Amer­i­can his­to­ry. The char­ac­ters of Good­fel­las, Casi­no and The Irish­man are based on real-life char­ac­ters and non­fic­tion books. Good­fel­las charts the crim­i­nal career and entry into the wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gramme of mob asso­ciate Hen­ry Hill (Ray Liot­ta). Casino’s Sam Ace” Roth­stein (Robert De Niro) is based on Frank Lefty” Rosen­thal, who ran the Las Vegas casi­nos for the Chica­go mafia, and his best friend and enforcer Nicky San­toro (Joe Pesci) and wife Gin­ger McKen­na (Sharon Stone) are also based on real-life per­sons. The Irish­man fol­lows Frank Sheer­an (De Niro), a truck dri­ver turned hit­man, who worked for the Ital­ian mob and was poten­tial­ly involved in the mur­der of labour union leader Jim­my Hof­fa. Mean­while, The Depart­ed, set in Boston, was based on the city’s Win­ter Hill Gang, with Matt Damon’s cor­rupt Sergeant Sul­li­van and Jack Nicholson’s Fran­cis Frank” Costel­lo, who were inspired by a cor­rupt FBI Agent and Irish-Amer­i­can crime boss.

Set across three decades in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, these films are a dis­turb­ing reminder of the under­world enter­pris­es that have thrived through­out the country’s his­to­ry – from New York on the East Coast to Neva­da on the West Coast. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of Scorsese’s gang­ster pic­tures attests to the audience’s fas­ci­na­tion with the dark side of human nature and soci­ety. Whether inten­tion­al or not, these films, like the ear­ly Warn­er Bros. gang­ster pic­tures, help to mythol­o­gise a way of life through real-life crime turned into enter­tain­ment. It’s evi­dence of how the film indus­try open­ly mon­e­tis­es the worst aspects of Amer­i­can soci­ety, prof­it­ing off the country’s crim­i­nal past. Where is the line between inno­cent inter­est and glam­or­is­ing mur­der? Scors­ese asks the audi­ence, or soci­ety, a ques­tion he defers from answering.

A man with sunglasses sitting in the driver's seat of a yellow taxi cab.

Unset­tling for audi­ences in the 1970s, Taxi Dri­ver has lost none of its uncom­fort­able bite. In the shad­ow of esca­lat­ing pub­lic shoot­ings, watch­ing Travis meet the gun sales­man in the hotel, who almost fetish­es the weapons when describ­ing them, is par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turb­ing, a reminder not only of America’s rela­tion­ship with firearms but their con­tin­ued accessibility.

Mean­while, as a Viet­nam vet­er­an, Travis’ exis­ten­tial cri­sis is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the cri­sis fac­ing sol­diers return­ing from war, who find it dif­fi­cult to find mean­ing and pur­pose, and a place to belong once they return to civil­ian life. Travis’ vig­i­lante vio­lence speaks direct­ly to America’s strug­gle with domes­tic ter­ror­ism and the role mil­i­tary vet­er­ans play in these extrem­ist groups. Scorsese’s film is not only about post-war 1970s Amer­i­ca, but the rela­tion­ship the coun­try has with its vet­er­ans, some of whom embrace the con­flict of polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy, and have shown a propen­si­ty for vio­lence with the intent of under­min­ing Amer­i­ca as a demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tion. Taxi Driver’s urban night­mare now seems to be dis­turbing­ly prophet­ic about present-day America.

A smiling man in a suit standing with arms raised, surrounded by applauding colleagues in an office setting.

An echo of Scorsese’s gang­ster pic­tures, the adap­ta­tion of con­vict­ed stock­bro­ker Jor­dan Belfort’s mem­oirs, is about greed and cor­rup­tion. It address­es the need for finan­cial reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion, yet we’ve wit­nessed the fall­out from de-reg­u­lar­is­ing laws for the finan­cial sec­tors after the Wall Street Crash which has been dev­as­tat­ing. The Wolf of Wall Street is about how greed shrinks moral integri­ty, some­thing for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s con­vic­tions attest to, which, along with Belfort’s crimes, are a reminder of the scan­dals, some dev­as­tat­ing to ordi­nary Amer­i­cans who must bear the brunt of the consequences.

The Wolf of Wall Street appears to be a hedo­nis­tic film with­out any judg­ment, but Scors­ese leaves us to con­tem­plate the hor­ror of human greed and desire. It’s less a reflec­tion of Amer­i­ca, and more of human nature because a coun­try is shaped by peo­ple and dri­ven by their cap­i­tal­ist ide­ol­o­gy. It’s as much a dis­turb­ing look at Amer­i­can his­to­ry – the inabil­i­ty to learn that peo­ple have to be gov­erned against their demons.

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