Dostoevskian Elements in Scorsese's Cinema

Home , Martin Scorsese, New York Stories, Paul Schrader, Woody Allen

Chapter 3 Dostoevskian Elements in Scorsese’s Cinema

Christopher B. Barnett

In 1989, three of America’s most celebrated film directors—Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese—released New York Stories. A so-called “omnibus film,”1 New York Stories included three short movies, each set in New York City. Taken as a whole, this venture was not wholly successful: “‘New York Sto- ries’ consists of three films, one good, one bad, one disappointing,”2 pronounced Roger Ebert, referring to Scorsese’s, Coppola’s, and Allen’s contributions respec- tively. The Washington Post’s Hal Hinson posted a similar review, arguing that, while Allen’s piece is a “genuine success” and Scorsese’s shows off “his esthetic muscle,” Coppola’s is simply “a mystifying embarrassment.”3 Given this mixed reception, not to mention the film’s underwhelming box office performance,4 it would seem that New York Stories represents little more than an homage to a bygone cinematic genre—one that, even if an interesting experiment, nev- ertheless fails to stand as an outstanding addition to the careers of its makers. Despite such a verdict, New York Stories remains a notable contribution to Scorsese’s oeuvre. Not only does it display Scorsese’s willingness to experiment with cinematic form—Allen had first pitched the idea for New York Stories in 1986, suggesting that it might recapture the spirit of Italian omnibus films such as L’amore in città (1953) and Boccaccio ’70 (1962)5—but it also underlines Scorsese’s interest in and indebtedness to the great Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81). While Scorsese alludes to Dostoevsky’s thought through- out his films, New York Stories makes the connection explicit: Scorsese’s contribution to the project is a forty-minute short entitled “Life Lessons” based on Dostoevsky’s novella, The Gambler (1867). It was an adaptation that had been germinating for two decades. As Scorsese put it in a 1988 interview, “This is another one of those things that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, since I read ‘The Gambler’ in 1968.”6

1 Vincent Canby, “Film View: Anthologies Can Be a Bargain,” New York Times, March 12, 1989. 2 Roger Ebert, “‘New York Stories,’” Chicago Sun-Times, March 3, 1989. 3 Hal Hinson, “‘New York Stories,’” Washington Post, March 3, 1989. 4 According to imdb, New York Stories had a budget of $15,000,000 but only grossed around $11,000,000 domestically. See “Box Office/Business for New York Stories,” imdb.com, n.d., http:// www.imdb.com/title/tt0097965/business?ref_=tt_ql_dt_4, accessed November 17, 2016. 5 Vincent LoBrutto, Martin Scorsese: A Biography (Westport: Praeger, 2008), 289. 6 Caryn James, “Scorsese’s Passion Now: Dostoyevsky,” New York Times, October 20, 1988.

46 Barnett

If “Life Lessons” stands as the most obvious example of Dostoevsky’s influence on Scorsese, there are subtler points of connection—points that this chapter will explore in two overarching ways. First, it will trace those places in which Scorsese’s canon manifests a direct Dostoevskian influence. Here “Life Lessons” will certainly merit attention, as will Taxi Driver (1976). The latter, Scorsese’s fifth, and arguably most impactful, feature film borrows significantly from Dostoevsky’s 1864 novella, Notes from Underground.7 In establishing these unambiguous links between the two auteurs, a second way of understanding their relationship will emerge. As will be argued, a number of key Dostoevskian patterns or themes turn up in Scorsese’s films: (i) the notion that the modern city is an “urban jungle” (or, in Scorsese’s idiom, a series of “mean streets”) in which alienation, poverty, and violence reign; (ii) the suggestion that, despite the wasteland of modern urbanity, the human search for transcendence has not been eliminated and may even be intensified; and (iii) the implication that the human person is thereby faced with a free yet terrifying choice to either seek the transcendent good or to succumb to the void of nihilism. Each of these perspectives will be explored in the works of Dostoevsky and of Scorsese alike. In turn, it will be shown that the American filmmaker might be rightly seen as a successor to the Russian novelist, notwithstanding their different artistic media. Moreover, this connection will undergird the claim, echoed in the secondary literature on Scorsese, that he is a profoundly “moral” filmmaker. For Scorsese, as for Dostoevsky, the depiction of human brutality, depravity, and despair—especially in the context of modernity—is ultimately a negative critique, highlighting what has been lost, albeit with a glimmer of hope for something better.

1 Dostoevsky’s Direct Influence on Scorsese

In September 2011, word leaked out that Martin Scorsese was hoping to make a full-length adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Gambler. According to Torsten Reitz, this interest was hardly a surprise, given Scorsese’s “longtime fascination with the works of [the] Russian writer.”8 As Reitz continues:

7 See, e.g., Brad Balfour, “Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader: We’re Looking at Taxi Driver,” Po- pEntertainment.com, March 15, 2012, http://www.popentertainment.com/scorseseschrader. htm. More will be said about the influence of Notes from Underground on Taxi Driver below. 8 Torsten Reitz, “Scorsese Hopes to Adapt Dostoevsky’s ‘The Gambler,’” themovingarts.com, September 19, 2011, http://www.themovingarts.com/scorsese-hopes-to-adapt-dostoevskys- the-gambler/.