Chapter 4 The Problem of Violence in Scorsese’s Films: The Catholic Gangster as Tragic Hero John McAteer The problem of violence in Scorsese films is not that his movies are more vio- lent or more graphic than other movies. In fact, they are much less graphic than typical horror movies (in terms of on-screen gore) and less violent than most superhero action movies (in terms of on-screen violent acts or even the num- ber of deaths). Yet Scorsese’s films – his gangster films in particular – do seem more violent. This is because Scorsese is such a good filmmaker that he is able to make the violence in his films more shocking. It affects us more, demanding to be noticed and thought about. The real problem of violence is that Scorsese does not take violence lightly; after all, Scorsese’s films are about violence. In- terpreting what these films reveal about violence is the primary problem. Though many of his other movies explore the theme of violence as well (most notably Taxi Driver, Cape Fear and Shutter Island), this chapter focuses on Scorsese’s gangster movies, which take place within the social worlds of the Italian and Irish mob, primarily in New York City. Scorsese’s gangster films are tragedies in the same tradition as Medea and Macbeth. Most of these films are about people trying to escape their entanglements with the world of the mafia. The heroes of these films try to be good, but are eventually destroyed by the sins of their forefathers. Yet Scorsese’s approach to tragedy is more Shakespearean than Greek, more Catholic than pagan. That is, rather than being doomed by fate or an ancestral curse, Scorsese’s heroes are destroyed by their own choices. Scorsese dramatizes Catholic ideas of original sin (being born into the ma- fia culture), penance (the attempt to counteract the effects of sin with good deeds), and the self-destructiveness of sin. All of these ideas have roots in St. Augustine of Hippo. For Augustine, sin operates like an addiction, and only the intervention of God’s grace breaks this addiction and makes it possible for us to act in accordance with our own good. Scorsese’s tragic vision is quite similar, but perhaps falls short of orthodox Catholicism insofar as all forms of Christianity are grounded in the hope of redemption. It seems significant that in Scorsese’s gangster films, no one ever actually succeeds in escaping the cycle of violence. In these quasi-Catholic tragedies the heroes are always ultimately, if not inevitably, destroyed. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/97890044��40�_006 <UN> The Problem of Violence in Scorsese’s Films 73 The only redemption Scorsese seems to recognize is cinema itself. Scorsese believes that if he can transfigure violence through film, he can give it mean- ing. Hence cinema seems to operate sacramentally for Scorsese, the outward and visible sign of the motion picture image effecting an inward and spiritual transformation in the audience. Through film we can come to see the world more clearly, including the emptiness of violence, which might otherwise seem glamorous. And film can redeem violent people by helping us under- stand and humanize those who might otherwise seem like monsters. After exploring the aesthetic techniques Scorsese uses in his own films to critique the glamorous representation of violence in classic Hollywood gang- ster films (thereby making his films seem much more violent than similar films by other directors), I use Aristotle’s theory of tragedy and Augustine’s theory of sin to show how Scorsese’s films can be read as quasi-Catholic tragedies. I then conclude by suggesting how, through his tragic approach to the gangster genre, Scorsese’s cinema might embody a kind of redemption for violent people. 1 Redemptive Violence Scorsese’s work generally falls into two periods, the De Niro period and the DiCaprio period. Scorsese made eight films with Robert De Niro between 1973 and 1995, including four that took place within the world of the Italian-American Mafia: Mean Streets (1973), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), and Casino (1995). He went on to make five films with Leonardo DiCaprio between 2002 and 2013, including two films about Irish mobsters: Gangs of New York (2002) and The Departed (2006).1 One important difference between the De Niro films and the DiCaprio films is that Gangs of New York and The Departed are much more violent than any of the earlier films. This is partly due to the evolving cul- tural standard of acceptable depiction of violence – Casino was already more graphic than any of Scorsese’s previous films – but Scorsese’s aesthetic of vio- lence seems to have changed since the turn of the millennium as well. Whereas Scorsese’s early films were interested in the contrast between film and reality, his newer films slide more toward the sort of exaggerated Hollywood-style vio- lence he critiqued in his De Niro cycle. In Mean Streets and Goodfellas Scorsese is critiquing Hollywood violence. Intertextual allusions have been common in American cinema since the 1970s. Yet whereas, for example, the references to pulpy grindhouse exploitation 1 Scorsese’s forthcoming film The Irishman (2019) is an interesting hybrid, since it marks Scorsese’s return to working with De Niro, except this time De Niro will play an Irish mobster. <UN>.