Other Arts & Review

the Other Press

February 4, 1992

The Martin Chronicles: Movie Maniac

Martin Scorsese directs some of Americas’ darker Hollywood movies.His latest is Cape Fear, starring Robert De Niro.

By Goerge Kaplan

As the brown sedan ramblesunder New Yorkstreetlights, a gunman leans out of the rear window, kisses hisrevolver,and then pumps bullets into a blue hardtop. The victim’s car skids out of control and crashesintoa fire hydrant, blood pouring from Johnny Boy (Robert DeNiro)and Charlie (Harvey Keitel). Back in the sedan, tranquil after the bloodletting, the demon relaxes and slides into darkness.

Twoyearsafterthemayhem of Mean Streets, the demon is in the back seat again. In Taxi Driver, his voice gushes with barely contained rage as he tells the cabbie (De Niro again) thathis own wife is having sex with a black man in an adjacent tenement.

“And, and I’m going to kill her, and what do you think about that?” he seethes.

The cameo assassin, who also played gangsters in Who's That Knocking at My Door? and Cannonball (although he turned down the role of Charles Manson in

Metal with a Message

Basically, Stop Violence and Madness, by Rumble Militia, is typical thrash-metal. An exception is “You're Sure.” Were they thinking potential top-ten hit for this one? Well, it might have worked, if not for the obvious rip-off intro and bass solo and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” singer's inability to carry a tune in the proverbial bucket (you know, theonethatdear Lizastill couldn't fix after nine verses). Here is one exception to the rule that good musicians steal. But, as everyone knows, you don’t have to be agood musician toplay thrash-metal.Stop Violenceand Madness

(from “Wild ee respectively), and

Stop Violence and Madness Rumble Militia

Released by Century Media Reviewed by Karen Rempel

Helter Skelter) is Martin Scorsese. Precisely why, the acclaimed and controversial director hascasthimself as killers and makes films about misanthropy and violence may best be left for an analyst. Then again, if the adolescent days of David Lynch spent loitering around a smalltown mortuary help explain Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, let’s take a look at Scorsese's formative years.

Scorsese was born on Nov. 17,1942in Flushing, Queens tosecond generation Italian-Americans Charles and Catherine (dad later getting a few cameos, mom gaining fame as the grey-haired lady in GoodFellas, Mean Streets and King of Comedy). And while Martin’s friends played in the streets of Little Italy, with toughs lurking around every corner, asthma often forced him tostay inside and alone. Cooped up, he spent hours watching gangsters, gladiators and monsters and local movie houses. Scorsese became obsessed with cinema, and created hisowncrayoned storyboards with the credit: Directed by Martin Scorsese. He was also obsessed with

Hacki, Staffi, and Olli (are these your real names,

guys?), the musicians who comprise Rumble Militia, appear to be East-European metal-meisters transported to Los Angeles, who magically managed to survive the tri intact. Yes, they havea message. Several, in fact. You A Reflection of Your Video—Programme warns real lifeis nota video; if you kill someone, you can't rewind the tape and make the dead come fe. Stop This Shit argues against experimentation on animals. Save Yourself tells anyone who will listen that war is bad. Waiting For Deathis a dirge about the useless people waste their life on. As for the title track— you figure it out.

back to li

with their morals

pursuits most

Biblical storiesofthe CatholicChurch (which bequeathed sexual guilt, an obsession with guilt and sin, and an abandoned stint of studying for the priesthood).

Time on the streets also

played its part. “Mhere were some tough

guys around. You might be playing in a sandbox and something might fallbehind you—notabag of Ze, as you might expect, buta little baby that had fallen off a roof,” Scorsese once recalled.

For a kid, it was a lonely and brooding lifestyle that led to resentmentand depresession. For the older NYU film student, it proved inspirational. Theresults wouldshow years later when critic-gods Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert produced a special on directors. One each travelled tocorner George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, but both were present to interview Scorsese (after declaring his Raging Bull to be the best movie of the 1980s). Scorsese’s films are perme! honest looks into the darker side of human experience. At times his obsession with never compromising in studies of violence and darkness can lead to excess (witness Cape Fear), but on the wholethatis why his workstands out ina usually saccharine industry.

And now a Psych 100 look atthe manand his movies: Outsider. Except for GoodFellas self-assured Henry Hill, Scorsese’s characters are out-of-place, often loners; people groping foracceptanceor inner peace. Charliein Mean Streets, Paul Hackett in After Hours, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, Alice in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and even the anguished prophet of The Last Temptation of Christ.

New York. Scorsese works best in the home element he knows. If budgets preclude costly Gotham, only a gritty US city will do, suchas Chicago in Color of Money. “We wereasked toshootin Toronto, which is a wonderful city,” said Scorsese, “but much too clean.”

Music/Musicians: As evidenced by the oldies sound montage throughout GoodFellas, Scorsese soundtracks leanheavily on Motown Atlantic soul, the Stones and Clapton. An exception was the dark jazzy score of Taxi Driver, completed by Hitchcock-collaborator Bernard Herrmann shortly before his death (Herrmann’s themes were

revised for Cape Fear).

Scorsese was one of the editors of Woodstock and directed The Band’s swan song, The Last Waltz, and the video for Robbie Robertson’s Somewhere Down the Crazy River. Robertson, who once shared a house with the director, produced soundtracks for Color of Moneyand King of Comedy. Scorsese directed Michael Jackson's Bad video, used Dylan’s “20 years of schooling and they put you on the dayshift” in Mean Street's screenplay and Kris Kristofferson’s The Silver-Tongued Devil in Taxi Driver. He cast David Bowie as Pilate as Last Temptation and Kristofferson in Alice.

Troubled Relationships. Relationships in Scorsese’s films are awkward, stormy and socially restricted. In hisscreenplay for 1963's What's a Nice Girl like You doing in a Place like This?, a man deserts his wife and disappears inside a picture. Hmmmm. ice Harvey Keitel wanted women socially forbidden to him; an epiletic and also a black woman in Mean Streets and an educated outsider in Who's That...? DeNirodumpsLiza MinnelliinNew York, New York, then blows a date with Cybill Shepherd by taking her

to a XXX movie in Taxi Driver. Straight-laced Paul falls forafter-dark typesin After Hours. The topper was De Niro as insanely jealous Jake LaMotta, pulverizing his loyal brother over a sarcastic adultery remark.

Violence. New York, New York is the only musical in history in which the leading guy (De Niro as Jummy Doyle) is moreobsessed with brawls than with keeping his girl. But else would you expect from a director who gives youboxers’ noses being broken in slow motion, cheeks being bitten, bloody mass murder in a brothel and the most excruciating depiction of thecrucifixion ever shot. Often the violence involves De Niro, who seems to have evolved into a maniacal alter-ego for Scorsese, appearing in seven of his films.

Discussing the climactic bloodletting in Taxi Driver, Scorsese explained: “The idea was to create a violent catharsis, so people would find themselves saying, “yes, kill’; and thenafterwards realize, my God, no’ — like some strange California therapy session. Thatwas theinstinct I went with, but it’s scary to hear what happens with the audience.”

Loudhouse Puzzling

Iam puzzled. Why dollike this band? My first impression is only confirmed by further listening: Detroit-based Loudhouse seems pretty simple.

For Crying Out Loud Loudhouse

Virgin Records

by Karen Rempel

Musically, different influences are apparent (Jane’s Addiction, Van Halen, The Raspberries, The Cult, The Doors). In places Loudhouse’s album, “For Crying Out Loud,” sounds like a jacked-up pornosoundtrack. Inmost songs there’s an early-’70s heavy- rock feel — very basic. Yet, although I want to dismiss Loudhouse as

unoriginal, there’s.a strange ap ppeal to “For Crying Out Loud.

Afteronly onelisten theself- named “Loudhouse” was running through my brain. On the second listen I found myself singing along to “T.V. Babies” and “My Dad's Bigger Than Your Dad.” “King Among the Ruins” is a moving ballad with haunting, Hendrix-like guitar riffs. And their version of “Smoke on the Water,” while bearing little musical resemblance to the original, is entertaining nonetheless (it’s reminiscent of the kind of psycho- funk played at the Luv Affair).

“For g Out Loud” isa promising debut album; I'll be interested to see what Loudhouse (lose the name) comes up with next.

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