Oskar Schindler and I share the same birthday (28 April).
Thinking about Schindler’s List though, leaves me annoyed with egotistical film-makers. Bear with me….
The epic 1993 historical film, directed by Steven Spielberg, was screened to rave reviews, but of course. Spielberg, the boy genius: Jaws in 1975, Indiana Jones 1982, Saving Private Ryan 1998.
The only way was up, like Bruce, the shark in Jaws.
For the likes of film directors such as Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Spielberg, and a few others, standing ovations for their box-office hits lead to awards, followed by blank cheques for the next feature, and ultimately a swollen head as I see it.
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How else to explain what appears to me to be the height of self-indulgence? When you can tell a story in 100 minutes, but insist on stretching it to 210, l-o-n-g minutes?
Grow up already.
I have met Spielberg, Scorsese and Tarantino in the south of France when I reported on the Cannes Film Festival. So you can’t help but trail their careers. First as a fan, and then as an ‘authority’, or so you tell yourself.
But, that said, I’m afraid there aren’t enough daylight saving hours for me these years to sit through what I find are increasingly self-indulgent films from directors who try to hold off the wrap party with these bloated three-and-a-half-hour movies.
Everyone but me has sworn by Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
Listen, once you know what the director wants to do, you cannot then sit through three hours of it. Once upon a time he would have told the story in under two hours.
When accolades go to the director’s head, audiences suffer through his next feature.
Self-indulgence, as I know it, is having a second serving of the seven-layer chocolate cake. In Hollywood pictureland, indulgence takes a few forms.
Private jokes and insider nods (just showing off, really).
The usual suspects (has Scorsese made a film without Leonardo DiCaprio?); friends and nepos. Talent scouts will be out of a job, never mind AI.
Longwinded stories to the general public, but it has always been this director’s dream to make a film about it. Just for his sole pleasure in producing images by reinventing new camera moves.
Well, make a home movie then, bro.
Finally, DiCaprio looks old enough to fit Scorsese’s roles, but for the longest time he was too boyish, by any stretch of our collective imagination. But it was Scorsese’s call.
And in The Irishman, he had another of his ‘kakis’ (regulars): Robert DeNiro de-aged via AI.
Give the 40-year-old role to another actor, for pity’s sake, rather than ‘young’ your 80-year-old buddy actor.
Tarantino is a talented kid, who’s taking his time to grow up.
We were bowled over by Reservoir Dogs, and Pulp Fiction.
The split second we all raved about his gymnastic agility with dialogue — how he made his lines sing — his characters thereafter could not stop talking.
To his credit Tarantino does acknowledge inspiration owed to Shaw Brothers movies and Ringo Lam films. Though putting Uma Thurman in a Bruce Lee outfit is a tribute too far. But then they figure they’ve earned their chops, so why shouldn’t I please myself, too, ha ha ha.
Sigh, they will have the last laugh. Just when you think they’ve indulged themselves a tad too far, comes ‘The Director’s Cut’.
A five-hour showpiece with hitherto unseen footage to be presented in Berlin or Venice….
Help, lemme outta here.
