AND THE WORST PICTURE WINS

By Leonardo Padura and - - Reprint | | Print |

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HAVANA, Mar 3 2007 (IPS) - Compared with Scorsese\’s other films, The Departed was artistically tepid and lacking in the revelation of human motivations that he has such a great gift for, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, Padura writes that the image of the great director, smiling, with the golden figurine in his hand aroused in me one of the most disquieting emotions that exists: embarrassment for someone else. I cannot believe that Scorsese considers this latest movie to be a memorable work. To do so would be an insult to his intelligence. For this reason, his smiling and his wielding of the little statue struck me with a sense of corrosive embarrassment for a man required by circumstances to put on a big smile when he should know (or does know) that his prize is an offense to the intelligence of the others, to art, and to justice. It is no more than a commercial venture and a poor exercise in film making.

In the latest ceremony, the winner was one of the artists that I admire and respect most, veteran Martin Scorsese, who received the award for best director as well as best picture for his film The Departed.

For years and years I have felt a real veneration for this artist, who brought me back again and again to the cinema, always with the certainty of answering the call of a genius, to see films like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas — masterpieces that, for whatever reason, never won Hollywood’s top awards, though they were recognised as classics.

The Departed, however, brought Scorsese this prize that had been denied to his earlier pictures and the image of the great director, smiling, with the golden figurine in his hand, was seen in media around the world in the days that followed. And from the beginning, I found that this aroused in me one of the most disquieting emotions that exists: embarrassment for someone else.

If the brilliant and intelligent Scorsese reads these lines (I doubt he would deign to do so) he might understand my feeling of uneasiness at the lamentable fact that he was recognised as best director for a piece that a man like him surely knows was no more than a commercial venture and a poor exercise in film making.

To begin with, as is well know, it is a remake of the film Internal Affairs, made about five years ago by two directors from Hong Kong Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak, and though the film was not well received by the international distribution system, which is dominated by a few giant American firms, Hollywood saw in it a great story and set about almost immediately recycling it and promoting it with its colossal muscle. However, what was saddest was the fact that compared with Scorsese’s other films, The Departed was artistically tepid and lacking in the revelation of human motivations that he has such a great gift for.

Setting aside for the moment the notorious capriciousness of the Oscar award process and the unscrupulous manoeuvring of the American film industry, I cannot believe that Scorsese considers this latest movie to be a memorable work. To do so would be an insult to his intelligence. For this reason, his smiling and his wielding of the little statue struck me with a sense of this corrosive embarrassment for a man required by circumstances to put on a big smile when he should know (or knows) that his prize is an offense to the intelligence of the others, to art, and to justice.

Seeking other displays that might have provoked the same feeling in me, I remembered the TV interview with a perennial Cuban singer who set herself on fire (and blamed others for it) because in her over thirty years of artistic activity, not one recording studio offered to record and promote her. The unanimous response of the record companies (which in this case did not impose, or even appear to impose, any kind of political or moral censorship) made clear what everyone already understood more or less: that recording that singer would have been an act of financial suicide. However, the poor woman, convinced that she was the victim of a plot and a major historic injustice, was incapable of understanding that the reason for her failure did not lie in others but in herself. Her unawareness of her limitations led her to make a pathetic claim, oblivious yet arrogant, which aroused a powerful sense of embarrassment for her.

What is so awful about being struck by such an emotion is the feeling that the person involved could have avoided the act that created it. This is not the case, let’s say, with the over-the-hill boxer, ballerina, or even politician who seek to maintain their preeminence and are pelted with blows, catcalls, and rejection which usually arouse compassion or at least confirm the miserable human condition of not knowing how to set clear limits and hold on to power and fame.

The embarrassment some of us felt for Scorsese will in no way affect the millions that his film will bring in with its two Oscars. But the fact alone that I was swept by this emotion and even imagined that, with a little reflection, the great director would also confess to feeling embarrassed for himself, aroused in me a sense of unease, because it shows me that even the most lucid find themselves in situations that generate this feeling in others. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)