...If not, better. maybe even since goodfellas. Bringing out the dead was great but it didnt really have all the around performances. Gangs was a beautiful production, but still behind affliction. Aviator, great, but still not as emotionally deep as affliction .jJust my opinion.
shareThis is definitely one of Schrader's best. It reminds of some of his films from the seveties. I hope he continues to return to this kind of territory. I've been skeptical of Scorsese's output SINCE "Casino," but I would love to see these two masters work together again.
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I agree.
shareBringing out the dead I consider a missed opportunity. Mainly because of Nick Caged, but also it was trying (and failing) to be hip. THIS however created a compelling world.
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It is not, ever, on tecnical or photographical level better than an scorsese film. Story is good, very good indeed, acting is superb, but to call it better than scorsese´s it is not a rigth thing to do!
shareSPOILER ALERT!
Not 'better' - just different - Schrader has been labeled a 'calvinist' and Scorsese a 'romanist' - so if that is true thenm the worldview will be very different between the two men. For example, I did not expect Travis Bickle to live through the shootout! But yet the 'shootout' in "Affliction" completely took me by surprise - as if Wade had abandoned God, like Cain, and so was then cast out forever, to roam the earth forgotten by all and unmentioned by his own blood kin... This was a shocking, iniquitous movie for me.
YE must be born again
I agree with pylgrym about that scene. It is a very perturbing moment of the story. Since this moment the charcter starts to falldown deeply. As with Deniro´s character they both can not stand it any more!!! But DEniro´s taxi driver is a hero, Nolte´s is a loser, a very complex and intense looser! I do believe that Nick Nolte character is more intersting as a task for an actor, i feel that the kind of desperation in Nolte´s persona is even the other face of taxi driver!!!
shareThe OTHER face of Travis Bickle... wow..
wonder what HIS folks were like....
Because the majority of viewers don't understand the complexity of teh story or the roles and, therefore, they view it as a standard thriller. It is, however, much more than that!
shareI think a lot of Schrader's directorial output is just as good as Scorsese's. I like that he tends to weave an ambiguous murder mystery into his character studies. American Gigolo and Light Sleeper did it and he turned it on it's ear in Affliction, which I think is a far darker examination of a fractured psyche than Travis Bickle given that Wade Whitehouse turns out to be dead wrong in his efforts to try and validate himself by cleansing his town. And while Bickle does seem able to make genuine, if creepy and tenuous, emotional connections with people - Wade can't even get that far. He's at the end of his life while Bickle might get to see a new beginning.
You just don't see the level of nuance in Scorsese's character work that Schrader gives with almost every film he helms. For my money he completely gets you inside his lead character's heads and gives valid and haunting explanations for the darkness inside them, and in doing so almost redeems them.
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It's better than Casino, Casino sucks
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"if seagal was thinner this could have been a theatrical product."
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Scoresese hasn't made a decent film since CAPE FEAR. CASINO was okay. Everything that he's made with DiCapri-ugh has been dreadful. I cannot watch a movie starring that overgrown child.
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