Scorsese's Best Movie

[Tyler Smith]

Some friends and I recently re-watched Raging Bull. This prompted someone to ask what I thought was Scorsese's best film. I was inclined to say Taxi Driver, but it was very difficult to choose. So, I throw it out to you guys.

[mpwarren]

I know "best" is subjective, but Goodfellas is the THE movie that, if I see it's on, I will sit down and stare at, drooling, until the credits roll. It might be the most purely watchable movie I've ever seen.

[withnail82]

I voted for "The King of Comedy." It's often forgotten when people talk about Scorsese, I think in part because a lot of the things people associate with him (extreme violence, Catholic imagery) are largely absent.
Before I saw it I would have said "Taxi Driver" and the truth is that there are many similiarities between the two. The most obvious being that they're both Scorsese-De Niro pairings but beyond that they're both stories of New Yorkers who have discovered a singular purpose in life and who will stop at nothing to achieve it.
Pretty much everyone who reads these boards knows the "You talkin' to me?" scene from "Taxi Driver" in their sleep, but the imaginary dinner scene in "King" is for me even more memorable. In both moments we see De Niro's character imagining himself as he wants to be seen by the world. In "Taxi Driver" it's really pretty straight forward. He's being a tough guy in the mirror. In "King" though we see his fantasy (being at dinner in a fancy restaurant with his hero Jerry Langford) intercut with the reality (him pretending this is going on while he's alone in his mother's basement). I love how the scene is cut and how De Niro plays the two sides of it. In the fantasy he's in control, imagining himself as being put upon by Langford. In his mind he's a bigger star than Langford and he's annoyed but still in control. When we see the reality in the basement though he's wound up and frustrated. It's a really wonderful bit of filmmaking that doesn't call attention to itself, which can really be said for all of "The King of Comedy."
Travis Bickle is fascinating but frightening. If we saw him on the street we'd know right away that something was off about him and we'd want to immediately cross the street. There's (hopefully) nothing about him that we recognize in ourselves or anyone we know.
Rupert Pupkin on the other hand, while certainly a bit of an oddball at first glance, doesn't show the world what he is truly capable of. We don't see dangerously delusional kidnapper from him. Plus, Rupert is a super fan of an entertainer and he aspires to be like his hero. That's something that almost all of us can recognize in ourselves or at least someone we know. Granted he's what happens when that sort of fandom is coupled with serious psychological problems.
So to me as great as "Taxi Driver" is, "The King of Comedy" is actually far more interesting because the layers of Rupert Pupkin are more fascinating than those of Travis Bickle.

[Seth H.]

I'm not really one to throw around superlatives, but the one that resonates with me the most on a personal level is The Last Temptation of Christ. I also think it is his most visually striking, but perhaps that's because it's impossible to photograph the desert poorly.

[johnnyunusual]

I voted Taxi Driver, but I got to agree that the King of Comedy is an amazing movie. The weird thing is that when I first picked it up to watch (for a film class, though I'm not sure why I chose that) I did some research and found reviews that described it as a comedy. Uh, were we watching the same film? A satire, yes, but so was 1984 and no one calls that a comedy. And I think that Pupkin is one of DeNiro's more vulnerable performances, in a lot of ways.

[siege121]

I decided to vote for my favorite Scorsese rather than the one I feel is the best. That said my favorite movie of his would be Bringing out the Dead. I really think this movie gets forgotten when bringing up his best work which is unfortunate. It has an energy to it that I think a lot of his more well accepted classics don't. And Nic Cage gives a very good performance, the kind he can when he has a great director to guild him.

[johnnyunusual]

Bringing Out the Dead is a great movie. The cast is great and I love how Scorsese captures the feel of insomnia within the movie. I love when a film can capture in a film a certain feeling that you would only have in a particular kind of circumstance (like capturing a dream or the early morning hours) and extend it into a complete film.