IN 1985, MARTIN SCORSESE’S career was at such a low ebb that he had to take the moviedirector equivalent of a menial job. Now, those days of the low-budget, narrow-horizoned After Hours are long forgotten: his position as one of history’s all-time greats is seemingly unassailable. No studio dares utter the word “no” to him.
The result is a debasing of his talent: new Scorsese films are routinely an hour too long. The truth, though, is that his directorial talent has never been as great as occasional masterpieces like Goodfellas (1990) tricked us into believing it was.
Perhaps we can forgive the gaucheries of (1973) on the
