This contributes to that Scorsese distance: the emotional and intellectual space between us and the character that allows us to plug into their experience while always remaining a bit outside of it, all the better to question their destructive acts. (This might be why The Aviator’s mommy-scrubbed-me-rather-than-loved-me opening flashback feels so clunky.) We view them more as products of their environment, shaped-and often warped-by cultural expectations whose roots lie beyond their understanding. And yet we aren’t asked to put Travis Bickle, Henry Hill, or other of his (anti)heroes on the analyst’s couch. His films are not anti-psychological, and one can certainly read many of Scorsese’s protagonists as victims of psychic traumas. Note, however, that of all the issues that Scorsese tries to cram into his on-screen depictions of masculine viciousness, notions of violence as a product of carefully explored mental disturbance don’t register as strongly.

Do we feel nauseous or vindicated when Travis Bickle takes out Harvey Keital’s brutal pimp at the end of Taxi Driver? Are we watching the implosion of a soul in Goodfellas, or is that bopping period soundtrack too intoxicating for us to notice? To watch a Scorsese brawl or gunfight is to find a director working through all these multifarious ideas and attempting to get them all on screen-often in the same scene, sometimes in the same frame.

And just as crucially, he finds a similar connection between the subjective experiences of those committing violent acts and the sociological factors that deem those acts acceptable (and often assumed). Scorsese sees the glamorization and moralization of filmic violence as irrevocably fused together, revulsion and fascination informing one another equally. (Combine it with some extended musings on John Ford’s conception of “masculinity” and you’ve got a full-proof narcoleptic for cineastes.) Then you re-watch Raging Bull and you remember that all those cocktail-party bloviations have their roots in one of American cinema’s most complex visions of physical brutality: its communal roots, hypnotic realization, and corrosive legacy.

Film criticism seemingly doesn’t get more banal than commenting upon Martin Scorsese’s “fascination” with violence.

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