While his next feature film “Killers of the Flower Moon” will be released in theaters in a little over a month, Martin Scorsese recently spoke about his cinematic references at the microphone of Time, speaking in particular about his favorite battle scene.
From the violent battles waged in the dust of a fledgling America by the protagonists of Gangs of New York to the villainous settling of scores in Goodfellas, in the depths of a dingy and almost empty bar, Martin Scorsese’s rich and long filmography has brought us offered numerous action sequences that still resonate intensely in the history of cinema.
As the legendary filmmaker prepares to unveil his new monument to us – the western Killers of the Flower Moon (in theaters October 18) – he recently spoke about at the microphone of Time the feature films which had particularly inspired him as a spectator.
The one who, in 2010, mentioned for us a sequence from The Red Shoes as being one of his favorite films, this time insisted a lot on the career of Orson Welles, explaining that Citizen Kane had “exchange [s]for life” before focusing on another feature film by the director, less known to the general public but also very striking in the eyes of Scorsese.
“I think if we look at Welles’ career, we have to focus on Falstaff”he declared.
“There are so many different levels to this film. From this Shakespearean play comes an extraordinary production. As far as action scenes go, the best battle sequence ever filmed is in Falstaff.
I know those who made Braveheart studied it, we studied it a lot ourselves. It’s different from Eisenstein or Alexander Nevsky, it’s of course different from Potemkin. There’s never been anything like it.”
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Directed by Orson Welles in 1966, Falstaff is adapted from a work by William Shakespeare and tells the story of King Henry IV of England, in the 15th century, tired of seeing his son Harry lose interest in the kingdom and spend all his time drinking and feasting in the company of a singular character: the truculent Falstaff.
The sequence mentioned by Scorsese occurs in the second part of the film, when Harry decides to go to war in his father’s name against the armies of the seditious Hotspur, at the Battle of Shrewsbury.
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Also discussing other films by Orson Welles as well as the works of King Vidor and Billy Wilder at the microphone of Time, Martin Scorsese however clarified that he did not particularly like the “Top 10” exercise:
“Over the years, I’ve tried to make lists of films that I personally consider my favorites. And then you eventually realize that the word ‘favorite’ has several different meanings.
There are the films that impressed us the most, the films that we simply like to watch again and again, and those that we watch again and again and which continue to teach us, or which offer us a new experience. So they are diverse. And I’m still a little against the Top 10.”
(Re)discover the trailer for “Killers of the Flower Moon”, in theaters on October 18…