Scorsese’s first film in 12 years without Michael Ballhaus is instead filmed in the bolder colors and light-diffusing style of Robert Richardson.
The film that erupts in its opening scene-literally, as Robert De Niro seems to be blown sky high by a car bomb to strains of Bach’s “Matthaus Passion”-becomes an opera of the sordid (the credits also represent the last work of the great film editor and title designer Saul Bass). It’s a film where a shot from within a cocaine snorter’s straw, white flakes hoovered up towards the camera like a sandstorm, seems subtle. If The Age of Innocence is Scorsese at his most poised, Casino is Marty gone primeval. Scorsese’s attempts to shunt narrative and explore worlds through montage and voiceover, to fuse high and low culture, to gain panoramic insight into America, to show violence as harsh and ugly as possible-all pushed to the far edge in Casino.
Martin Scorsese: A Retrospective in WordsĬasino presents the rare, inspiring sight of a director pushing his capacities, obsessions, and stylistic experimentation to the limit.
