Photo: Columbia Pictures / Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar has put together a fascinating photo spread and retrospective admiring director Martin Scorsese as his new film, Hugo, makes its way to theaters. While the release of the film is still a little over a month away (November 23), it already played the New York Film Festival to some acclaim, but it's Scorsese's previous releases that are getting their due here.
In a photo spread, photographed by Jason Schmidt, includes actors Kate Bosworth, Alessandro Nivola, Emily Mortimer, Vincent Piazza, Michael Pitt, Sir Ben Kingsley, Christina Hendricks, Jack Huston, Emily Blunt, Chloe Moretz and Keanu Reeves recreating scenes from The Age of Innocence, The Aviator, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver. You can see one of the photos above featuring Moretz as Jodie Foster's character from Taxi Driver and I've included a thumbnail gallery of the rest at the bottom of this post.
To go along with that there's an excellent look back at Scorsese's work through the quotes of the actors he's worked with including Foster, Steve Buscemi, Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Winona Ryder, Sharon Stone and even those starring in his new film including Moretz as seen above.
In fact, Moretz's quote is great and reminds me of the "New York Times" profile she gave before starring in the ultra-violent Kick-Ass back in 2010 where she revealed that while she was starring in a very violent film she still wasn't allowed to watch most rated R movies. She was 11-years-old at the time and she's only 14-years-old now. So no, she still hasn't seen Taxi Driver. Here's her quote:
There's an aura about him. He knows how to get that thing that makes it a Scorsese film; it's completely unspoken. But I haven't seen Taxi Driver yet. My mom won't let me watch it.
There are obviously more insightful comments at the source and you can read the rest of the quotes here, and I have included thumbnails from their photo shoot below. Click on the thumbs to browse each of them individually.
For more on Scorsese's Hugo click here.
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I don't 'get' photo recreations of previous films (I remember Empire Magazine did a similar special on Martin Scorsese around 10 years ago). With the exception of Moretz, all of the actors look quite foolish in their impersonations, as if they are trapped in the uncanny valley between the previous performances and themselves. Frankly, Keanu Reeves as Travis Bickle is too much to bear.
Here are the pics from the Empire feature. Ashton Kutcher in Raging Bull? Chris Klein in anything? Suddenly, the Reeves shot seems justified.
I prefer recreations like the one done for Empire's 20th year anniversary.
In this instance, you have actors recreating their own performances, in which they are given props and makeup to reflect their films/characters. Whereas the other shoots have pretty boys and try-hards impersonating others, this Empire one actually had the proper actors referencing their own iconic work.