Prevalent throughout Martin Scorsese’s filmography are obviously the reoccurring themes of violence, tortured male characters; female characters used as objects of male desire, the gory outcome of revenge and the underlying theme of religious motivation. However, in the eight films that make up the latter portion of Scorsese’s filmography, (Goodfellas; Cape Fear; The Age of Innocence; Casino; Bringing Out the Dead; Gangs of New York; The Aviator; and The Departed) there is a major thematic shift and more stylistic variances that make for a refreshing take on women’s independence; the power and destructive capabilities of love and the overall ‘style’ in which the environment or the setting around a character shapes the plot and story.
The most dramatic shift in the themes of Martin Scorsese’s films was the expansion of the roles of women. In the previous works we viewed in FIL 3871, excluding “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and perhaps “New York New York”, women weren’t given much character development opportunities and weren’t fixed to the plot at all. Most of the women in the previous Scorsese films functioned as props. Their primary function were objects of male desire. Because of this, we, the audience, were never given the chance to see or even the chance to imagine a female character’s perspective in any plot. Our entire impression of women were often one sided. The women were portrayed as sexual and provocative beings and if they were not sexual or provocative they were crazy or portrayed as a nuisance to the main male character. This changed drastically during Scorsese’s later filmography. The shift wasn’t so large that we saw female heroes, but it did change in such a manner that we saw female characters with a profound pull on the plot. We saw the construction of these characters change and we saw them affecting plots in ways, which weren’t just due to their sexual value to male characters. We saw women with command over men, and women in...