I know this is a blasphemous statement, but I'm not really that big of a Martin Scorsese fan. I appreciate his films, but I don't know if I actually love any of them. I've never made a list, but I'm not certain he would make my list of top five greatest American directors. However, this may simply be an issue of a purely personal subjective taste, because I do respect him quite a bit. I especially appreciate his attempts to break away and try different things, such as his adaption of The Age of Innocence. Another example of this was his ambitious attempt to tackle Nikos Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation of Christ. I had not seen it since the year it came out, and my re-watch the other night left me feeling much the same way: it's both an over-criticized but also over-praised film. The people who criticized it for being blasphemous (and probably never saw it, for that matter) clearly missed the point of the film. It's a spiritual reflection on the unique nature of Jesus's nature and also of faith itself. At the same time, I think it misses far more than it hits, and I suspect that a lot of the critical praise was a response to the criticism from religious fanatics. It's worth watching, and it has some lovely moments.
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