The Violent Film That Gave Martin Scorsese an "Orgasmic Release"
One of Hollywood's most celebrated directors once used a surprisingly visceral term to describe the on-screen brutality of a classic movie. Discover which film provoked such a powerful reaction from Martin Scorsese and why he connected its stylized bloodshed to a dark chapter in American history.
Martin Scorsese's passion for cinema is legendary, so it's no surprise that his analysis of films can be intense and deeply personal. But even for a director known for his expressive commentary, one particular description of a movie's impact stands out for its raw and unexpected nature. He once used a term usually reserved for moments of intense pleasure to describe a film's depiction of brutality, a comparison that caught many by surprise.
While the director was speaking metaphorically, his choice of words was anything but accidental. He wasn't discussing a film designed for titillation—far from it. The comparison was made in the context of on-screen violence, specifically in a work that redefined how audiences perceived cinematic bloodshed.
A Shock to the System
Speaking with The Observer about his relationship with dramatized violence, Scorsese pointed to Sam Peckinpah’s seminal western, The Wild Bunch, as a key example. He suggested that through Peckinpah's lens, “one can understand the violence in films as a sort of heightened aesthetic experience.” The director, known for his own gritty portrayals in films like Raging Bull, admitted that the realism of Peckinpah's work was unlike anything he had previously encountered.
“The violence in that picture comes as a shock to the system,” Scorsese explained. “And part of the shock is the allure of it, the terrible beauty, the orgasmic release, so to speak.” He clarified that this feeling mirrored the dark exhilaration of real-world conflict, drawing a chilling parallel. “It’s extremely stylised, but somehow, it reflects the effect and the exhilaration of real violence, the kind of exhilaration that the soldiers involved in the My Lai massacre probably felt.”
A Reflection of the Times
Scorsese connected this visceral reaction to the film's cultural moment. “The Wild Bunch came out of the Vietnam era, and it really spoke to all the confusion, outrage, and horror we were feeling as a country,” he noted. His insight frames Peckinpah’s 1969 masterpiece not just as a violent movie, but as one of Hollywood's earliest allegories for the Vietnam War. At a time when Americans were witnessing the brutal realities of war on their nightly news broadcasts, Peckinpah dared to bring a similar level of intensity to the big screen.
The film completely upended the traditional western genre. Instead of clear-cut heroes and villains from the genre's 'Golden Age' The Wild Bunch presented a world of moral ambiguity. The lines between good and evil were blurred, focusing instead on the brutal realities of survival. Its infamous machine-gun massacre served as a powerful metaphor for how modern warfare was escalating destruction beyond anything seen before.