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Far Out Magazine, 2025
We often associate the work of Martin Scorsese with extremities – a longing for power that becomes violent, lonely men pushed to the point of danger and conformity that creates isolation. In films like Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, the audience is pulled into a dizzyingly nihilistic story world, exploring masculinity, corruption and the complexities of group psychology, often looking at people who struggle to survive within their immediate environment and the rigidity of externally imposed values. However, Scorsese is not one known to express this dissonance through restraint or subtlety – his films often show the clash between the character’s inner and outer world through violence, physicality and harsh editing, creating an all-encompassing portrait of people who are consumed by a desire to fit in, no matter the personal cost.
Because of this, the decision to follow up his groundbreaking 1990 film Goodfellas with a period drama was met with curiosity and confusion – how would the director translate his signature style to the twee confines of the Gilded Age? But Scorsese blew public expectations out of the water with his devastating portrait of upper-class oppression in The Age of Innocence, which he himself described as “the most violent film I ever made”.
The Age of Innocence, adapted from the classic novel by Edith Wharton, follows a man called Newland Archer who is engaged to May Welland, both part of high-society Manhattan and the wealthy elite. However, Newland forms a friendship with May’s disgraced cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, finding himself unexpectedly falling in love with her and beginning a lifelong illicit affair.
May represents the rigidity and values of the social group that Newland is a part of, initially being drawn to the idea of what constitutes a ‘proper wife’ and conforming to what is expected from members of high society. Everyone praises May’s elegance and timid personality, embodying everything that someone like Newland should strive for to achieve the ultimate image of civility. However, Ellen represents something entirely different after being shunned from their social circle in the wake of a scandalous divorce, being treated with little respect by people who cannot find empathy for her plight and instead see her as a tarnished woman. But Newland is the only person who treats her with kindness and understands her frustrations towards the social group they both belong to, slowly becoming intoxicated by her modern perspective and ability to critique the confines of their world.
As a result, Newland develops an intense passion for Ellen, becoming increasingly detached from May as he begins to view her as a byproduct of the values he most despises, only representing the people who have ostracised the woman he loves and a living embodiment of his emotional repression. This passion quickly evolves into a lifelong affair, with their connection becoming the only thing that makes his life bearable, looking forward to each tiny moment they get to spend together and finding the will to live from lingering glances and brief touches. She becomes the only respite from his ordered life, both sharing the same thoughts about the vapidity of their social circle and seeking solace from the gilded cage in each other.
The film only grows in devastation as we watch Newland frantically trying to carve out secret moments to spend with Ellen, miserable when he is away from her and briefly made alive again after a mere few minutes in the same room. While his wealth and social status should promise freedom, he is living in a metaphorical prison that feels torturous to watch, with Daniel Day-Lewis beautifully capturing the pain and agony of not living authentically to his feelings and watching the woman he loves slip from his grasp entirely, resigned to a life of suffering due to the outspoken rules that prevent him from being truly happy.
When describing this, Scorsese said, “It was the spirit of it — the spirit of the exquisite romantic pain. The idea that the mere touching of a woman’s hand would suffice. The idea that seeing her across the room would keep him alive for another year.” Despite being in expansive open spaces and elaborately decorated rooms, everything feels stifling and suffocating, with Newland becoming visibly plagued by the weight of unfulfilled love and the pressures from his peers to hide his feelings.
While Scorsese is known for his portrayal of physical violence, there’s an emotional violence in The Age of Innocence that bears more devastating consequences. While the characters in his other films are often met with death as a result of their actions, you could argue that Newland’s fate is one worse than death, with his character existing as a passive passenger in his own life and being forced to please everyone but himself, silently watching as the life he yearns for slips from view.
Characters like Travis Bickel and Jake Le Motta have an outlet for their anger and frustration, with their anger being expressed through physical outbursts, but Newland has to contain all of his pain and experience it inwardly, with no way to express besides the very few interactions he has with Ellen. The pair only share two moments of physical intimacy, with constant eyes and attention on them that limits their ability to express their affection, with one kiss in the back of the carriage that is almost unbearable to watch. Newland leaves with tears in his eyes, acutely aware of the people around them that threaten his carefully constructed illusion, full of resentment towards them and the inward acceptance that he is also one and the same.
Tradition is painted as an attack on the human spirit, with Newland eventually resigning himself to unhappiness and playing the part of a happily married man for the rest of his life. He realises that everyone around him, including his wife, knew about his feelings for Ellen, capturing something truly insidious about the inner workings of this social group who operate in secrecy and only communicate through rumours, secrets and whispers, condemning him to a life of misery for fear of breaking tradition, despite the fact that most of them have encountered similar problems and know all about it.
The final shot shows Newland visiting Paris as an older man, standing outside Ellen’s apartment after many years without seeing her. After gazing at her window, he decides not to go in. He walks away from the life he almost had and forever closes the door on the prospect of happiness; never resolving this fraught chapter and leaving in the knowledge that while he could never act on this love, perhaps it has to be enough that it exists.