In the 80's, Scorsese became too mainstream with stuff like Color of Money and in the 90's with Cape Fear. Every so often he makes something like GoodFellas and Casino, which are excellent in their own way, but not as sublime or original as his 70's films.
up until this century, i think a more accurate statement would be: 'every so often he makes what could be perceived as a mainstream film,' like those two examples u gave.
in the 80s let's see, just assuming Color of Money was "mainstream", and that Raging Bull is a 70s movie
- The King of Comedy, what's mainstream about this
- After Hours, what a huge blockbuster this was!
- Last Temptation of Christ, hmm, more like THE OPPOSITE OF MAINSTREAM
really dude, u need to review ur definition of what ur talking about. the 80s was possibly his least mainstream period, however u define that. even the 90s, with the anomaly (let's call it that for ur argument's sake) of Cape Fear, he made three extremely non mainstream films - Age of Innocence, Kundun, and Bringing Out the Dead. i'm getting sick of that M word now. up until the last 5 years there would be no reason to attach it to scorsese. statistically there is no basis for it.
the same goes for this "misfire" business, what is that? that they were not 'mainstream' hits, thus killing ur argument?