Everything about Martin Scorsese totally explained
Martin Marcantonio Luciano Scorsese (in English and in
Italian; born
November 17,
1942) is an
Academy Award-winning American
film director,
writer,
producer and
film historian. Also affectionately known as
"Marty", he's the founder of the
World Cinema Foundation and a recipient of the
AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema and has won awards from the
Golden Globe,
BAFTA, and
Directors Guild of America. Scorsese is president of the
Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to
film preservation and the prevention of the decaying of motion picture
film stock.
Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as
Italian American identity,
Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and
redemption,
machismo, and the violence to American society. Scorsese is widely considered to be one of the most significant and influential American filmmakers of his era, directing landmark films such as
Taxi Driver,
Raging Bull and
Goodfellas; all of which he collaborated on with actor
Robert De Niro . He earned an MFA in film directing from
NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
Childhood
Martin Scorsese was born in New York City. His father, Luciano
Charles Scorsese (1913–1993), and mother,
Catherine Scorsese (
née Cappa; 1912–1997), both worked in New York's
Garment District, his father as a clothes presser and his mother as a seamstress. As a boy his father would often take him to the cinema to view films. One of scorsese's biggest influences was Alfred Hitchcock. It was at this stage in his life that he developed his passion for cinema. Scorsese developed an admiration for neo-realist cinema. He recounted its influence in a documentary on
Italian neorealism, and commented on how
The Bicycle Thief inspired him and how this influenced his view or portrayal of his Sicilian heritage. His initial desire to become a
priest was forsaken for cinema the
seminary traded for
NYU Film School, where he received his MFA in film directing in 1969.
Early career
Although the Vietnam War had started at the time, Scorsese was able to avoid military service. He attended
New York University's film school (
B.A., English, 1964;
M.F.A., film, 1966) making the short films
What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963) and
It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964). His most famous short of the period is the darkly comic
The Big Shave (1967), which featured an unnamed man who shaves himself until profusely bleeding, ultimately slitting his own throat with his razor. The film is an indictment of America's involvement in
Vietnam, suggested by its alternative title
Viet '67.
Also in 1967, Scorsese made his first feature-length film, the black and white
Who's That Knocking at My Door with fellow student, actor
Harvey Keitel, and editor
Thelma Schoonmaker both of whom were to become long-term collaborators.
This film was a precursor to his later
Mean Streets. Even in embryonic form, the "Scorsese style" was already evident: a feel for New York Italian American street-life, rapid editing, an eclectic rock soundtrack, and a troubled male protagonist.
1970s
From there he became a friend and acquaintance of the so-called "movie brats" of the 1970s:
Francis Ford Coppola,
Brian De Palma,
George Lucas, and
Steven Spielberg. It was De Palma who introduced actor
Robert De Niro to Scorsese, and the two figures became close friends, working together on many projects. During this period the director worked as one of the editors on the movie
Woodstock and met actor-director
John Cassavetes, who would also go on to become a close friend and mentor.
Mean Streets
In 1972 Scorsese made the
Depression-era gangster film
Boxcar Bertha for
B-movie producer
Roger Corman, who had also helped directors such as
Francis Ford Coppola,
James Cameron, and
John Sayles launch their careers. While it's widely considered a minor work,
Boxcar Bertha nonetheless taught Scorsese how to make films cheaply and quickly, preparing him for his first film with De Niro,
Mean Streets.
Championed by influential movie critic
Pauline Kael,
Mean Streets was a breakthrough for Scorsese, De Niro, and Keitel. By now the signature Scorsese style was in place: macho posturing, bloody violence, Catholic guilt and redemption, gritty New York locale, rapid-fire editing, and a rock soundtrack. Although the film was innovative, its wired atmosphere, edgy documentary style, and gritty street-level direction owed a debt to directors Cassavetes and early
Jean-Luc Godard. (Indeed the film was completed with much encouragement from Cassavetes, who felt
Boxcar Bertha was undeserving of the young director's prodigious talent.) point of view shots and
slow motion to reflect the protagonist's heightened psychological awareness. However
Taxi Driver's immense power was due in part to
Robert De Niro's intense lead performance. The film co-starred
Jodie Foster in a highly controversial role as an underage prostitute, and
Harvey Keitel as her
pimp, "Sport" Matthew.
Taxi Driver also marked the start of a series of collaborations with writer
Paul Schrader. The film bears strong thematic links to (and makes several allusions to) the work of French director
Robert Bresson, most explicitly
Pickpocket (in essence the "diary" of a loner/obsessive who finds redemption). Writer/director Schrader often returns to Bresson's work in films such as
American Gigolo,
Light Sleeper, and Scorsese's later
Bringing Out the Dead.
Already controversial upon its release,
Taxi Driver hit the headlines again five years later, when
John Hinckley, Jr., made an assassination attempt on then-President
Ronald Reagan. He subsequently blamed his act on his obsession with Jodie Foster's
Taxi Driver character (in the film, De Niro's character,
Travis Bickle, makes an assassination attempt on a senator).
Taxi Driver won the
Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes film festival, also receiving four
Oscar nominations, including
Best Picture, although all were unsuccessful.
Scorsese was subsequently offered the role of
Charles Manson in the movie
Helter Skelter and a part in
Sam Fuller's war movie
The Big Red One, but he turned both down. However he did accept the role of a gangster in exploitation movie
Cannonball directed by
Paul Bartel. In this period there were also several directorial projects that never got off the ground including
Haunted Summer, about
Mary Shelley and a film with
Marlon Brando about the Indian massacre at
Wounded Knee.
New York, New York and The Last Waltz
The critical success of
Taxi Driver encouraged Scorsese to move ahead with his first big-budget project: the highly stylized musical
New York, New York. This tribute to Scorsese's home town and the classic Hollywood
musical was a box-office and critical failure.
New York, New York was the director's third collaboration with Robert De Niro, co-starring with
Liza Minnelli (a tribute and allusion to her father, legendary musical director
Vincente Minnelli). The film is best remembered today for the title theme song, which was popularized by
Frank Sinatra. Although possessing Scorsese's usual visual panache and stylistic bravura, many critics felt its enclosed studio-bound atmosphere left it leaden in comparison to his earlier work. Often overlooked, it remains one of the director's early key studies in male paranoia and insecurity (and hence is in direct thematic lineage with
Mean Streets,
Taxi Driver, as well as the later
Raging Bull and
The Departed).
The disappointing reception
New York, New York received drove Scorsese into
depression. By this stage the director had also developed a serious
cocaine addiction. However, he did find the creative drive to make the highly regarded
The Last Waltz, documenting the final concert by
The Band. It was held at the
Winterland Ballroom in
San Francisco, and featured one of the most extensive lineups of prominent guest performers at a single concert, including
Eric Clapton,
Neil Young,
Neil Diamond,
Ringo Starr,
Muddy Waters,
Joni Mitchell,
Bob Dylan,
Paul Butterfield,
Ronnie Wood and
Van Morrison. However, Scorsese's commitments to other projects delayed the release of the film until 1978. Another Scorsese-directed documentary entitled
American Boy also appeared in 1978 focusing on Steve Prince, the cocky gun salesman who appeared in
Taxi Driver. A period of wild partying followed, damaging the director's already fragile health.
1980s
Raging Bull
By several accounts (Scorsese's included),
Robert De Niro practically saved Scorsese's life when he persuaded Scorsese to kick his cocaine addiction to make what many consider his greatest film,
Raging Bull (1980). Convinced that he'd never make another movie, he poured his energies into making this violent biopic of middleweight boxing champion
Jake La Motta, calling it a
Kamikaze method of film-making. The film is widely viewed as a masterpiece and was voted the greatest film of the 1980s by Britain's
Sight & Sound magazine. It received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture,
Best Actor for Robert De Niro, and Scorsese's first for
Best Director. De Niro won, as did
Thelma Schoonmaker for editing, but best director went to
Robert Redford for
Ordinary People.
Raging Bull, filmed in high contrast
black and white, is where the director's style reached its zenith:
Taxi Driver and
New York, New York had used elements of
expressionism to replicate psychological point of view, but here the style was taken to new extremes, employing extensive slow-motion, complex tracking shots, and extravagant distortion of perspective (for example, the size of boxing rings would change from fight to fight). Thematically too, the concerns carried on from
Mean Streets and
Taxi Driver: insecure males, violence, guilt, and redemption.
Although the screenplay for
Raging Bull was credited to Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin (who earlier co-wrote
Mean Streets), the finished script differed extensively from Schrader's original draft. It was re-written several times by various writers including
Jay Cocks (who went on to co-script later Scorsese films
The Age of Innocence and
Gangs of New York). The final draft was largely written by Scorsese and Robert De Niro.
The King of Comedy
Scorsese's next project was his fifth collaboration with Robert De Niro,
The King of Comedy (1983). An absurdist satire on the world of media and celebrity, it was an obvious departure from the more emotionally committed films he'd become associated with. Visually too it was far less kinetic than the style the director had developed up until this point, often using a static camera and long takes. The expressionism of his recent work here gave way to moments of almost total
surrealism. However it was still an obvious Scorsese work, and apart from the New York locale, it bore many similarities to
Taxi Driver, not least of which was its focus on an obsessed troubled loner who ironically achieves iconic status through a criminal act (murder and kidnapping, respectively).
The King of Comedy failed at the box office but has become increasingly well regarded by critics in the years since its release. It is arguable that its themes of vacuous show business and celebrity obsession are more pertinent today than when the film was originally released. German director
Wim Wenders numbered it among his fifteen favourite films.
Next Scorsese made a brief
cameo appearance in the movie
Pavlova: A Woman for All Time, originally intended to be directed by one of his heroes,
Michael Powell. This led to a more significant role in
Bertrand Tavernier's
jazz movie
Round Midnight.
In 1983 Scorsese began work on a long-cherished personal project,
The Last Temptation of Christ, based on the
1951 book written by
Nikos Kazantzakis (who was introduced to the director by actress
Barbara Hershey when they were both attending
New York University in the late 1960s). The movie was slated to shoot under the
Paramount Pictures banner, but shortly before principal photography was to commence, Paramount pulled the plug on the project, citing pressure from religious groups. In this aborted 1983 version,
Aidan Quinn was cast as
Jesus, and
Sting was cast as
Pontius Pilate. (In the 1988 version, these roles were played respectively by
Willem Dafoe and
David Bowie.)
After Hours
After the collapse of this project Scorsese again saw his career at a critical point, as he described in the recent documentary
Filming for Your Life: Making 'After Hours' (2004). He saw that in the increasingly commercial world of 1980s Hollywood the highly stylized and personal 1970s films he and others had built their careers on wouldn't continue to enjoy the same status, and decided on an almost totally new approach to his work. With
After Hours (1985) he made an aesthetic shift back to a pared-down, almost "underground" film-making style — his way of staying viable. Filmed on an extremely low budget, on location, and at night in the
SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, the film is a black comedy about one increasingly misfortunate night for a mild New York word processor (
Griffin Dunne) and featured cameos by such disparate actors as
Teri Garr and
Cheech and Chong. A bit of a stylistic anomaly for Scorsese,
After Hours fits in well with popular low-budget "cult" films of the 1980s, for example
Jonathan Demme's
Something Wild and
Alex Cox's
Repo Man.
The Color of Money
Along with the iconic 1987
Michael Jackson music video Bad, in 1986 Scorsese made
The Color of Money, a sequel to the much admired
Paul Newman film
The Hustler (1960). (
The Hustler was directed by
Robert Rossen, whose 1940s boxing film
Body and Soul was a major influence on
Raging Bull.) Although typically visually assured,
The Color of Money was the director's first foray into
mainstream commercial film-making. It won actor Paul Newman a belated Oscar and gave Scorsese the clout to finally secure backing for a project that had been a long time goal for him:
The Last Temptation of Christ. He also made a brief venture into television, directing an episode of
Steven Spielberg's
Amazing Stories.
The Last Temptation of Christ
After his mid-80s flirtation with commercial Hollywood, Scorsese made a major return to personal film-making with the
Paul Schrader-scripted
The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Based on
Nikos Kazantzakis's controversial 1951 book, it retold the life of
Christ in human rather than divine terms. Even prior to its release the film caused a massive furore, worldwide protests against its perceived
blasphemy effectively turning a low budget independent movie into a media sensation. Most controversy centered on the final passages of the film which depicted Christ marrying and raising a family with
Mary Magdalene in a
Satan-induced
hallucination while on the cross.
Looking past the controversy,
The Last Temptation of Christ gained critical acclaim and remains an important work in Scorsese's canon: an explicit attempt to wrestle with the spirituality which had under-pinned his films up until that point. The director went on to receive his second nomination for a Best Director Academy Award (again unsuccessfully, this time losing to Barry Levinson for
Rain Man).
Along with directors
Woody Allen and
Francis Coppola, in 1989 Scorsese provided one of three segments in the portmanteau film
New York Stories, called "Life Lessons".
1990s
Goodfellas
After a decade of mostly mixed results, gangster epic
Goodfellas (1990) was a return to form for Scorsese and his most confident and fully realized film since
Raging Bull. A return to Little Italy, De Niro, and Joe Pesci,
Goodfellas offered a virtuoso display of the director's bravura cinematic technique and re-established, enhanced, and consolidated his reputation. The film is widely considered one of the director's greatest achievements.
However,
Goodfellas also signified an important shift in tone in the director's work, inaugurating an era in his career which was technically accomplished but some have argued emotionally detached. Despite this, many view
Goodfellas as a Scorsese
archetype — the apogee of his cinematic technique.
Scorsese earned his third Best Director nomination for
Goodfellas but again lost to a first-time director,
Kevin Costner (
Dances with Wolves). The film also earned
Joe Pesci an Academy Award (Best Supporting Actor)
In 1990, he acted in a cameo role as
Vincent Van Gogh in the film
Dreams by legendary Japanese director
Akira Kurosawa.
Cape Fear
1991 brought
Cape Fear, a remake of a cult
1962 movie of the same name, and the director's seventh collaboration with De Niro. Another foray in to the mainstream, the film was a stylized
Grand Guignol thriller taking its cues heavily from
Alfred Hitchcock and
Charles Laughton's
The Night of the Hunter (1955).
Cape Fear received a mixed critical reception and was lambasted in many quarters for its scenes depicting
misogynistic violence. However, the lurid subject matter did give Scorsese a chance to experiment with a dazzling array of visual tricks and effects. The film garnered two Oscar nominations. Earning eighty million dollars domestically, it would stand as Scorsese's most commercially successful release until
The Aviator (2004), and then
The Departed (2006). The film also marked the first time Scorsese used wide-screen Panavision with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.
The Age of Innocence
The opulent and handsomely mounted
The Age of Innocence (1993) was on the surface a huge departure for Scorsese, a period adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about the constrictive high society of late-19th Century New York. It was highly lauded by critics upon original release, but was a box office bomb. As noted in
Scorsese on Scorsese by editor/interviewer Ian Christie, the news that Scorsese wanted to make a film about a 19th Century failed romance raised many eyebrows among the film fraternity all the more when Scorsese made it clear that it was a personal project and not a studio for-hire job.
Scorsese was interested in doing a "romantic piece". His friend,
Jay Cocks gave him the Wharton novel in 1980, suggesting that this should be the romantic piece Scorsese should film as Cocks felt it best represented his sensibility. In
Scorsese on Scorsese he noted that:
» :
"Although the film deals with New York aristocracy and a period of New York history that has been neglected, and although it deals with code and ritual, and with love that's not unrequited but unconsummated - which pretty much covers all the themes I usually deal with - when I read the book, I didn't say, 'Oh good, all those themes are here.'"
Scorsese who was strongly drawn to the characters and the story of Wharton's text, wanted his film to be as rich an emotional experience as the book was to him rather than the traditional academic theatrical film adaptations of literary works. To this aim, Scorsese sought influence from diverse period films which made an emotional impact on him. In
Scorsese on Scorsese, he documents influences from films such as
Luchino Visconti's
Senso and his
Il Gattopardo as well as
Orson Welles's
The Magnificent Ambersons and also
Roberto Rossellini's
La Prise de Pouvoir par Louis XIV. Although
The Age of Innocence was ultimately different than these films in terms of narrative, story and thematic concern, the presence of a lost society, of lost values as well as detailed re-creations of social customs and rituals continues the tradition of these films.
Recently, it has started to come back into the public eye, especially in countries such as the UK and France, but still is largely neglected in North America. The film earned five Academy Award nominations (including for Scorsese for Best Adapted Screenplay), winning the Costume Design Oscar. It also made a significant impact on directors such as Chinese auteur
Tian Zhuangzhuang,
(External Link
) and British film-maker
Terence Davies (External Link) both of whom ranked it among their ten favourite films.
This was his first collaboration with the Academy Award winning actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, with whom he'd work again in
Gangs of New York.
Casino
1995's expansive
Casino, like
The Age of Innocence before it, focused on a tightly wound male whose well-ordered life is disrupted by the arrival of unpredictable forces. The fact that it was a violent gangster film made it more palatable to fans of the director who perhaps were baffled by the apparent departure of the earlier film. Critically, however,
Casino received mixed notices. In large part this was due to its huge stylistic similarities to his earlier
Goodfellas. Indeed many of the tropes and tricks of the earlier film resurfaced more or less intact, most obviously the casting of Joe Pesci as an unbridled psychopath.
Casino was by some considerable distance perhaps Scorsese's most violent and detached film, its early establishing scenes verging on documentary.
Sharon Stone was nominated for the
Best Actress Academy Award for her performance.
A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
Scorsese still found time for a four hour documentary in 1995 offering a thorough trek through American cinema. It covered the silent era to 1969, a year after which Scorsese began his feature career, stating "I wouldn't feel right commenting on myself or my contemporaries."
Kundun
If
The Age of Innocence alienated and confused some fans, then
Kundun (1997) went several steps further, offering an account of the early life of
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, the
People's Liberation Army's entering of
Tibet, and the Dalai Lama's subsequent exile to India. Not least a departure in subject matter,
Kundun also saw Scorsese employing a fresh narrative and visual approach. Traditional dramatic devices were substituted for a trance-like meditation achieved through an elaborate
tableau of colourful visual images.
The film was a source of turmoil for its distributor, Disney, who were planning significant expansion into the Chinese market at the time. Initially defiant in the face of pressure from Chinese officials, Disney has since distanced itself from the project, hurting
Kundun's commercial profile.
In the short term, the sheer eclecticism in evidence enhanced the director's reputation. In the long term however, it generally appears
Kundun has been sidelined in most critical appraisals of the director, mostly noted as a stylistic and thematic detour.
Kundun was the director's second attempt to profile the life of a great religious leader, following
The Last Temptation of Christ.
Bringing Out the Dead
Bringing Out the Dead (1999) was a return to familiar territory, with the director and writer Paul Schrader constructing a pitch-black comic take on their own earlier
Taxi Driver. Like previous Scorsese-Schrader collaborations, its final scenes of spiritual redemption explicitly recalled the films of Robert Bresson. (It's also worth noting that the film's incident-filled nocturnal setting is reminiscent of
After Hours.) It received generally positive reviews, although not the universal critical acclaim of some of his other films.
2000s
Gangs of New York
In 1999 Scorsese also produced a documentary on Italian filmmakers entitled
Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, also known as
My Voyage to Italy. The documentary foreshadowed the director's next project, the epic
Gangs of New York (2002), influenced by (amongst many others) major Italian directors such as
Luchino Visconti and filmed in its entirety at
Rome's famous
Cinecittà film studios.
With a production budget said to be in excess of $100 million,
Gangs of New York was Scorsese's biggest and arguably most mainstream venture to date. Like
The Age of Innocence, it was a 19th century-set New York movie, although focusing on the other end of the social scale (and like that film, also starring
Daniel Day-Lewis). The production was highly troubled with many rumors referring to the director's conflict with
Miramax boss
Harvey Weinstein. Despite denials of artistic compromise,
Gangs of New York revealed itself to be the director's most conventional film: standard film tropes which the director had traditionally avoided, such as characters existing purely for
exposition purposes and explanatory
flashbacks, here surfaced in abundance. The original score composed by regular Scorsese collaborator
Elmer Bernstein was rejected at a late stage for a more conventional score by
Howard Shore and mainstream rock artists
U2 and Peter Gabriel (making commercial, if little historic or contextual sense). The final cut of the movie ran to 168 minutes, while the director's original cut was over 180 minutes in length.
Gangs of New York earned Scorsese his first Golden Globe for Best Director. In February 2003,
Gangs of New York received ten
Academy Award nominations, including
Best Picture,
Best Director, and
Best Actor for
Daniel Day-Lewis. This was Scorsese's fourth Best Director nomination, and many thought it was finally his year to win. Ultimately, however, the film took home not a single Academy Award, and Scorsese lost his category to
Roman Polanski for
The Pianist.
2003 also saw the release of
The Blues, an expansive seven part documentary tracing the history of blues music from its African roots to the Mississippi Delta and beyond. Seven film-makers including
Wim Wenders,
Clint Eastwood,
Mike Figgis, and Scorsese himself each contributed a 90 minute film (Scorsese's entry was entitled “Feel Like Going Home”).
Scorsese also had uncredited involvement as executive director with the 2002 film
Deuces Wild, written Paul Kimatian.
The Aviator
Scorsese's film
The Aviator (2004), was a lavish, large-scale
biopic of director, producer, legendary eccentric, multi-millionaire, and aviation pioneer
Howard Hughes. The film received highly positive reviews, The film also met with widespread box office success and gained Academy recognition.
The Aviator was nominated for six Golden Globe awards, including
Best Picture - Drama,
Best Director,
Best Screenplay, and
Best Actor - Drama for
Leonardo DiCaprio. It won three, including
Best Picture and Best Actor- Drama In January 2005,
The Aviator became the most-nominated film of the 77th Academy Award nominations, nominated in 11 categories including Best Picture. The film also garnered nominations in nearly all of the other major categories, including a fifth
Best Director nomination for Scorsese, Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actress (
Cate Blanchett), and
Alan Alda for Best Supporting Actor. Despite having a leading tally, the film ended up with only five Oscars: Best Supporting Actress, Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing and Cinematography. Scorsese lost again, this time to director
Clint Eastwood for
Million Dollar Baby (which also won Best Picture).
No Direction Home
No Direction Home is a
documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of
Bob Dylan, and his impact on American popular music and culture of the 20th century. The film doesn't cover Dylan's entire career; rather, it focuses on his beginnings, his rise to fame in the 1960s, his then-
controversial transformation from an acoustic guitar-based musician and performer to an electric guitar-influenced sound and his "retirement" from touring in 1966 following an infamous motorcycle accident.
The film was first presented on television in both the
United States (as part of the
PBS American Masters series) and the
United Kingdom (as part of the
BBC Two Arena series) on
September 26–
27 2005. A
DVD version of the film was released that same month.
The film won a Peabody award. In addition, Scorsese received an
Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming.
The Departed
Scorsese returned to the crime genre with the Boston-set thriller
The Departed, based on the Hong Kong police drama
Infernal Affairs. The film reunited the director with
Leonardo DiCaprio, an actor he's worked with for three consecutive projects.
The Departed also brought Scorsese together with
Jack Nicholson.
The Departed opened to widespread critical acclaim with some proclaiming it as one of the best efforts Scorsese had brought to the screen since 1990's
Goodfellas, and still others putting it at the same level as Scorsese's most celebrated classics
Taxi Driver and
Raging Bull.
With domestic box office receipts surpassing $129,402,536,
The Departed is Scorsese's highest grossing film (not accounting for inflation).
Martin Scorsese's direction of
The Departed earned him his second Golden Globe for Best Director, as well as a Critic's Choice Award, his first Director's Guild of America Award, and the
Academy Award for Best Director. The latter was thought to be long overdue, and some entertainment critics subsequently referred to it as Scorsese's "Lifetime Achievement" Oscar. It was presented to him by his longtime friends and colleagues
Steven Spielberg,
Francis Ford Coppola, and
George Lucas, all fellow members of the
New Hollywood generation.
The Departed also received the Academy Award for the Best Motion Picture of 2006, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing by longtime Scorsese editor
Thelma Schoonmaker, her third win for a Scorsese film.
Shine a Light
Shine a Light is a concert film of
rock and roll band
The Rolling Stones' performances at
New York City's Beacon Theater on
October 29 and
November 1, 2006, intercut with brief news and interview footage from throughout the band's career.
The film was initially scheduled for release on
September 21,
2007, but
Paramount Classics postponed its general release until April 2008. Its world premiere was at the opening of the 58th
Berlinale Film Festival on
February 7,
2008.
Ashecliffe
On
October 22,
2007, the
Daily Variety reported that Scorsese will reunite with
Leonardo DiCaprio on a fourth picture,
Ashecliffe. Principal photography on the Laeta Kalogridis screenplay, based on the novel
Shutter Island by
Dennis Lehane, began in
Massachusetts in March 2008.
In December 2007, actors
Mark Ruffalo,
Ben Kingsley, and
Michelle Williams joined the cast. The film is slated to be released on
October 2,
2009.
References in other media
- In an episode of American Dad! titled "The Best Christmas Story Never", Stan convinces Scorsese to stop taking drugs in the 70s, causing Scorsese not to make the film Taxi Driver, leading to an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union had conquered the United States.
- In an episode of The Simpsons titled A Star Is Burns, Marge Simpson crosses out Scorsese's name as a film critic at the Springfield Film Festival in favor of Homer.
- The band King Missile included on its 1992 album Happy Hour a song entitled "Martin Scorsese", in which lead singer John S. Hall assumes the persona of a demented Scorsese obsessive who wishes to express his appreciation of the director's work by savagely assaulting him.
- In the 1990s animated TV show Animaniacs, the Goodfeathers, a gang of pigeons based on the three main characters in the film Goodfellas, hang out at a statue of the director.
- In an episode of the HBO series The Sopranos, Christopher Moltisanti sees Scorsese (an actor portraying Scorsese) going into a club and yells out at him "Hey! Marty! Kundun! I liked it!"
- Scorsese appears as himself in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes "The Special Section" and "Krazee Eyez Killa".
- In 2007, Scorsese was listed among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.
- Scorsese appeared in a series of American Express commercials as a director.
- Scorsese directed two commercials for Armani in the 80s. They were not seen in the US.
- In August 2007 Scorsese was named the 2nd greatest director of all time in a poll by Total Film magazine, in front of Steven Spielberg and behind Alfred Hitchcock.
Director trademarks
Begins his films with segments taken from the middle or end of the story. Examples include Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), and The Last Waltz (where the first song performed was actually the concert's encore).
Frequent use of slow motion, for example Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull.
His lead characters are often sociopathic and/or want to be accepted in society.
His blonde leading ladies are usually seen through the eyes of the protagonist as angelic and ethereal; they always wear white in their first scene and are photographed in slow-motion (Cybill Shepherd in Taxi Driver; Cathy Moriarty's white bikini in Raging Bull; Sharon Stone's white minidress in Casino). This may possibly be a nod to director Alfred Hitchcock.
Often uses long tracking shots.
Use of montage sequences involving aggressive camera movement and rapid editing, set to popular music.
Often has a quick cameo in his films (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Last Temptation of Christ (albeit hidden under a hood), The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York). Also, often contributes his voice to a film without showing his face on screen. E.g., provides the opening voice-over narration in Mean Streets and The Color of Money; plays the off-screen dressing room attendant in the final scene of Raging Bull; provides the voice of the unseen ambulance dispatcher in Bringing out the Dead.
Frequently uses New York city as the main setting in his films, eg. Gangs of New York, Taxi Driver, The Age of Innocence, After Hours, New York, New York.
Sometimes highlights characters in a scene with an iris, an homage to 1920s silent film cinema (as most scenes at the time used this transition). This effect can be seen in Casino (it is used on Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci), Life Lessons, and The Departed (on Matt Damon).
Some of his films include references/allusions to classic Westerns particularly Shane and The Searchers.
More recently, his films have featured corrupt authority figures, such as policemen in The Departed and politicians in Gangs of New York and The Aviator.
Scorsese's Circle
Scorsese has been known to cast the same actors in his films, particularly Robert De Niro, who collaborated with Scorsese for 8 films. Included are the three films that made the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list. Though a majority of critics cite Raging Bull to be De Niro's best performance, Scorsese has often stated that he thought Robert De Niro's best work under his direction was Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy. Most recently, Scorsese has found a new muse with young actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who he's collaborated for three films, with others in the works. ) Several critics have compared Scorsese's new partnership with DiCaprio with his previous one with De Niro. Other frequent collaborators include Harvey Keitel (5), Joe Pesci (3), Frank Vincent (3), and Verna Bloom (3). Scorsese has also collaborated twice with the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who had become very reclusive to the Hollywood scene. Before their deaths, Scorese's parents, Charles and Catherine, would be given bit parts, walk-ons, or supporting roles.
For his crew, Scorsese frequently worked with editor Thelma Schoonmaker, cinematographers Michael Ballhaus and Robert Richardson, costume designer Sandy Powell, production designer Dante Ferretti, and composers Elmer Bernstein and Howard Shore. Schoonmaker, Richardson, Powell, and Ferretti have all won Academy Awards in their respective categories due to their collaborations with Scorsese. Elaine and Saul Bass, the latter being Hitchcock's title designer of choice, have designed the opening credits for Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, Casino and Cape Fear.
Personal life
Scorsese has been married to Helen Morris since 1999; she's his fifth wife. They have a daughter, Francesca, who appeared in The Departed and The Aviator.
He has a daughter, Catherine, from his first marriage to Laraine Brennan, and a daughter, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, who is an actress, from his second marriage to Julia Cameron. Scorsese was also married to actress Isabella Rossellini from 1979 to their divorce in 1982. He married producer Barbara De Fina in 1985; their marriage ended in divorce as well.
He is primarily based in New York City.
Awards and Recognitions
On September 11, 2007, the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors committee which recognizes career excellence and cultural influence named Scorsese as one of the honorees at the ceremony to be held on December 1.
At a ceremony in Paris, France, on January 5, 2005, Martin Scorsese was awarded the French Legion of Honor in recognition of his contribution to cinema.
In 2007 Scorsese won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed, which also won Best Picture.
Filmography (as director)
Selected filmography (as actor)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Martin Scorsese'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://martin_scorsese.totallyexplained.com">Martin Scorsese Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
