SCORSESE, Martin

Nationality: American. Born: Flushing, New York, 17 November 1942. Education: Cardinal Hayes High School, Bronx, 1956–60; New York University, B.A., 1964, M.A., 1966. Family: Married 1) Laraine Brennan, 1965 (divorced), one daughter; 2) Julia Cameron (divorced), one daughter; 3) Isabella Rossellini, 1979 (divorced 1983); 4) Barbara DeFina, 1985. Career: Film Instructor, NYU, 1968–70; directed TV commercials in England, and first feature, Who's That Knocking at My Door?, 1968; directed Boxcar Bertha for producer Roger Corman, 1972; directed The Act on Broadway, 1977; director for TV of "Mirror, Mirror" for Amazing Stories, 1985; directed promo video for Michael Jackson's "Bad," 1987. Awards: Best Director, National Society of Film Critics, and Palme d'Or, Cannes Festival, for Taxi Driver, 1976; Best Director, National Society of Film Critics, for Raging Bull, 1980; Best Director, Cannes Festival, for The Color of Money, 1986; Best Director, National Society of Film Critics, for GoodFellas, 1990.

Films as Director:

1963

What's a Nice Girl like You Doing in a Place like This? (short) (+ sc)

1964

It's Not Just You, Murray (short) (+ co-sc)

1967

The Big Shave (short) (+ sc)

1968

Who's That Knocking at My Door? (+ sc, role as gangster)

1970

Street Scenes (doc)

1972

Boxcar Bertha (+ role as client of bordello)

1973

Mean Streets (+ co-sc, role as Shorty the Hit Man)

1974

Italian-American (doc) (+ co-sc)

1975

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (+ role as customer at Mel and Ruby's)

1976

Taxi Driver (+ role as passenger)

1977

New York, New York

1978

The Last Waltz (doc)

1979

American Boy (doc) (+ sc)

1980

Raging Bull

1983

The King of Comedy (+ role as assistant)

1985

After Hours (+ role as disco patron)

1986

The Color of Money

1988

The Last Temptation of Christ

1989

"Life Lessons" episode in New York Stories

1990

GoodFellas (+ sc); Man in Milan (doc)

1991

Cape Fear

1993

Age of Innocence (+ sc, role)

1995

Casino (+ sc)

1997

Kundun

1999

Bringing out the Dead; Il Dolce Cinema (+ sc)

2001

The Gangs of New York

2002

Dino

Other Films:

1965

Bring on the Dancing Girls (sc)

1967

I Call First (sc)

1970

Woodstock (ed, asst d)

1976

Cannonball (Bartel) (role)

1979

Hollywood's Wild Angel (Blackwood) (role); Medicine BallCaravan (assoc pr, post prod spvr)

1981

Triple Play (role)

1982

Bonjour Mr. Lewis (Benayoun) (role)

1990

Dreams (Kurosawa) (role); The Grifters (Frears) (pr); FearNo Evil (Winkler) (role); The Crew (Antonioni) (exec pr); Mad Dog and Glory (McNaughton) (exec pr)

1991

Guilty by Suspicion (role as Joe Lesser)

1993

Jonas in the Desert (role)

1994

Quiz Show (Redford) (role as sponsor); Naked in New York (exec pr)

1995

Search and Destroy (exec pr, role as accountant); Clockers (Lee) (pr)

Publications

By SCORSESE: books—

Scorsese on Scorsese, edited by Ian Christie and David Thompson, London, 1989.

Goodfellas, with Nicholas Pileggi, London, 1990.

The Age of Innocence: A Portrait of the Film Based on the Novel byEdith Wharton, New York, 1993.

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies, with Michael Henry Wilson, British Film Institute, 1997.

By SCORSESE: articles—

"The Filming of Mean Streets," an interview with A.C. Bobrow, in Filmmakers Newsletter (Ward Hill, Massachusetts), January 1974.

Interview with M. Carducci, in Millimeter (New York), vol. 3, no. 5, 1975.

Interview with M. Rosen, in Film Comment (New York), March/April 1975.

Martin Scorsese Seminar, in Dialogue on Film (Washington, D.C.), April 1975.

"Scorsese on Taxi Driver and Herrmann," an interview with C. Amata, in Focus on Film (London), Summer/Autumn 1976.

Interview with Jonathan Kaplan, in Film Comment (New York), July/August 1977.

Interview with Richard Combs and Louise Sweet, in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1977/78.

"Martin Scorsese's Guilty Pleasures," in Film Comment (New York), September/October 1978.

Interview with Paul Schrader, in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), April 1982.

Interview with B. Krohn, in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), May 1986.

"Body and Blood," an interview with Richard Corliss, in FilmCriticism (Meadville, Pennsylvania), vol. 24, no. 5, 1988.

Interview with Chris Hodenfield, in American Film (Washington, D.C.), March 1989.

"Entretien avec Martin Scorsese," with H. Niogret, in Positif (Paris), October 1990.

"Scorsese sur Scorsese," an interview with P. Rollet and others, in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), October 1990.

Interview with A. Decurtis, in Rolling Stone (New York), November 1, 1990.

"Martin Scorsese: Gangster and Priest," an interview with A. M. Bahiana, in Cinema Papers (Melbourne), December 1990.

Interview with David Rensin, in Playboy (Chicago, Illinois), April 1991.

Interviews with Graham Fuller, in Interview (New York), November 1991 and October 1993.

"Martin Scorsese's Mortal Sins," an interview with Marcelle Clements, in Esquire (New York), November 1993.

Interview with Gavin Smith, in Film Comment (New York), November/December 1993.

"A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies," an interview with Nicolas Saada, in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), June 1995.

"Ace in the Hole: Visualizing a Vintage Vegas," an interview with Stephen Pizzello and Ron Magid, in American Cinematographer (Hollywood), November 1995.

"Martin Scorsese's Testament: Bright Lights Big City," an interview with Ian Christie and Pat Kirkham, in Sight and Sound (London), January 1996.

Interview, in the Special Issue of Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), March 1996.

Interview with Jean-Pierre Coursodon and Michael Henry, in Positif (Paris), March 1996.

"Martin Scorsese's Calling: To Protect and Preserve Film Artists' Rights," an interview with Ted Elrick, in DGA Magazine (Los Angeles), March-April 1996.

"The Art of Vision: Martin Scorsese's Kundun," an interview with Gavin Smith, in Film Comment (New York), January-February 1998.

An interview with Hubert Niogret and Michael Henry, in Positif (Paris), May 1998.

On SCORSESE: books—

Kolker, Robert Phillip, A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick,Coppola, Scorsese, Altman, Oxford, 1980; revised edition, 1988.

Bliss, Michael, Martin Scorsese and Michael Cimino, Metuchen, New Jersey, 1986.

Arnold, Frank, and others, Martin Scorsese, Munich, 1986.

Cietat, Michel, Martin Scorsese, Paris, 1986.

Domecq, Jean-Philippe, Martin Scorsese: Un Rêve Italo-Américan, Renens, Switzerland, 1986.

Weiss, Ulli, Das Neue Hollywood: Francis Ford Coppola, StevenSpielberg, Martin Scorsese, Munich, 1986.

Wood, Robin, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan, New York, 1986.

Weiss, Marian, Martin Scorsese: A Guide to References and Resources, Boston, 1987.

Kelly, Mary P., Martin Scorsese: A Journey, New York, 1991.

Ehrenstein, David, The Scorsese Picture: The Art and Life of MartinScorsese, New York, 1992.

Keyser, Lester J., Martin Scorsese, New York, 1992.

Connelly, Marie K., Martin Scorsese: An Analysis of His FeatureFilms, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1993.

Friedman, Lawrence S., The Cinema of Martin Scorsese, New York, 1998.

On SCORSESE: articles—

Gardner, P. "Martin Scorsese," in Action (Los Angeles), May/June 1975.

Scorsese Section of Positif (Paris), April 1980.

"Martin Scorsese vu par Michael Powell," in Positif (Paris), April 1981.

Rickey, C., "Marty," in American Film (Washington, D.C.), November 1982.

Rafferty, T., "Martin Scorsese's Still Life," in Sight and Sound (London), Summer 1983.

Braudy, Leo, "The Sacraments of Genre: Coppola, De Palma, Scorsese," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Spring 1986.

Bruce, B., "Martin Scorsese: Five Films," in Movie (London), Winter 1986.

"Scorsese Issue" of Film Comment (New York), September/October 1988.

Jenkins, Steve, "From the Pit of Hell," in Monthly Film Bulletin (London), December 1988.

Williams, T., "The Last Temptation of Christ: A Fragmented Oedipal Trajectory," in CineAction (Toronto), Winter/Spring 1990.

Morgan, D., "The Thriller in Scorsese," in Millimeter (New York), October 1991.

Biskind, Peter, "Slouching toward Hollywood," in Premiere (New York), November 1991.

Stanley, A., "From the Mean Streets to Charm School," in New YorkTimes, 28 June 1992.

Murphy, Kathleen, "Artist of the Beautiful," in Film Comment (New York), November/December 1993.

Schrader, Paul, "Paul Schrader on Martin Scorsese," in New Yorker, 21 March 1994.

Thurman, J., "Martin Scorsese's New York Story: An 1860s Town House for the Age of Innocence Director," in Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), April 1994.

Durgnat, Raymond, "Martin Scorsese: Between God and the Goodfellas," in Sight and Sound (London), June 1995.

Librach, Ronald S., "A Nice Little Irony: Life Lessons," in Literature/Film Quarterly (Salisbury), April 1996.

Blake, Richard A., "Redeemed in Blood: The Sacramental Universe of Martin Scorsese," in Journal of Popular Film and Television (Washington, D.C.), Spring 1996.

Sherlock, James, "Why Thelma Loves Martin. . . and Michael," in Cinema Papers (Fitzroy), December 1996.

At present, with regard to the Hollywood cinema of the last fifteen years, two directors appear to stand head-and-shoulders above the rest, and it is possible to make large claims for their work on both formal and thematic grounds: Scorsese and Cimino. The work of each is strongly rooted in the American and Hollywood past, yet is at the same time audacious and innovative. Cimino's work can be read as at once the culmination of the Ford/Hawks tradition and a radical rethinking of its premises; Scorsese's involves an equally drastic rethinking of the Hollywood genres, either combining them in such a way as to foreground their contradictions (western and horror film in Taxi Driver) or disconcertingly reversing the expectations they traditionally arouse (the musical in New York, New York, the boxing movie and "biopic" in Raging Bull). Both directors have further disconcerted audiences and critics alike in their radical deviations from the principles of classical narrative: hence Heaven's Gate is received by the American critical establishment with blank incomprehension and self-defensive ridicule, while Scorsese has been accused (by Andrew Sarris, among others) of lacking a sense of structure. Hollywood films are not expected to be innovative, difficult, and challenging, and must suffer the consequences of authentic originality (as opposed to the latest in fashionable chic that often passes for it).

The Cimino/Scorsese parallel ends at this shared tension between tradition and innovation. While Heaven's Gate can be read as the answer to (and equal of) Birth of a Nation, Scorsese has never ventured into the vast fresco of American epic, preferring to explore relatively small, limited subjects (with the exception of The Last Temptation of Christ), the wider significance of the films arising from the implications those subjects are made to reveal. He starts always from the concrete and specific—a character, a relationship: the vicissitudes in the careers and love-life of two musicians (New York, New York); the violent public and private life of a famous boxer (Raging Bull); the crazy aspirations of an obsessed nonentity (King of Comedy). In each case, the subject is remorselessly followed through to a point where it reveals and dramatizes the fundamental ideological tensions of our culture.

His early works are divided between self-confessedly personal works related to his own Italian-American background (Who's That Knocking at My Door?, Mean Streets) and genre movies (Boxcar Bertha, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore). The distinction was never absolute, and the later films effectively collapse it, tending to take as their starting point not only a specific character but a specific star: Robert De Niro. The Scorsese/De Niro relationship has proved one of the most fruitful director/star collaborations in the history of the cinema; its ramifications are extremely complex. De Niro's star image is central to this, poised as it is on the borderline between "star" and "actor"—the charismatic personality, the self-effacing impersonator of diverse characters. It is this ambiguity in the De Niro star persona that makes possible the ambiguity in the actor/director relationship: the degree to which Scorsese identifies with the characters De Niro plays, versus the degree to which he distances himself from them. It is this tension (communicated very directly to the spectator) between identification and repudiation that gives the films their uniquely disturbing quality.

Indeed, Scorsese is perhaps the only Hollywood director of consequence who has succeeded in sustaining the radical critique of American culture that developed in the 1970s through the Reagan era of retrenchment and recuperation. Scorsese probes the tensions within and between individuals until they reveal their fundamental, cultural nature. Few films have chronicled so painfully and abrasively as New York, New York the impossibility of successful heterosexual relations within a culture built upon sexual inequality. The conflicts arising out of the man's constant need for self-assertion and domination and the woman's bewildered alterations between rebellion and complexity are—owing to the peculiarities of the director/star/character/spectator relationship—simultaneously experienced and analysed.

Raging Bull goes much further in penetrating to the root causes of masculine aggression and violence, linking socially approved violence in the ring to socially disapproved violence outside it, violence against men to violence against women. It carries to its extreme that reversal of generic expectations so characteristic of Scorsese's work: a boxing melodrama/success story, it is the ultimate anti-Rocky; a filmed biography of a person still living, it flouts every unwritten rule of veneration for the protagonist, celebration of his achievements, triumph after tribulation, etc. Ostensibly an account of the life of Jake LaMotta, it amounts to a veritable case history of a paranoiac, and can perhaps only be fully understood through Freud. Most directly relevant to the film is Freud's assertion that every case of paranoia, without exception, has its roots in a repressed homosexual impulse; that the primary homosexual love-objects are likely to be father and brothers; that there are four "principle forms" of paranoia, each of which amounts to a denial of homosexual attraction (see the analysis of the Schreber case and its postscript). Raging Bull exemplifies all of this with startling (if perhaps largely inadvertent) thoroughness: all four of the "principle forms" are enacted in Scorsese's presentation of LaMotta, especially significant being the paranoid's projection of his repressed desires for men onto the woman he ostensibly loves. The film becomes nothing less than a statement about the disastrous consequences, for men and women alike, of the repression of bisexuality in our culture.

King of Comedy may seem at first sight a slighter work than its two predecessors, but its implications are no less radical and subversive: it is one of the most complete statements about the emotional and spiritual bankruptcy of patriarchal capitalism today that the cinema has given us. The symbolic Father (once incarnated in figures of mythic force, like Abraham Lincoln) is here revealed in his essential emptiness, loneliness, and inadequacy. The "children" (De Niro and Sandra Bernhard) behave in exemplary Oedipal fashion: he wants to be the father, she wants to screw the father. The film moves to twin climaxes. First, the father must be reduced to total impotence (to the point of actual immobility) in order to be loved; then Bernhard can croon to him "You're gonna love me/like nobody's loved me," and remove her clothes. Meanwhile, De Niro tapes his TV act which (exclusively concerned with childhood, his parents, self-depreciation) culminates in a joke about throwing up over his father's new shoes, the shoes he is (metaphorically) now standing in. We see ambivalence towards the father, the hatred-in-rivalry of "brother" and "sister," the son's need for paternal recognition (albeit in fantasy) before he can announce himself to the woman he (very dubiously) loves; and the irrelevance of the mother (a mere, intermittently intrusive, off-screen voice) to any "serious"—i.e., Oedipal patriarchal—concerns. Thus King of Comedy constitutes one of the most rigorous assaults we have on the structures of the patriarchal nuclear family and the impossible desires, fantasies, frustrations, and violence those structures generate: an assault, that is, on the fundamental premises of our culture.

Since 1990, Scorsese has made four films which, taken together, establish him definitively as the most important director currently working in Hollywood. GoodFellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, and Casino reveal an artist in total command of every aspect of his medium—narrative construction, mise-en-scène, editing, the direction of actors, set design, sound, music, etc. Obviously, he owes much to the faithful team he has built up over the years, each of whom deserves an individual appreciation; but there can be no doubt of Scorsese's overall control at every level, from the conceptual to the minutiae of execution, informed by his sense of the work as a totality to which every strand, every detail, contributes integrally. If the films continue to raise certain doubts, to prompt certain reservations, it is not on the level of realization, but on moral and philosophical grounds. Let it be said at once, however, that The Age of Innocence, which in advance seemed such an improbable project—provoking fears that it would not transcend the solid and worthy but fundamentally dull literary adaptations of James Ivory—is beyond all doubts and reservations a masterpiece of nuance and refinement, alive in its every moment.

The other three films all raise the much-debated issue of the presentation of violence. There seem to be two valid ways of presenting violence (as opposed to the violence as "fun" of Pulp Fiction, violence as "aestheticized ballet" of John Woo's films, or violence as "gross out" in the contemporary horror movie). One way is to refuse to show it, always locating it (by a movement of the camera or the actors) just off-screen (Lang in The Big Heat, Mizoguchi in Sansho Dayu), leaving our imaginations free to experience its horror: a method almost totally absent from modern Hollywood. The other is to make it as explicit, ugly, painful, and disturbing as possible so that it becomes quite impossible for anyone other than an advanced criminal psychotic to enjoy it. The latter is Scorsese's method, and he cannot be faulted for it in the recent work. It was still possible, perhaps, to get a certain "kick" out of the violence in Taxi Driver, because of our ambiguous relationship to the central character, but this is no longer true of the violence in GoodFellas or Casino. An essential characteristic of the later films is the rigorous distance Scorsese constructs between the audience and all the characters: identification, if it can be said to exist at all, flickers only sporadically—is always swiftly contradicted or heavily qualified.

Yet herein lies what is at least a potential problem of these films. One can analyze the ways in which this distance is constructed, especially through the increasing fracturing of the narrative line, the splitting of voice-over narration among different characters in both GoodFellas and Casino; but isn't alienation, for many of us, inherent in the characters themselves and the subject matter? Scorsese has insisted that the characters of Casino are "human beings": fair enough. But he seems to imply that if we cannot feel sympathetic to them we are somehow assuming an unwarranted moral superiority. One might retort (to take an extreme case—but the Pesci character is already pretty extreme) that Hitler and Albert Schweitzer were both "human beings": may we not at least discriminate between them? One can feel a certain compassion for the characters (even Joe Pesci) as people caught up in a process they think they can control but which really controls them; but can one say more for them than that?

Beyond that, though connected with it, is the films' increasing inflation: not merely their length (GoodFellas plays for almost twoand-a-half hours, Casino for almost three) but its accompanying sense of grandeur: for Scorsese, apparently, the grandeur of his subjects. One is invited to lament, respectively, the decline of the Mafia and of Las Vegas. But suppose one cannot see them, in the first place, in terms other than those of social disease? The films strike me as too insulated, too enclosed within their subjects and milieux: the Mafia and Las Vegas are never effectively "placed" in a wider social context. Scorsese's worst error seems to be the use in Casino of the final chorus from Bach's St. Matthew Passion: an error not merely of "tease" but of sense, comparable in its enormity to Cimino's use of the Mahler "Resurrection" symphony at the end of Year of the Dragon. If it is possible to lament the decline of Las Vegas, it surely cannot be inflated into the lament of Bach's cheer for the death of Christ on the cross.

One cannot doubt the authenticity of Scorsese's sense of the tragic. Yet it is difficult not to feel that he has not yet found for it (to adopt T. S. Eliot's famous formulation) an adequate "objective correlative."

Martin Scorsese began the 1990s on a high note with GoodFellas but as the decade progressed, he has lost the support of the critics and the public. Arguably, Scorsese hasn't tapered off as an artist; instead, the problem may be that his more recent films have failed to fulfill audience expectations. If so, it is somewhat ironic as Scorsese remains consistent in his thematic concerns and commitment to style as self expression.

Casino is admittedly a demanding film. Viewer identification isn't solicited and the film's violence is excessive but without the absurdist connotations found in GoodFellas. On the one hand, the film offers a portrait of the Robert De Niro character, a gambler who, through his connections with the Mafia, gets to manage a casino in Las Vegas during the late 1970s and early 1980s. But Casino is also an "epic" in that it reflects the growing power of corporations; realizing the money to be made, "respectable" business takes over Las Vegas. Not unlike his role in Raging Bull, De Niro's character succeeds ultimately to the extent that he survives. Scorsese's concern with surviving in a world that is violent, brutal, and overwhelmingly indifferent to the individual has been evident in his films from early on; but, in his more recent works, this concern is, if anything, treated with greater hesitation and delicacy.

Much has been made of Scorsese's Catholic background and its influence on his work. Kundun indicates that his interest in religion isn't confined to Christianity. Kundun can be taken as a companion piece to The Last Temptation of Christ; but it can be considered equally in relation to Casino and the recent Bringing out the Dead. Like Casino, Kundun is an epic film; and its protagonist is also made to confront his fallibility and mortality. In Kundun, the Dalai Lama gradually achieves full consciousness of the destructiveness existing around him; the realization is what motivates him to accept the necessity of his survival. But unlike Casino, the violence in Kundun is constrained; it exists as a threat that fitfully and devastatingly erupts. Kundun is one of Scorsese's most stylized films. Consistent with his aesthetics, the film is a combination of expressionism and realism, with the former given precedence. Although the film doesn't directly impose viewer identification with the Dalai Lama, Kundun repeatedly features the Dalai Lama's subjective responses. In effect, the film manages to be a simultaneously distancing and intimate experience. With Bringing out the Dead, Scorsese and Paul Schrader collaborated on a project that evokes their seminal Taxi Driver. Like the earlier film, Bringing out the Dead takes place on New York's "mean streets" and features a male protagonist who, in addition to having a job which places him in direct contact with the city's seamy side, harbors a martyrdom complex and wants to obtain salvation through becoming a savior figure. Th crucial difference between the two films resides in the character of the protagonist. Unlike Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle, the Nicolas Cage character in Bringing out the Dead is motivated by genuinely humanistic impulses. He wants, not unlike the Dalai Lama, to be a good person who is capable of actively preserving human life. The character undergoes a crisis regarding his worth; at the film's conclusion, he finds salvation through accepting his guilt over failure. As in Casino and Kundun, Bringing out the Dead is concerned fundamentally with the struggle between death and survival; and, like Casino, it is a brutal film. Although the film possesses an absurdist edge at times that suggests a black comedy, it is unrelenting in its capacity to disturb and horrify.

During the 1990s Scorsese produced works that have challenged the viewer as powerfully as any of his previous films. The films may have not found acceptance partly because his vision has become increasingly somber and elegiac. On the other hand, Scorsese refuses to despair and his films continue to be exhilarating and life affirming statements.

—Robin Wood, updated by Richard Lippe

Martin Scorsese

Born: November 17, 1942
Flushing, New York
American director and screenwriter

Martin Scorsese is a director and writer of highly personal films. While many of his works reflect his experience as an Italian American growing up in New York City, he has also made highly regarded movies of great works of literature.

His early years

Martin Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942, in Flushing, New York. He was the younger of two sons born to Charles and Catherine Scorsese of Sicilian descent. His father was a clothes presser, and his mother was a seamstress. Scorsese had asthma as a child, and he often spent time alone unable to participate in neighborhood activities. He was fascinated with movies and watched films on television, and his father took him to local theaters frequently while his healthier peers engaged in sports and more social activities. Scorsese was able to find in movies the thrills and excitement that did not exist for him in reality. At a young age he became an expert on the Hollywood movies of the 1940s and 1950s.

Originally, Scorsese wanted to become a priest. He attended a Catholic grade school and entered a junior seminary but left after one year. He then entered the Film School at New York University. Scorsese's It's Not Just You Murray! won the Producer's Guild Award for best student film in 1964. He also received awards for other short films that he made as an undergraduate.

Drew from own experience

After graduating, Scorsese remained at New York University as an instructor in basic film technique and criticism while beginning his career as a director. His first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door, was shown in 1969. It introduced the actor Harvey Keitel (1939–), who became a regular in Scorsese's works. The director also frequently casts his mother, Catherine, in his films, and Scorsese himself has acted in some as well.

Outraged by the killing of four Kent State student protesters of the Vietnam War (1960–75; a war in which the United States aided South Vietnam in an attempt to prevent a takeover by Communist North Vietnam), and of war in general, Scorsese and some of his students formed a group, the New York Cinetracks Collective, to film student protests against the conflict. The result was Street Scenes, shown at the 1970 New York Film Festival, which called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam as well as an end to the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC; an organization that trains college students for the military) on all U.S. college campuses.

Moves to Hollywood

In the early 1970s Scorsese moved to Hollywood, in Los Angeles, California, and met the producer and director Roger Corman, who asked him to direct a sequel to his Bloody Mama. Instead, Scorsese directed Corman's Boxcar Bertha, a 1972 gangster film similar to Bonnie and Clyde. According to Ephraim Katz in The Film Encyclopedia, Boxcar Bertha "gave the young director the opportunity to work within the Hollywood system and paved the way to his phenomenal [extraordinary] rise in the coming years."

Next on the filmmaker's career path was a return to familiar turf in Mean Streets, a 1973 release about a young Italian American trying to get by in a tough environment. Emphasizing character development over plot, Mean Streets featured a style of quick cuts that Scorsese used in later works. It also marked the director's first creative pairing with the actor Robert De Niro (1943–), whom Scorsese had grown up with in the Little Italy section of New York City. Their work together evolved into one of the most successful director and actor partnerships in modern film.

Ventures into new areas

Scorsese also began directing documentaries (films that follow real people and real events) in the 1970s. These included Italianamerican, a profile of his parents released in 1974, and American Boy, a 1978 account of a friend who had immersed himself in the drug culture of the 1960s. He veered away from his usual movie themes with AliceDoesn't Live Here Anymore in 1975, a film about a widowed mother trying to find herself in Arizona. Scorsese followed with his first major hit, Taxi Driver (1976). Taxi Driver was awarded the International Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The director's nostalgic (remembering in a sentimental way) look at his city after World War II (1939–45; a war fought between the Axis power: Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies: England, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States), called New York, New York proved a critical failure in 1977, despite having the star power of Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli (1946–). Scorsese became depressed as well as physically ill and required hospitalization following the making of this film.

Scorsese returned to documentaries in the late 1970s by directing a film of the final concert of the rock group the Band entitled The Last Waltz. De Niro convinced Scorsese to direct Raging Bull, a saga of the boxer Jake LaMotta (1922–). The movie earned Scorsese the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director, as well as his first Academy Award nomination. Raging Bull was later named the best film of the decade in a movie critics' poll. The King of Comedy, a 1983 film about a failed comic who kidnaps a famous talk-show host, was one of Scorsese's less successful efforts. It featured Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis (1935–). Praises came his way again for his direction of After Hours, an unusual comedy about a mild-mannered New York City resident who gets involved in a series of late-night mishaps. Scorsese was honored with the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for this effort.

Box-office success greeted Scorsese's The Color of Money in 1986, a sequel to The Hustler starring Paul Newman (1925–). It represented one of Scorsese's few big-budget productions up to that time. Certain religious groups were outraged by his next release, 1988's The Last Temptation of Christ, which dealt with an alternative interpretation of Jesus' acceptance of his role on earth.

Scorsese returned to more familiar cinematic ground in 1990 with Goodfellas, a violent tale of Mafia (organized crime) hoodlums in New York City that earned him Best Director Awards from the National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics, and Los Angeles Film Critics.

Showed versatility with period piece

Scorsese surprised the film community by his filming of Age of Innocence, the Edith Wharton (1862–1937) novel set in nineteenth-century New York City. "I had the script in my mind for two years and wrote it in two and half weeks," Scorsese told the magazine Interview about the film in 1993. Richly produced and slowly paced, it resembled nothing in Scorsese's directorial past. However, Scorsese jumped back to modern times with a tale of greed and deception in Las Vegas with his 1995 release, Casino. Scorsese's next film, Kundun, the story of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama (1935–), was released in September 1997.

Scorsese showed his support of film history in 1990 by becoming president of the Film Foundation, an organization dedicated to film preservation. He has also been very active in promoting independent filmmakers. In 1994 became a member of the advisory board for the Independent Film Channel on cable television. The American Film Institute awarded Scorsese its 1997 Life Achievement Award. In the same year he was awarded the Wexner Prize for originality in the arts. In 2001, because of his efforts to preserve old films, Scorsese was honored as the first person to receive the award for preservation by the International Federation of Film Archives.

Scorsese has directed twenty feature films and documentaries spanning four decades. He has also written a number of screenplays since his first film was released in 1968. His work is often rooted in his life experience of an Italian American Catholic heritage. The director's success can be attributed to his keen insight into human nature and his ability to use that insight to create many of the film industry's most memorable characters.

For More Information

Brunette, Peter, ed. Martin Scorsese: Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999.

Dougan, Andy. Martin Scorsese. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.

Ehrenstein, David. The Scorsese Picture: The Art and Life of Martin Scorsese. New York: Carol Pub. Group, 1992.

Kelly, Mary Pat. Martin Scorsese: A Journey. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991.

Scorsese, Martin. Scorsese on Scorsese. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1990.

Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese (born 1942) is a director and writer of highly personal films about intense loners who struggle against their own inner demons and the violence of their urban environments. While many of his works reflect his experience as an Italian-American growing up in New York City, he has also made highly regarded movies of great works of literature and other stories.

Film director Martin Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942, in Flushing, New York to Charles, a clothes presser, and Catherine, a seamstress. They raised their son in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City. Plagued by severe asthma as a child, Scorsese was fascinated with movies. He watched films on television and attended local theaters frequently while his healthier peers engaged in sports and more social activities. After initially pursuing a career in the priesthood, Scorsese dropped out of the seminary after a year and entered the prestigious Film School at New York University. Scorsese's It's Not Just You Murray! won the Producer's Guild Award for best student film in 1964, and he also received awards for other film shorts that he made as an undergraduate.

Drew from Own Urban Experience

After graduating, Scorsese remained at New York University as an instructor in basic film technique and criticism while at the same time beginning his career as a director. His 1968 short film, The Big Shave, won Le Prix de L'Age d'Or at Ledoux's Festival of Experimental Cinema. Scorsese's first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door, was first screened in 1969. It was produced by Haig Moonigan, one of Scorsese's teachers at New York University. This strongly autobiographical film about an Italian-American youth also introduced the actor Harvey Keitel, who became a frequent participant in Scorsese's works. The director also frequently casts his mother, Catherine, in his films, and Scorsese himself has acted in some of his own films and those made by others.

Outraged by the killing of four Kent State Student protesters and the Vietnam War in general, Scorsese and some of his students formed the New York Cinetracts Collective in 1969 as a means to film student protests against the conflict. The result was Street Scenes, screened at the 1970 New York Film Festival, which called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam as well as an end to military ROTC activities on all U.S. college campuses.

Scorsese worked as a film editor before his directing career was established, most notably as a co-supervising editor of the documentary Woodstockin 1970. (Many years later his interest in music would lead him to direct a music video for pop legend Michael Jackson's "Bad.") He also had a brief stint with the CBS television unit covering Hubert Humphrey during the 1972 presidential election. In the early 1970s he moved to Hollywood and met the producer/ director Roger Corman, who asked him to direct a sequel to his Bloody Mama. Instead, Scorsese directed Corman's Boxcar Bertha, a 1972 gangster film somewhat resembling Bonnie and Clyde. According to Ephraim Katz in The Film Encyclopedia, Boxcar Bertha "gave the young director [Scorsese] the opportunity to work within the Hollywood system and paved the way to his phenomenal rise in the coming years."

Began Successful Collaboration with De Niro

Next on the filmmaker's career path was a return to familiar turf in Mean Streets, a 1973 release about a young Italian-American trying to get by in a low-life environment. Emphasizing character development over plot, Mean Streets featured a jumpy cinematic style of quick cuts that foreshad-owed Scorsese's later work Taxi Driver. It also marked the director's first creative pairing with the actor Robert De Niro, whom Scorsese had grown up with in Little Italy. Their partnership evolved into one of the most successful director/ actor collaborations in modern film. Years later in 1981, Taxi Driver gained some notoriety when John Hinckley, Jr. claimed that Jodie Foster's role in the film was his inspiration for trying to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.

Scorsese also began directing documentaries in the 1970s. These included Italianamerican, a profile of his parents released in 1974, and American Boy, a 1978 account of a friend who had immersed himself in the drug culture of the 1960s. He veered away from his usual movie themes with Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore in 1975, a film about a recently widowed mother trying to find herself. According to Leslie Halliwell in Halliwell's Film Guide, the New Yorker claimed the movie was "full of funny malice and breakneck vitality." Scorsese followed with his major hit, Taxi Driver, in which he returned to his usual urban setting. Halliwell called it an "unlovely but brilliant made film" that "haunts the mind and paints a most vivid picture of a hell on earth." Taxi Driver was awarded the International Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

The director's nostalgic look at his city after World War II called New York, New York proved a critical failure in 1977, despite having the star power of Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli. Halliwell said that it was "hampered by gross overlength, unattractive characters and a pessimistic plot." Scorsese became depressed as well as physically ill and required hospitalization following the making of this film. A failed marriage and drug problems further debilitated him. He returned to documentaries in the late 1970s by directing a film of The Band's final concert entitled The Last Waltz. Then he got back on track in feature films after De Niro convinced him to direct Raging Bull, a saga of the boxer Jake LaMotta. The movie earned Scorsese the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director, as well as his first Academy Award nomination. Raging Bull was later named the best film of the decade in a movie critics' poll.

King of Comedy, a 1983 film about a failed comic who kidnaps a famous talk-show host, was one of Scorsese's less successful efforts. In Partisan Review, Morris Dickstein called it "a pointless and irritating film with a few brilliant touches." Accolades came his way again, though, for his direction of After Hours, an unusual black comedy about a mild-mannered New York City resident who gets involved in a series of late-night mishaps. "A film so original, so particular, that one is uncertain from moment to moment exactly how to respond to it," said film critic Roger Ebert about the 1985 release, according to Halliwell's Film Guide. Scorsese was honored with the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for this effort.

Box-office success greeted Scorsese's The Color of Money in 1986, a sequel to The Hustler starring Paul Newman. It represented one of Scorsese's few big-budget productions up to that time. Certain religious groups were outraged by his next release, 1988's The Last Temptation of Christ, which dealt with an alternative interpretation of Jesus' acceptance of his role on earth. Although Variety as cited by Halliwell called Last Temptation "a film of challenging ideas," its pre-release notoriety and long running time hampered its success at the box office. Scorsese returned to more comfortable cinematic ground in 1990 with Goodfellas, a violent tale of Mafia hoodlums in New York City that earned him Best Director Awards from the National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics, and Los Angeles Film Critics.

Showed Versatility with Period Piece

After the 1991 release of his remake of Cape Fear, Scorsese surprised the film community by his filming of Age of Innocence, the Edith Wharton novel set in nineteenth-century New York City. "I had the script in my mind for two years and wrote it in two and half weeks, with Jay Cocks," Scorsese told Interview about the film in 1993. Lavishly produced and slowly paced, it resembled nothing in Scorsese's directorial past. It proved not to be a trend, however, as Scorsese jumped back to modern times with a tale of greed and deception in Las Vegas with his 1995 release, Casino.

Scorsese showed his support of film history in 1990 by becoming president of the Film Foundation, an organization dedicated to film preservation. He has also been very active in promoting independent film makers, and in 1994 became a member of the advisory board for the Independent Film Channel on cable television. On October 9, 1996, the American Film Institute announced that Scorsese would be awarded its 1997 Life Achievement Award, which he accepted on February 21, 1997. In addition, he received the prestigious Wexner Prize in March 1997, for originality in the arts. His next film, Kundun, the story of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was released in September 1997. A director of 20 feature films and documentaries, he has also written a number of screenplays since his first film was released in 1968. His steady output as a filmmaker is expected to continue into the twenty-first century.

Further Reading

Katz, Ephraim, The Film Encyclopedia, Harper & Row, 1979, p. 1028.

Halliwell, Leslie, Halliwell's Film Guide, 7th ed., Harper & Row, 1989, pp. 22, 135, 560, 584, 665, 723, 994-995.

Interview, October 1993, pp. 62-63, 135.

Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1997, p. F1.

New York Times, March 8, 1997, p. A13.

Partisan Review, 1994, pp. 658-664.

"http://www.msstate.edu/Movies/search.html," in Internet Movie Database, 1996. □

Scorsese, Martin (1942– ) US film director. His first major success was Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1975). Scorsese often casts Robert De Niro in leading roles, such as in Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983) Goodfellas (1990), and Cape Fear (1991). Other films include The Age of Innocence (1993) and Kundun (1997).