Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Italian American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, machismo, modern crime and violence. Scorsese is hailed as one of the significant and influential American filmmakers of the modern era, directing landmark films such as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas – all of which he collaborated on with actor and close friend Robert De Niro. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed.
Personal life
Martin Scorsese was born in New York City. His father, Charles Scorsese (1913–1993), and mother, Catherine Scorsese (born Cappa; 1912–97), both worked in New York's Garment District. His father was a clothes presser and an actor, and his mother was a seamstress and an actress. His father's parents emigrated from Polizzi Generosa, in the province of Palermo, Sicily. Scorsese was raised in a devoutly Catholic environment. As a boy, he had asthma and couldn't play sports or do any activities with other kids and so his parents and his older brother would often take him to movie theaters; it was at this stage in his life that he developed passion for cinema. Enamored of historical epics in his adolescence, at least two films of the genre, Land of the Pharaohs and El Cid, appear to have had a deep and lasting impact on his cinematic psyche. Scorsese also developed an admiration for neorealist cinema at this time. He recounted its influence in a documentary on Italian neorealism, and commented on how Bicycle Thieves alongside Paisà, Rome, Open City inspired him and how this influenced his view or portrayal of his Sicilian genes. In his documentary, Il Mio Viaggio in Italia,
Marriages and children
Scorsese has been married five times. His first wife was Laraine Marie Brennan; they have a daughter, Catherine. He married the writer Julia Cameron in 1976; they have a daughter, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, who is an actress and appeared in The Age of Innocence, but the marriage lasted only a year. The divorce was acrimonious and served as the basis of Cameron's first feature, the dark comedy, God's Will, which also starred their daughter, Domenica.Their daughter also had a small role in Cape Fear using the name Domenica Scorsese and has continued to act, write, direct and produce.
He was married to actress Isabella Rossellini from 1979 to their divorce in 1983. He then married producer Barbara De Fina in 1985; their marriage ended in divorce as well, in 1991. He has been married to Helen Morris since 1999; they have a daughter, Francesca, who appeared in The Departed and The Aviator. He is primarily based in New York City.
Career
Early career
Scorsese 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 features Peter Bernuth. The film is an indictment of America's involvement in Vietnam, suggested by its alternative title Viet '67. Scorsese has mentioned on several occasions that he was greatly inspired in his early days at New York University by his Armenian-American film professor Haig P. Manoogian.
Mean Streets
In 1972 Scorsese made the Depression-era exploiter 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. It was Corman who taught Scorsese that entertaining films could be shot with next to no money or time, preparing the young director well for the challenges to come with Mean Streets. Following the film's release, Cassavetes encouraged Scorsese to make the films that he wanted to make, rather than someone else's projects.
Taxi Driver
The iconic Taxi Driver followed in 1976 – Scorsese's dark, urban nightmare of one lonely man's slow, deliberate descent into insanity.
The film established Scorsese as an accomplished filmmaker operating on a highly skilled level, and also brought attention to cinematographer Michael Chapman, whose style tends towards high contrasts, strong colors and complex camera movements. The groundbreaking performance of Robert De Niro as the troubled and psychotic Travis Bickle was highly regarded. The film co-starred Jodie Foster in a highly controversial role as an underage prostitute, and Harvey Keitel as her pimp, Matthew, called "Sport."
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 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.
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 his highly regarded film, Raging Bull. Convinced that he would never make another movie, he poured his energies into making this violent biopic of middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta, 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.
The King of Comedy (1983 film)
Scorsese's next project was his fifth collaboration with Robert De Niro, The King of Comedy (1983). A satire on the world of media and celebrity, it was an obvious departure from the more emotionally committed films he had become associated with. Visually, it was far less kinetic than the style Scorsese 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. It still bore many of Scorsese's trademarks, however, such as its focus on a troubled loner who ironically becomes famous 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.
After Hours (film)
After the collapse of this project Scorsese again saw his career at a critical point, as he described in the 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 would not continue to enjoy the same status. Scorsese decided then 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.
The Color of Money
Along with the 1987 Michael Jackson music video "Bad", in 1986 Scorsese made The Color of Money, a sequel to the much admired Robert Rossen film The Hustler (1961) with Paul Newman. Although typically visually assured, The Color of Money was the director's first foray into mainstream commercial film-making.
The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
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 1960 book, it retold the life of Christ in human rather than divine terms. Even prior to its release the film caused a massive furor, 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.
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. De Niro and Joe Pesci in Goodfellas offered a virtuoso display of the director's bravura cinematic technique and re-established, enhanced, and consolidated his reputation. After the film was released Roger Ebert, a friend and supporter of Scorsese, named Goodfellas "the best mob movie ever" and is ranked #1 on Roger's movie list for 1990, along with Gene Siskel and Peter Travers, the film is widely considered one of the director's greatest achievements.
Cape Fear (1991 film)
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 into 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 Age of Innocence (film)
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.
Casino (film)
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, and its excessive violence that garnered it a reputation as possibly the most violent American gangster film ever made[citation needed]. Indeed many of the tropes and tricks of the earlier film resurfaced more or less intact, most obviously the casting of both Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, Pesci once again being an unbridled psychopath.
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."
KundunIf
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.
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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. It stars Nicolas Cage, Ving Rhames, John Goodman, Tom Sizemore, and Patricia Arquette.
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 set in 19th-century New York, although focusing on the other end of the social scale (and like that film, also starring Daniel Day-Lewis). The film also marked the first collaboration between Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who since then has become a fixture in later Scorsese films.
The Blues (film)
The following year Scorsese completed production 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").
The Aviator (2004 film)
Scorsese's film The Aviator (2004), was a lavish, large-scale biopic of eccentric aviation pioneer and film mogul Howard Hughes and would reunite Scorsese with actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The film received highly positive reviews.[56][57][58][59][60] 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.
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 does not 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.
The Departed
Scorsese returned to the crime genre with the Boston-set thriller The Departed, based on the Hong Kong police drama Infernal Affairs. Along with Matt Damon, The Departed was Scorsese's first collaboration with Jack Nicholson and Martin Sheen.
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 was Scorsese's highest grossing film (not accounting for inflation) until 2010's Shutter Island.
Shine a Light (film)
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.
Shutter Island (film)
On October 22, 2007, Daily Variety reported that Scorsese would reunite with Leonardo DiCaprio on a fourth picture, Shutter Island. Principal photography on the Laeta Kalogridis screenplay, based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, began in Massachusetts in March 2008.
In December 2007, actors Mark Ruffalo, Max von Sydow, Ben Kingsley, and Michelle Williams joined the cast, marking the first time these four actors have worked with Scorsese. The film was released on February 19, 2010. On May 20, 2010, the film was Scorsese's highest grossing film.
Boardwalk Empire
Scorsese directed the series premiere for Boardwalk Empire, an HBO drama series, starring Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitt, and based upon Nelson Johnson's book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City.Terence Winter, who previously wrote for The Sopranos, created the series. In addition to directing the pilot, Scorsese will also serve as an executive producer on the series.
The series premiered on September 19, 2010 and was renewed for a second season.
Future films
Scorsese has announced several potential future projects. A three and half hour documentary about Beatle George Harrison is scheduled to air on HBO on October 5 & 6, 2011. A documentary feature on Scorsese by artist Melinda Camber Porter was nearly complete when she lost her life to cancer.
Scorsese's next feature film will be Hugo, an adaptation of Brian Selznick's best-selling children's historical fiction book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the first film he will create in 3D, using 3D cameras as opposed to post production changes.
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro
Scorsese frequently collaborated with Robert De Niro, making a total of eight films with the actor. After being introduced to him in the early 1970s, Scorsese cast De Niro in his 1973 film Mean Streets. Three years later, De Niro starred in Taxi Driver, this time holding the lead role.
Honors
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.
In 2007, Scorsese was honored by the National Italian American Foundation (N.I.A.F.) at the nonprofit's thirty-second Anniversary Gala. During the ceremony, Scorsese helped launch N.I.A.F.'s Jack Valenti Institute, which provides support to Italian film students in the U.S., in memory of former Foundation Board Member and past president of the Motion Picture Association of America (M.P.A.A.) Jack Valenti. Scorsese received his award from Mary Margaret Valenti, Jack's widow. Certain pieces of Scorsese's film related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives to which scholars and media experts from around the world may have full access.
Director trademarks
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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.
Frequent use of slow motion, e.g. Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Goodfellas (1990) . Also known for using freeze frame, such as the opening credits of The King of Comedy (1983), and throughout Goodfellas (1990).
His lead characters are often sociopathic and/or want to be accepted in society or a society.
In most of his films the main character often falls in love and has a wife, and often has a turning point between the main character and the wife. e.g. Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino.
His blonde leading ladies are usually seen through the eyes of the protagonist as angelic and ethereal; they 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. Example: Goodfellas (1990)
Use of MOS sequences set to popular music or voice over, often involving aggressive camera movement and/or rapid editing.
The supporting actor will often betray the protagonist (Mean Streets, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Casino)
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), Casino, The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York). Also, often contributes his voice to a film without showing his face on screen. He 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, e.g. Gangs of New York, Taxi Driver, The Age of Innocence, The King of Comedy, After Hours, New York, New York, and Mean Streets.
Sometimes highlights characters in a scene with an iris, an homage to 1920s silent film cinema (as scenes at the time sometimes 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). Iris is also the name of Jodie Foster's character in Taxi Driver.
Some of his films include references/allusions to Westerns, particularly Shane, The Searchers and The Oklahoma Kid.
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.
Guilt is a prominent theme in many of his films, as is the role of Catholicism in creating and dealing with guilt (Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Bringing Out the Dead, Mean Streets, Who's That Knocking at My Door, Shutter Island).
Slow motion flashbulbs and accented camera/flash/shutter sounds.
The song Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones is heard in several of Scorsese's films, including Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, and Shine a Light.
Some of his films are inspired by a true story. Examples: Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino.
Frequent collaborations
Scorsese often casts the same actors in his films, particularly Robert De Niro, who collaborated with Scorsese for eight films. Included are the three films (Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas) that made AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list. Scorsese has often said he thinks 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, with whom he has collaborated for four films, with two others confirmed to be in the works. Several critics have compared Scorsese's new partnership with DiCaprio with his previous one with De Niro.Other frequent collaborators include Victor Argo (6), Harry Northup (6), Harvey Keitel (5), Murray Moston (5), Joe Pesci (3), Frank Vincent (3) and Verna Bloom (3). Daniel Day-Lewis, who had become very reclusive to the Hollywood scene, Alec Baldwin, John C. Reilly, and Frank Sivero have also appeared in multiple Scorsese films. Before their deaths, Scorsese's parents, Charles Scorsese and Catherine Scorsese, appeared in bit parts, walk-ons or supporting roles, most notably in Goodfellas.
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