Martin Scorsese

• 1. A Boy In The Theater

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  Martin Scorsese was born on the 17th of November 1942 in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. He grew up in the Little Italy section of Manhattan where his parents worked in the Garment District. His father Charles pressed clothes and acted while his mother Catherine sewed garments and performed as an actress. All four grandparents were Italian immigrants from Sicily who arrived with the surname Scozzese before a clerical error changed it to Scorsese. As a young boy he suffered from severe asthma that kept him from playing sports or joining other children in activities. His parents and older brother took him to movie theaters instead so he could escape his physical limitations. It was during these visits that he developed a deep passion for cinema. He watched Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus in 1947 and The Red Shoes in 1948 which left a lasting impression on him. As a teenager living in Brooklyn he commuted to the Bronx to rent a single copy of The Tales of Hoffmann from a store. Only two people regularly rented this reel including George A. Romero who later became a director himself.

• 2. The Streets Of New York

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  Scorsese made his first feature film Who's That Knocking at My Door in 1967 with fellow students Harvey Keitel and Thelma Schoonmaker. Roger Ebert reviewed the film at the 1967 Chicago International Film Festival calling it a great moment in American movies. Mean Streets released in 1973 marked a breakthrough for both Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Pauline Kael described the film as a true original of our time with its own hallucinatory look. The movie featured macho posturing bloody violence Catholic guilt and redemption set against gritty New York locations. Although most of Mean Streets was shot in Los Angeles it captured the essence of Little Italy life. Taxi Driver arrived in 1976 starring De Niro as Travis Bickle an angry Vietnam veteran taking the law into his own hands. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival and received four Oscar nominations including Best Picture. Jodie Foster played an underage prostitute in a highly controversial role while Keitel appeared as her pimp. Five years after release John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan blaming his obsession with Foster's character.

• 3. The Boxing Ring And The Addiction

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  Scorsese developed a serious cocaine addiction during the late 1970s that damaged his already fragile health. He experienced internal bleeding and depression before Robert De Niro intervened to save his life. De Niro asked whether he wanted to live or die and proposed they make Raging Bull if he chose life. The film became a kamikaze method of filmmaking based on Jake LaMotta's autobiography about the former world middleweight boxing champion. Raging Bull filmed in high contrast black and white reached its zenith in Scorsese's visual style with extensive slow motion and complex tracking shots. The movie received eight Oscar nominations including Best Actor for De Niro and Best Supporting Actress for Cathy Moriarty. Joe Pesci earned the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor while Thelma Schoonmaker won for editing. Scorsese lost the Best Director award to Robert Redford for Ordinary People but the film is widely viewed as a masterpiece. Britain's Sight & Sound magazine voted it the greatest film of the 1980s. The American Film Institute ranked Raging Bull as the twenty-fourth greatest American film of all time in 1997 and fourth in their 2007 anniversary edition.

• 4. The Weight Of Sin

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  Catholic guilt serves as a prominent theme throughout many of Scorsese's films from Who's That Knocking at My Door to The Irishman. He considered Silence a passion project that had been in development since 1990 following The Last Temptation of Christ which also contained strong religious themes. The Last Temptation of Christ released in 1988 depicted Christ marrying and raising a family with Mary Magdalene during a Satan-induced hallucination on the cross. Worldwide protests against perceived blasphemy turned the low-budget independent film into a media sensation. Barbara Hershey recalled introducing Scorsese to Nikos Kazantzakis's novel while filming Boxcar Bertha. Paramount Pictures pulled support before principal photography began citing pressure from religious groups. Universal Pictures eventually agreed to finance the film after Scorsese promised to make more mainstream projects like Cape Fear for them. Kundun released in 1997 offered an account of Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama and his exile to India. Disney distanced itself from the project due to political pressure from Chinese officials hurting its commercial profile. Bringing Out the Dead returned to familiar territory with spiritual redemption scenes explicitly recalling Robert Bresson's films.

• 5. The Wolf And The Departed

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  Gangs of New York released in 2002 marked the first collaboration between Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio who became a fixture in later films. Production budget exceeded $100 million making it Scorsese's biggest venture to date filmed entirely at Rome's Cinecittà studios. The final cut ran 168 minutes though Scorsese's original version stretched over 180 minutes. Despite troubled production rumors about conflicts with Harvey Weinstein the film received generally positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 75 percent of reviews were positive praising production design and Daniel Day-Lewis's performance. The Aviator released in 2004 reunited Scorsese with DiCaprio as Howard Hughes winning three Golden Globe Awards including Best Motion Picture Drama. The film earned eleven Academy Award nominations but won only five Oscars losing Best Director to Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby. The Departed opened to widespread critical acclaim surpassing one hundred million dollars domestically becoming his highest-grossing film until Shutter Island. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director for Scorsese presented by Francis Ford Coppola George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The Wolf of Wall Street released the 25th of December 2013 starred DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort engaging in securities fraud through pump and dump schemes.

• 6. The Foundation And The Archive

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  Scorsese founded The Film Foundation in 1990 dedicated to preserving cinema history. He established the World Cinema Foundation in 2007 and the African Film Heritage Project in 2017. His documentary work includes The Last Waltz documenting The Band's final concert held at Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving Day 1976. No Direction Home released September 26 to 27 2005 told Bob Dylan's story from his beginnings through his transformation to electric guitar sound. Shine a Light captured the Rolling Stones performing at New York City's Beacon Theatre on October 29 and the 1st of November 2006. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies ran four hours covering silent era films up to 1969. In 1995 he listed four aspects of directors: storyteller illusionist smuggler and iconoclast. Four of his feature films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as culturally historically or aesthetically significant. He received an Academy Award four BAFTA Awards three Emmy Awards one Grammy Award and three Golden Globe Awards throughout his career.