Martin Scorsese: a journey through cinema, collaborations, and iconic successes

How is Martin Scrosese?

Martin Marcantonio Luciano Scorsese (New York, 17 November 1942) is an American producer, scriptwriter, actor and film producer who has Italian origins.

He is considered one of the best producers of the New Hollywood; as a matter of fact a lot of film critics reckon he is of the better American producers.

The main themes that can be found in his films are: fault, erred and religion. For this reason, his films are also characterized by sensationalist and violent sequences.

Influences and early years

Martin's style was influenced by the Nouvelle French Vague, that derives from the Italian Neorealism and from the independent cinema of John Cassavetes.

Martin Scorsese was born at Flushing Luciano Charles Scorsese and Caterina Cloak, but since he was a child he was used to remuvals and he ended up the family in the Queens.

He has Italian origins because his grandfathers emigrated from the Sicily, at the beginning of the XX century.

Since he was a child, Scorsese had a passion for the cinema. He developed this interest also because he suffered from asthma and he could not do so much sports.
Due to the fact that he did not own a camera he was able to draw imaginary storyboards of film, with a lot of sumptuous cast.

In 1956, he studyed to become priest, but soon he changed idea, and in 1960 he was enrolled in the cinematography class of the New York University, where he managed to direct his first shorts, in 16 mm, among which The large shave, a short and symbolc film that will become an ispiration for a whole generation of filmmakers of the New Hollywood.
Here can ba found the main characteristic that will be always present in his productions.

The beginning of his film career

The first film was difficult to produce.
In 1965, thanks to a loan of the NYU, he began to film Bring On the dance Hall Girls, but it was interrupted because the film does not please him.

In 1967, following an advice of his professor Haig Manoogian, started to work again the film, turning in 16 mm and he named it The Call First. After the addiciton of an erotic scene, after an advice of the producer, Scorsese finishes the film in 1969, with the definitive title Who is knocking to my door?.
The film was interpreted by Harvey Keitel, and it marks the beginning of the collaboration of Scorsese with the producer Barbaric De Does and the videomaker Thelma Schoonmaker.

During the production of Who it is knocking to my door?, Scorsese called to direct The killers of the honeymoon, but after a week of renewals, Leonard Kastle was hired.

In 1970 Scrosese participated in the documentary Woodstock, as the assistent to the direction and as a supervisor of the assembly.
In the same year he directed the military road of the stage documentary, checking the shows against the war of the Vietnam.
At the beginning of the year, he left New York for Hollywood, and he entered in the factory of Roger Corman.
The first work that he received was an immense distribution of the actual product from the American International Pictures of Corman: America 1929 - You It It without pity (1972), with Barbaric Hershey and David Carradine.

Collaborations and Early Successes

Mean obtains it Streets was out in 1971 and he was produced by the same staff of the previous film.
From the human point of view, the main characters of the film are not only common persons, but true and actual antiheroes, while from the artistic point of view Scorsese runs back to an unusual photography, gone along from the special direction and from the popular music; besides, often in game the religion and the life of the gangster.

It is important to not to underestimate the fact that, between other things, the film marked the beginning of the prolific collaboration of Scorsese with Robert De Niro, who got to know thanks to Brian De Palm. He will become the actor-fetish of Scorsese and protagonist of some of more important its film.

He immediately received some critics, because he would not cast women for his film as main characters, the protagonist Ellen Burstyn wins the prize like better Oscar actress.

The following film was italian-american and Scorsese always declared to be his favourite between his films.
It was a documentary on his parents, while also focusing on the life of the Italian immigrants in New York, in the Italian district Little Italy.
Scorsese began to develop the idea for what then would have become one of more important its film, Taxi Driver, applauded from critic and public like a masterpiece since its first apparition.
In the role of the taxi driver it appears of new Robert De Niro, and the film vinse the Palm of gold to the Festival of Cannes of 1976.

Subsequently Scorsese dedicates to the actual town a whole film, New York, New York (1977), a musical that still focused on the italian-american actor, supported from Liza Minnelli, in the role of the protagonist. Although the ambitious project and an excellent cast, this film was not appreciated.

He succeeded to take again himself thanks to a new project already in site, a documentary on the last exhibition live of the musical group The Band.
In the film the main characters are celebrities like Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and a lot other. The film The last waltz (1978) collected a large success in the festival and between the lovers of the pop music.

Scorsese, that however went through a period of depression, in the September 1978 was hospitalized, because of an internal bleeding.

Wild bull, turned for artistic reasons entirely in white and black, became a true and actual film cult, and it is considered one of the milestones of the American cinema. Robert De Niro, still a protagonist for Scorsese, gained weight, 30 kilos, arriving to have problems of health in the last days of the renewals (that had been hastened to allow the actor of to return in health). The metamorphosis been worth him the prize like better Oscar actor.

The couple Scorsese-De Niro, however, did not finish, but they gave life to another film little years after, King for a night, that is about the pitiless of the paradoxical attitudes dictated from the search for the prides. In the film appeared an unpublished Jerry Lewis, in an unusual dramatic role.

In 1985 Scorsese produced a small independent film, overtime, considered one of its jewlery. The film won the Palm of gold to the Festival of Cannes of 1986 for the category best direction.
In 1986 Scorsese turned a film on commission: The color of the money, with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise.

Ambitious projects and challenges

One of the most ambitious projects of the producer has always been the portrait of the life of Jesus.
In 1983 it seemed to be able to do the film, but Paramount refused it, because of some polemics aside of catholic associations. The dream of Scorsese became true in 1988 when he adapted for the large screen a story of the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis.

The film provoked a large scandal and it was called The last temptation of Christ, with Willem Dafoe. The film moved strong protests and threats of boycott.
The film faced, in fact, a very delicate subject, that is Jesus as "man" before being God.

After a collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen for the triptych New York Stories - Stories of New York (1989), Scorsese began to work at a gangster-movie, Those capable boys (1990), that focused on the criminal world newyorkese.
Joe Fish won an Oscar for the best actor not protagonist, for its interpretation of a ruthless gunman.

Scorsese had signed a special contract with the Universal Pictures: in exchange for the production of The last temptation of Christ, he would have shot a film commercialer, Heads Fear - The promontory of the fear, that was aired 1991.

The next film (stroke from the work I Reward Pulitzer of the writer Edith Wharton) was The age of the innocence (1993), that was detached strong from the typical mailing of the films of Scorsese: it was a film in custom from the slight touches, intimist, rich of visual details, that reported the hypocrisy of the society in the New York of half nine hundred.

Perhaps the sole feature film of the producer in which the violence is not shown and explicit, but it is hinted, because it is inherent in the behaviors of the society, that did not tolerate dispensations to the lecterns done not write some morality.
The film was played by Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder.

In 1995 it went out in the cinema with absolutely two new film.
The first one was Casino, with Sharon Stone, Robert De Niro and Joe Fish, focusing on the birth and the decline of the criminal bands of Las Vegas from the years '70 to present days.
The second, in reality more a documentary, was called A century of cinema - Journey in the American cinema of Martin Scorsese, and it examined critically the evolution of the film art of Hollywood.

In 1997 he received a prestigious decoration to life from the AFI (American Film Institute).

Return to New York and New Projects

In 1999 he returned behind the camera with a drama with Nicholas Cage in the role of a paramedical on the edge of a nervous crisis, that marks the return of Scorsese to New York. It is one of the most important film of Scorsese.
Paul Schrader was casted as a scriptwriter in this film and in the next one that was produced almost entirely at Cinecittà in Rome (sceneries of Giving Ferretti).

Gangs of New York, a film that Scorsese had in mind since 1970, was produced in 2003, under the influence of the New York and USA atmoshpere. As main characters, Martin choose Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz.

In 2005 it is the time of The Aviator (2005), that was about the life of the legend of Hollywood Howard Hughes. The main character Leonardo DiCaprio won the Golden Globes like best actor.
Also in this case it has been about an imposing production, and still a time the sceneries were treated from Giving Ferretti.