Martin Scorsese is widely regarded as one of the most influential directors of all time for his gritty, careful cinematic approach. Scorsese’s interest in film began when he was an 8-year-old, pint-sized filmmaker.
He finished his first feature-length picture, Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, in 1968, but it wasn’t until he produced Taxi Driver nearly ten years later that he shot to stardom for his raw storytelling style. He demonstrated that the film was not a fluke with a streak of hits that includes Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Departed, Hugo, and The Irishman.
Early Life
Martin Charles Scorsese was born in Flushing, New York on November 17, 1942. Scorsese was raised in Manhattan’s Little Italy neighbourhood by Italian American parents and subsequently described his neighborhood as “like a village in Sicily.” Scorsese’s parents, Charles and Catherine, both worked as part-time actors, laying the groundwork for their son’s love of film.
Scorsese’s childhood activities were limited due to his severe asthma; rather than playing sports, he spent much of his time in front of the television or at the movie theater, where he fell in love with stories about the Italian experience and films by director Michael Powell. Scorsese was already drawing his own storyboards at the age of eight, frequently with the line “Directed and Produced by Martin Scorsese.”
Scorsese was reared as a fervent Catholic and considered becoming a priest before deciding to pursue a career in cinema. Despite the fact that his parents “didn’t get” his obsession with movies, Scorsese thought he was on the right track when a 10-minute comedy short got him a $500 scholarship to New York University.
Movies
‘Who’s That Knocking at My Door?’
Scorsese temporarily worked as a film instructor at NYU after receiving his MFA in film directing in 1966. Jonathan Kaplan and Oliver Stone were among his classmates. Scorsese finished his first feature-length picture, Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, in 1968.While working on that production, he met Harvey Keitel, who he would cast in many future projects, as well as Thelma Schoonmaker, an editor with whom he would work for almost 50 years.
‘Mean Streets’
Scorsese directed Mean Streets in 1973, his debut film that was universally regarded as a masterpiece. The film had aspects that have since become characteristics of Scorsese’s cinema, including gloomy subjects, unsympathetic lead characters, religion, the Mafia, unconventional camera techniques, and modern music. Mean Streets also introduced Scorsese to Robert De Niro, launching one of Hollywood’s most explosive cinematic collaborations.
‘Taxi Driver’
Scorsese created hard-hitting pictures that helped define a generation of cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. Taxi Driver, his gritty 1976 masterwork, earned the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and cemented De Niro’s standing as a movie legend. It also appears to have influenced an unstable John Hinckley to try to assassinate President Ronald Reagan five years later. “I never thought in a million years there was a connection with the film,” Scorsese subsequently said. “It turned out that even my limo driver was a member of the FBI.”
‘Raging Bull’
Raging Bull, based on the life of troubled boxer Jake LaMotta, was another Oscar winner for Scorsese and De Niro. Scorsese, expecting it to be his final feature picture, intended to “pull out all the stops and then find a new career.” Despite varied reactions due to the film’s violent tone, Raging Bull is today largely regarded as one of the best films of all time.
Scorsese continued to make films into the 1980s, directing his first great box-office triumph, The Color of Money, in 1986, after abandoning thoughts of leaving the industry.
‘GoodFellas’ and ‘Casino’
Two of Scorsese’s most notable Mafia films were released in the 1990s: GoodFellas, a 1990 film based on the life of former gangster Henry Hill, and Casino, a 1995 picture about the growth and fall of the gambling underworld during the 1970s. Although Scorsese quipped that he should produce “another film about Italian Americans who aren’t gangsters,” he also stated that “there is no such thing as pointless violence” on film. “Deep down, you want to believe that people are really good—but reality trumps that.”
Music Documentaries
‘The Last Waltz’
Scorsese once stated in an American Express print advertisement that his “wildest dream” was to write music. While he is unlikely to become a rock star or direct an orchestra, he has made a name for himself in the music industry through his filming abilities. Scorsese filmed the classic documentary The Last Waltz in 1978, showing The Band’s last concert, with cameo appearances by Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Muddy Waters. The Last Waltz was mocked in Rob Reiner’s iconic 1984 mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap, in addition to being acclaimed as one of the finest concert films of all time.
‘The Blues,’ ‘No Direction Home’ and ‘Shine a Light’
Scorsese has revived his on-screen study of his musical loves since the turn of the millennium. In 2003, he completed The Blues, a seven-part documentary series for which he received two Grammy nominations. No Direction Home, his Bob Dylan documentary, premiered on PBS as part of the American Masters series two years later. Scorsese directed the Rolling Stones documentary Shine a Light in 2008, using archive footage from a 2006 concert.
Movies With Leonardo DiCaprio
‘The Aviator’ and ‘The Departed’
Scorsese’s feature-film output have also been revitalized throughout the last two decades. Leonardo DiCaprio became Scorsese’s go-to lead actor, appearing in Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006) (which earned Scorsese his first Best Director Oscar), and Shutter Island (2010).
‘The Wolf of Wall Street’
Many have drawn comparisons between the pair’s film relationship and Scorsese’s previous partnership with De Niro—and fans aren’t the only ones who are thankful. “He saved me,” claimed DiCaprio. “I was on my way to becoming one type of actor, and he helped me become another.” “The one I aspired to be.” Scorsese collaborated with DiCaprio once more in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), earning the legendary director yet another Oscar nomination.
More Screen Successes
‘Hugo’
Hugo, a fantasy adventure epic directed by Martin Scorsese, was released in 3D in 2011. Although the film was not a box-office success, it astonished critics and received 11 Academy Award nominations and a Golden Globe for Best Director. He then directed the critically acclaimed historical drama Silence (2016).
‘The Irishman’
Scorsese rekindled his film association with De Niro—along with other former colleagues including Keitel and Joe Pesci—for the Netflix blockbuster The Irishman, based on the confession of hitman Frank Sheeran’s suspected murder of union chief Jimmy Hoffa. The project apparently broke Netflix’s budget, with production expenses exceeding $150 million, owing in part to the costly special effects utilized to de-age several of its actors, despite the fact that the finished result was generally appreciated.
Legacy
Scorsese’s work features common aspects despite the diversity of his selected subject matter. His love of and revolt against old Hollywood can be seen in his exploration of clichéd plot devices, which frequently conclude in dismal sarcasm and moral ambiguity.
He has been praised for his use of the subjective camera to portray the protagonist’s point of view, an approach characterized by such subtle touches as right-to-left camera pans that move in the opposite direction of normal eye movement, creating a slightly disconcerting effect and suggesting a subjectively distorted world.
Scorsese’s films are more concerned with people than storylines, and he enjoys putting his characters in perilous circumstances and letting events evolve spontaneously, as dictated by the characters’ instincts, lusts, and obsessions. Scorsese, one of the most influential directors of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, reflects in his work both skepticism toward modern culture and a clear love of cinema.
Personal life
Scorsese married his first wife, Laraine Marie Brennan, in 1965, and they were married for six years, from 1965 to 1971; they had a daughter, Catherine, who was named after his mother.
Scorsese married Julia Cameron, a writer, in 1976; they had a daughter, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, who is an actor and appeared in The Age of Innocence, but the marriage lasted barely a year. Cameron’s debut film, the dark comedy God’s Will, which also starred their daughter, was inspired by their painful divorce.She appeared in Cape Fear as Domenica Scorsese and has since continued to act, write, direct, and produce.
Scorsese married actress Isabella Rossellini at the end of 1979, and they were married for four years until divorcing in 1983.
In 1985, Scorsese married producer Barbara De Fina, his fourth of five marriages, and they divorced in 1991. Following his fourth divorce, Scorsese was romantically associated with actress Illeana Douglas from 1989 to 1997.
Scorsese married his current wife of nearly twenty years, Helen Schermerhorn Morris, in 1999. They have a daughter, Francesca, who has acted in his films The Departed, Hugo, and The Aviator, and will star in HBO/Sky’s miniseries We Are Who We Are in 2020.
Scorsese was an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War, wearing a white dove pin to the 75th Academy Awards in 2003 and applauding Michael Moore’s winning speech, in which he criticized Bush and the invasion.