Martin Scorsese Articles
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Over the decades, the documentary work of director Martin Scorsese has grown to rival the breadth and pedigree of his narrative features. Applied with the same personal touch that makes his theatrical films so distinctive, his documentaries are just as essential in the conversation about his cinematic legacy. Whether he’s exploring his immigrant heritage in…
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![Martin Scorsese [Part 3]: New York Stories](https://thedirectorsseries.blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/screen-shot-2022-04-22-at-2.01.54-pm.png)
PART 3: NEW YORK STORIES is the third episode of our multi-part documentary series on Martin Scorsese, covering the bitter fruits of his creative homecoming: MEAN STREETS (1973) & ITALIANAMERICAN (1974). Watch the full episode exclusively on special.tv!
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“Not my President!” This phrase, loaded not just with implicit political bias but with a readiness to reject the opinions of an entire demographic as inherently invalid, has been thrown around with reckless abandon over the past few years. We live in an extreme climate of political polarization, having nuked the common ground between our…
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Notable Festivals: Cannes The “passion project” is a common trope in the film industry– every director has a story he or she feels innately compelled to make for any variety of artistic reasons. In the context of director Martin Scorsese’s filmography, this idea takes on a higher, reinforced meaning. He is an inherently religious director,…
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New York City in the 1970’s was a vastly different metropolis than the one we know today– a gritty, crime-riddled furnace of vice and decay. Forever committed to our collective filmic memory via director Martin Scorsese’s classic noir, TAXI DRIVER (1976), this world also informed the gestation of the venerated filmmaker’s earlier 1973 breakout, MEAN…
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Director Martin Scorsese’s celebrated collaborations with legendary actor Robert De Niro are the stuff of cinematic legend– TAXI DRIVER (1976), RAGING BULL (1980), GOODFELLAS (1990); to name just a few. Each project they undertake together seems to bring out the very best in the other, even if the finished products don’t quite meet expectations. To…
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The Great Recession drastically changed the American landscape like a megathrust earthquake. The epicenter was Wall Street, which, during the freewheeling, deregulated Bush years, enjoyed unprecedented levels of financial revenue and autonomy. When the bottom fell out, and all those zeroes in our bank accounts turned out to be just that—zeroes that amounted to nothing–…
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In the years between the production of HUGO (2011) and (as of this writing) his latest feature THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, director Martin Scorsese picked up some quick work back in the commercial realm. He appears himself in all but one of them, and such, continues to maintain a presence in pop culture as a brand unto…
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Academy Award Wins: Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Mix, Best Sound Editing, Best Visual Effects Since the beginning of filmmaking, the city of Paris has played an integral role in its development. It was, after all, where cinema was born—the Lumiere Brothers held the first public exhibition of a film in the basement…
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Director Martin Scorsese’s long and storied film career has followed two distinct paths—narrative features and documentaries about culture, music, and identity. Both paths have been lauded with equal heaps of critical praise, with his documentaries on music being a particular beneficiary of said plaudits. Scorsese’s artistic aesthetic is tied to music—early works like WHO’S THAT KNOCKING…
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As an artist whose work is inextricably tied to the city in which he lives, director Martin Scorsese can be mentioned in the same breath with notable Gotham luminaries from a variety of disciplines—Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, John Lennon, and even Jay Z. Something about the culture and makeup of New York City fuels groundbreaking…
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As the multiplexes have become more crowded with the latest blockbuster superhero epics at the expense of richly-drawn, adult-oriented character pieces, television has emerged as an unlikely candidate to fill the void. Channels like HBO and AMC have paved the way for premium episodic content that can match cinema from nearly every angle– save for…