My childhood led me in an interesting direction as a kid. I didn’t necessarily know where my life would go until I started watching movies on a station in the Boston area called Tv38. It showed a lot of classic films like Black and white noir films, Westerns,  monster movies, holiday films, and one of my favorite genres, gangster pictures. Also some early 70s films like The Godfather & Godfather Pt 2, Jaws, The French Connection, The Conversation, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Jeremiah Johnson, All the President’s Men, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Star Wars, Superman: The Movie, Rocky, Kramer vs Kramer and many others. 

This is when I saw Taxi Driver and Mean Streets for the first time. I noticed a director for the first time in my life. The skill and ability it took to make Taxi Driver and Mean Streets was something that spoke to me.  I should’ve been watching these movies, but I was left to my own devices. From these early years, I would watch Raging Bull and The King of Comedy as well. Scorsese’s collaboration with Robert DeNiro was one of the best things I’ve seen thus far in my life, which made Scorsese my favorite director and DeNiro, my favorite actor. They would remain my favorites the rest of my life. With Steven Spielberg and Al Pacino coming in a close second place. 

Mr. Scorsese is a five part docu-series depicting the life of my favorite director. It delves into everything from his early family life to his many wives and children. His frequent collaborations with DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio and his editor and friend Thelma Schoonmaker. The ups and downs of his career. The long journey of not winning an Academy Award and the exaltation of finally winning for The Departed. It also depicts his struggle with drugs and his difficulty trying to make a name for himself in Hollywood. He was part of a group of directors that were considered the best of the past fifty years. They changed the way movies were being made and thought about. Marty, as he’s known by his friends and family, is one of the greats of all time, but it wasn’t always this way. 

What I love about him is that he brought a reality to his films that some other directors weren’t able to bring to theirs. Regarding the gangster movies, he was so known for. He brought a human nature to people. Most of those watching would think are in humane. That their horrible people. These were more or less real people he depicted in his films, and he wanted them to come across that way on screen. That’s why this glamorous lifestyle was so interesting to me when I was a kid. I wanted to be a gangster like Henry Hill. It didn’t matter that they were criminals to me. I wanted the money and to eat all the great Italian cuisine.  I just wanted to be a part of a family like these guys were until they weren’t. Scorsese knew how suck the audience into his movies. No matter how reprehensible the characters were.

Martin Scorsese: 

• From Queens, New York City, a family of Sicilian-Italians, including his parents, who would appear in his later films.
• Raised a Catholic, themes of which would appear in his movies
• Attended NYU, married five times and divorced four times, has 3 daughters
  • Ex-wives include Isabella Rossellini and producer Barbara DeFina; current wife Helen Morris, and youngest daughter, Francesca
  • Drug use affected his marriages, and he was difficult to get along when he wasn’t doing anything movie-related
• He wanted to be a priest, but later turned to cinema at NYU Film School
• During New York, New York, and The Last Waltz, his drug habit spiraled out of control, and he nearly died
• Part of New Hollywood with Spielberg, DePalma, Coppola, Lucas, and others

Films:

• Whose That Knocking At My Door – Student film, first feature starring Harvey Keitel
• Boxcar Bertha – Made with the help of Roger Corman, but featuring graphic sex and violence; several of his friends told him not to make a movie like that again.
• Mean Streets – Based on his life experiences, it’s his first time working with Robert De Niro, and again starred Harvey Keitel
• Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – With Ellen Burstyn (who won the Oscar) and a young Jodie Foster
• Taxi Driver – Wasn’t received well by the studio or MPAA, yet won the Palme d’Or; first collaboration with writer Paul Schrader
  • Inspired assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by John Hinkley 
• New York, New York – Starring Liza Minnelli and DeNiro, but was a critical and commercial failure
• The Last Waltz – Rock documentary about The Band, including Robbie Robertson
• Raging Bull – After surviving a drug overdose, he was encouraged to direct it by Paul Schrader & DeNiro (who won the Oscar), even though he knew nothing about boxing. First film with Joe Pesci, and it was his first film with editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
• The King of Comedy – Nearly left filmmaking for good, but was convinced by DeNiro to direct it, co-starring Jerry Lewis
• After Hours – With Griffin Dunne & Rosanna Arquette
• The Color of Money – With Paul Newman (won Oscar) and Tom Cruise
• The Last Temptation of Christ – With Willem Dafoe and Barbara Hershey, a cheap but very fast production which resulted in massive protests and threats because it was considered anti-Christian.
• Goodfellas – Featuring Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, DeNiro, and Pesci (who won the Oscar); written with Nicholas Pileggi.
  • Famous tracking scenes, use of period music, editing, and a distinguished modern gangster genre 
• Cape Fear – With DeNiro, Nick Nolte, and Juliette Lewis
• Age of Innocence – 19th-century period drama starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, and Michelle Pfeiffer
• Casino – DeNiro, Pesci, and Pileggi all back, and starring Sharon Stone
• Kundun – Biopic about the Dalai Lama
• Bringing Out The Dead – With Nicholas Cage & John Goodman
• Gangs of New York – First collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, re-teamed with Day-Lewis, and starring Cameron Diaz, Liam Neeson, and Brendan Gleeson
  • Harvey Weinstein famously had spies to keep tabs on production and later pushed a heavy campaign for the Oscars.
• The Aviator – DiCaprio, with Jude Law, John C Reilly, and Cate Blanchett (won Oscar)
• The Departed – DiCaprio again, with Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, and Jack Nicholson
  • Finally won him his first Oscar for Best Director, also Best Picture
• Shine A Light – The Rolling Stones concert film
• Shutter Island – DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, and Ben Kingsley, from Dennis Lehane’s novel
• Hugo – 3D children’s film set in 1930s Paris about movie history; Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Sacha Baron Cohen
• The Wolf of Wall Street – Fifth collaboration with DiCaprio; also starred Margot Robbie, Jonah Hill, and Matthew McConaughey
• Silence – Pet project of his and the most personal as it deals with religion, starring Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver
• The Irishman – Another long-awaited project with DeNiro, Pesci, and Al Pacino
• Killers of the Flower Moon – DiCaprio, DeNiro, and Lily Gladstone; Scorsese’s most recent film

Episode Titles

1: Stranger in a Strange Land
2: All This Filming Is Healthy
3: Saint/Sinner
4: Pure Cinema,
5: Method Director

• Features interviews with many of his collaborators and friends, including many of his contemporaries, including Spike Lee and Benny Safdie, among others
• Describes Scorsese’s dedication to film history and preservation of historic films, as well as his path to be a better person, father, and husband due to his past drug use and hot temper in the decades past
• Directed by Rebecca Miller, the wife of Daniel Day-Lewis, in five parts 

Mr. Scorsese will be streaming on AppleTV+ on October 17th

5 stars

Dan Skip Allen