Scorsese Martin: filmography and biography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Legendary director Martin Scorsese at 72 has become a living embodiment of the classics of cinema. This unique person is brilliant and talented in literally everything, no matter what he undertakes. In addition to directing, he also excelled as a screenwriter, actor and producer.

Early years

Martin Scorsese (you will see the photo in the article) is an American with Italian roots, born in New York in 1942. Despite the fact that Martin's hometown of Queens was the focus of crime in the city, the boy's Catholic family was very correct and pious. Scorsese grew up as a rather weak and sickly child, he was tormented by asthma. Therefore, relatives often took the young Scorsese to the cinema, where his future hobby was formed. However, the parents decided otherwise, choosing a Catholic school for Scorsese. Martin was supposed to become a priest, but in disagreement with the decision of his relatives, he dropped out of parochial school and entered the College of Arts and Sciences in New York, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1964. After that, the future director decided to serve in the army and only after it returned to study, in 1966enrolled in New York University.

First works

Already as a student, Martin Scorsese began work on several short films, the most famous of which is "A Concrete Haircut", condemning the US intervention in the conflict with Vietnam. In the same years, the young director's first feature film, Who's Knocking on My Door?, was released, starring Harvey Keitel, at that time an unknown young actor. Initially, the name "I'll call first" was decided to be replaced. The debut of the creative tandem turned out to be so successful that Scorsese worked with Harvey more than once in his films. By the way, Martin Scorsese is one of the few permanent directors who have been working with their favorite actors for many years, shooting them in the most diverse films, thus revealing their potential in a great way. “Boxcar Bertha” and “Street Scenes” followed.

First successes

The year 1973 was Martin's first breakthrough, because the drama Mean Streets was released, starring Keitel and then-novice actor Robert De Niro. It can be said that this first joint work of two future masters of Hollywood in some way became a turning point in American cinema, because it was from this film that the long and very fruitful work of two talented people began, which gave the world a considerable number of high-quality films. The audience highly appreciated the film about the real life of NewYork's Little Italy directed by Scorsese. Martin continued to improve and released in 1974 the dramatic film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Leading actress Ellen Burstyn won an Oscar and the film was very well received at the Cannes Film Festival.

The start of an incredible tandem

But 1976 was a very eventful year for Scorsese. Martin married a second time, his chosen one was the writer Julia Cameron. Very little is known about the director's first marriage, his first wife was Laraine Marie Brennan. The couple had a daughter, Katherine. But in addition to love affairs, Scorsese received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for the film Taxi Driver, as well as other awards and prizes, including the tape was awarded four Oscar nominations. We can assume that this film fully revealed to the audience and critics the skill of a talented director. And while reviews of the film were mixed, and some quite negative, in general, this only spurred interest in Taxi Driver, in which De Niro masterfully embodied the main role.

Crisis and rebirth

Riding on the wave of success in 1977, the musical drama New York, New York was released, and the following year, the documentary The Last W altz. But 1978 was marked by depression and a director's creative crisis, which was accompanied by a divorce from his wife, as a result of which Martin Scorsese ended up in the hospital, according to rumors, from a drug overdose. His friend and colleague Robert De Niro was able to pull him out of this state, having interested the master in a newproject. Thus began work on Raging Bull, a story about mid-century boxing star Jake LaMotte, played by De Niro. Remarkable is the fact that the actor was engaged in boxing for almost two years specifically for the role, and LaMotta himself trained him. As a result, thanks to the well-coordinated work of the creative tandem, the film became a real masterpiece. A new stage began in Scorsese's life, marked by an Oscar nomination and an acquaintance with his future wife, Isabella Rossellini.

Hollywood Orientation

The King of Comedy was Martin Scorsese's first unsuccessful film starring Robert De Niro. The filmography of the eminent director did not suffer from this failure, but the creative paths parted with a friend. Following was another not very successful film - "After Work", which is out of the general style of the director's work, she did not deserve the attention of a wide audience, although critics accepted her favorably. But already "The Color of Money" about billiard professionals with the legendary Paul Newman and the rising star Tom Cruise in 1986 was very successfully accepted by the audience. Unlike most of the director's early serious and sharply social films, which were well appreciated by European film critics, this tape was focused on Hollywood, or rather on the public. This moment once again proved the genius of the master, who can please both discerning critics and the diverse tastes of the audience. As for the director's personal life, in 1983 he divorced Rossellini, and already in 1985 he married a producerBarbara De Fine.

Creative experiment

The Last Temptation of Christ was released in 1988 and is perhaps one of Scorsese's most controversial and controversial films. Martin worked on the tape with representatives of several different faiths. Being a Catholic, he brought the story of the Orthodox Nikos Kazantzakis to the screen, and screenwriter Paul Schroeder turned out to be a Calvinist. The choice of actors was also peculiar. Christ, for example, was played by Willem Dafoe, previously famous for the roles of villains and criminals, and rock musician David Bowie embodied the role of Pontius Pilate. Despite the fact that the production was severely criticized by religious representatives, Martin Scorsese received another Oscar nomination. The standard of gangster cinema - Goodfellas, released in 1990, again reunited the tandem of De Niro, Joe Pesci and Scorsese, as in Raging Bull, on the same site. The next picture brought only a nomination, the director did not receive the long-awaited Oscar. But the fruitful trio, five years later, gave the world a fascinating "Casino" about the gambling mafia. This was the eighth collaboration between friends De Niro and Scorsese, whom Steven Spielberg called "Yin and Yang".

Martin Scorsese. Filmography: Director and beyond

In the future, Martin Scorsese revealed new facets of his talent, trying himself in films atypical for him, such as the historical drama "Kundun" about Tibet and the thriller "Resurrecting the Dead" with NicholasCage. Until 2002, a lot of different films were shot, directed by Martin Scorsese. The filmography of the Italian-American is distinguished by the fact that he produced many of his projects, wrote scripts for most of them, and also appeared in small roles in more than half of his films. Since 2002, a new stage in the creative path of the brilliant master began, the young and talented Leonardo DiCaprio became his new protégé. Among their collaborations - a considerable number of incredibly successful films, and for "The Departed" Scorsese finally received his "Oscar". Films starring DiCaprio: The Departed, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, The Wolf of Wall Street, Shutter Island are undoubtedly Martin Scorsese's best films. The list, of course, would be incomplete without his early masterpieces: Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Color of Money, Goodfellas, Casino. In addition to feature films and short films, his credits include several musical films, the King of Pop Michael Jackson music video for "Bad" and the documentary Martin Scorsese's History of American Cinema.

Modernity and plans for the future

At the moment, the brilliant director does not stop there. Next year, the release of a new film - "Silence" is expected. And apparently, the tape promises to be intriguing. From 1999 to this day, Scorsese lives in his beloved New York with his fifth wife, Helen Morris, married to Francesca, the third daughter of the director. Martin is engagedtranscendental meditation and promotes it to the masses, proving its necessity for people suffering from nervous disorders.