Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian, whose career spans more than 53 years. Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Sicilian-American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, machismo, modern crime, and gang conflict. Many of his films are also notable for their depiction of violence and liberal use of profanity...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth17 November 1942
CityQueens, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I wish I could do everything in 3D.
On every film you suffer, but on some you really suffer.
I think all of us, under certain circumstances, could be capable of some very despicable acts. And that's why, over the years, in my movies I've had characters who didn't care what people thought about them. We try to be as true to them as possible and maybe see part of ourselves in there that we may not like.
Can a film really change anything? I mean, what was the last time? Maybe the Italian neo-realists, where they became the voice and the heart and the soul of Italy, a nation that had been destroyed. I don't know.
I'm sad to see celluloid go, there's no doubt. But, you know, nitrate went, by the way, in 1971. If you ever saw a nitrate print of a silent film and then saw an acetate print, you'd see a big difference, but nobody remembers anymore. The acetate print is what we have. Maybe. Now it's digital.
I mean, music totally comes from your soul.
You never know how much time you have left.
Some of my films are known for the depiction of violence. I don't have anything to prove with that any more.
It's a very savage kind of humor, it comes out of a great deal of pain.
We've seen growing awareness of film preservation, yet the deterioration and eventual disappearance of films have not come to an end. There's still a race against the clock to save what we can at some point.
The reality is, if I don't do PR, I'm hurting the picture. And as many things as I did, that's as many things as I turned down.
Watching Dylan's eyes as he searches for these words, you see it all happening there,
I'm often asked by younger filmmakers, 'Why do I need to look at old movies?' I've made a number of pictures in the last 20 years and the response I have to give them is that I still consider myself a student. The more pictures I've made in 20 years, the more I realize I really don't know. And I'm always looking for something or someone that I could learn from. I tell the younger filmmakers, and the young students, that do it like painters used to do—that painters do—study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand the canvas. There's always so much more to learn.
Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.