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
The bottom line is, I tend to be going back to older and older music.
All my life, I never really felt comfortable anywhere in New York, except maybe in an apartment somewhere.
I grew up within Italian-American neighborhoods, everybody was coming into the house all the time, kids running around, that sort of stuff, so when I finally got into my own area, so to speak, to make films, I still carried on.
[Kubrick] was unique in the sense that with each new film he redefined the medium and its possibilities. But he was more than just a technical innovator. Like all visionaries, he spoke the truth. And no matter how comfortable we think we are with the truth, it always comes as a profound shock when we're forced to meet it face-to-face.
We cannot burn Mick Jagger. We want the effect, but we can't burn him.
If Kubrick had lived to see the opening of his final film, he obviously would have been disappointed by the hostile reactions. But I'm sure that in the end he would have taken it with a grain of salt and moved on. That's the lot of all true visionaries, who don't see the use of working in the same vein as everyone else. Artists like Kubrick have minds expansive and dynamic enough to picture the world in motion, to comprehend not just where its been, but where it's going.
Death comes in a flash, and that's the truth of it, the person's gone in less than 24 frames of film.
People have to start talking to know more about other cultures and to understand each other.
Because of the movies I make, people get nervous. They think of me as difficult and angry. I am difficult and angry, but they don't expect a sense of humor. And the only thing that gets me through is a sense of humor.
[David Lean's] images stay with me forever. But what makes them memorable isn't necessarily their beauty. That's just good photography. It's the emotion behind those images that's meant the most to me over the years. It's the way David Lean can put feeling on film. The way he shows a whole landscape of the spirit. For me, that's the real geography of David Lean country. And that's why, in a David Lean movie, there's no such thing as an empty landscape.
I always tell the younger filmmakers and students: Do it like the painters used to...Study they old masters. Enrich your palette. Expand the canvas. There's always so much more to learn.
There are times when you have to face your enemies, sit down and deal with it.
I happen to like vampires more than zombies.
A lot of what I'm obsessed with is the relationship and the dynamics between people and the family, particularly brothers and their father.