The Cinema of Martin Scorsese

Friedman, an English professor at Purdue, begins his consideration of the influences on Scorsese's moviemaking with the director's Catholic background and early plans to become a priest. By age 18 he had ""rechanneled his religious impulse into film"" when his childhood love of movies escalated under the guidance of influential NYU film instructor Haig Manoogian, later the producer on Scorsese's first feature, Who's that Knocking at My Door? (1969). From 1950 to 1966, Scorsese lived in New York City's Little Italy, recalling, ""Growing up down there is was like being in a Sicilian village."" Autobiographical elements surfaced in his documentary Italianamerican (1974) and Mean Streets (1973), the beginning of his long association with actor Robert De Niro through Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and more. Friedman clarifies Scorsese's key role in Woodstock (1970), details why Scorsese considers his other rock film, The Last Waltz (1978) ""the most perfect thing I had made,"" and notes Taxi Driver's links with Sartre's Nausea (1938) and the diaries of Nixon-stalker Arthur Bremer who shot George Wallace in 1972. Friedman also captures connections with film noir, Vincente Minnelli musicals, the French New Wave and numerous other cinematic sources. All of which is to say that there is real insight here but there is also bad writing and over-interpretation (""Boxing and sex conflate in the Janiro fight where LaMotta imprints his homoerotic desires on his opponent's body."") 15 film stills not seen by PW. (July)