Martin Scorsese Biography Quotes 30 Report mistakes

Early Life and Influences
Martin Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942, in Queens, New York, and raised in the tight-knit Italian American neighborhood of Little Italy in Manhattan. The son of Catherine Cappa Scorsese and Charles Scorsese, garment workers of Sicilian heritage who later appeared in small roles in his films, he grew up immersed in Catholic ritual, family stories, street life, and the cinema. Chronic asthma kept him indoors and away from sports, so local movie theaters became a second home. That early immersion in film, combined with the moral complexity and ritual of his faith, shaped the themes he would revisit throughout his career: sin and redemption, guilt and grace, loyalty and betrayal, and the sometimes violent pursuit of identity and belonging.

Education and First Films
After attending Cardinal Hayes High School, Scorsese entered New York University, where he earned a B.A. in English and an M.F.A. in film from what became the Tisch School of the Arts. At NYU he began crafting shorts that displayed his kinetic cutting and sharp eye for character, including Whats a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963), Its Not Just You, Murray! (1964), and The Big Shave (1967). His first feature, Whos That Knocking at My Door (1967), starred Harvey Keitel and introduced the Catholic dilemmas and street-level realism that would define his early work. He taught at NYU and worked as an editor and assistant on projects such as Woodstock (1970), where he intersected with Thelma Schoonmaker, the editor who would become his central creative partner.

Breakthrough and the New Hollywood Era
Scorsese developed during the New Hollywood moment alongside peers Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Brian De Palma. A stint with producer Roger Corman yielded Boxcar Bertha (1972), a calling card that led to Mean Streets (1973). That film, powered by the raw chemistry of Keitel and Robert De Niro and driven by popular music cues, announced a new American auteur. Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore (1974), headlined by Ellen Burstyn, proved his range with a female-centered story and earned Burstyn an Academy Award.

Taxi Driver (1976), written by Paul Schrader and starring De Niro with Jodie Foster and Cybill Shepherd, won the Palme dOr at Cannes and cemented Scorsese as a major voice. New York, New York (1977), with Liza Minnelli and De Niro, pushed stylized musical form but struggled commercially. After a personal health crisis in the late 1970s, he was urged by De Niro to pursue Raging Bull (1980), a searing portrait of boxer Jake LaMotta. Edited by Schoonmaker and co-starring Joe Pesci, the film became a touchstone of modern American cinema, with De Niro winning Best Actor.

Artistic Partnerships
Scorsese has sustained some of the most productive collaborations in film history. With De Niro he made a cycle of character studies spanning Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, New York, New York, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy (1982), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Casino (1995), and The Irishman (2019). Beginning with Gangs of New York (2002), Leonardo DiCaprio emerged as a new leading muse, headlining The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Thelma Schoonmaker, a three-time Oscar winner for her work with Scorsese, is integral to his propulsive rhythms, freeze frames, voice-over structures, and flashback architectures.

His screenwriter alliances have been equally defining: Paul Schrader on Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Bringing Out the Dead (1999); Nicholas Pileggi on Goodfellas and Casino; Jay Cocks on The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York, and Silence (2016); and Steven Zaillian on The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon. Longtime musical collaborator Robbie Robertson, first encountered through The Last Waltz (1978), shaped the sonic character of many later films. Among key producers and executives standing behind him are Irwin Winkler, Barbara De Fina, Graham King, and Emma Tillinger Koskoff. Cinematographers Michael Chapman, Michael Ballhaus, Vittorio Storaro, Robert Richardson, Rodrigo Prieto, and others have translated his visual imagination into signature camera moves and color palettes.

Expanding Range and Major Works
The 1980s and 1990s showcased Scorseses range. After The King of Comedy, a prescient satire with Jerry Lewis and Sandra Bernhard, he crafted the nocturnal farce After Hours (1985) and The Color of Money (1986), featuring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise; Newman won Best Actor, and Scorsese demonstrated his facility with genre and star performance. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), starring Willem Dafoe and Harvey Keitel, generated intense controversy but affirmed his interest in spiritual struggle. Goodfellas distilled the rise-and-fall crime saga with Ray Liotta, De Niro, Pesci, and Lorraine Bracco, redefining the gangster film with exhilarating craft and mordant wit.

He followed with the baroque suspense of Cape Fear, the elegant social archaeology of The Age of Innocence, and the sprawling Vegas chronicle Casino, featuring Sharon Stone in an acclaimed performance. Kundun (1997) explored the life of the Dalai Lama, while Bringing Out the Dead revisited nighttime New York through Nicolas Cage.

Recognition and Awards
Gangs of New York initiated a new century of large-scale historical filmmaking and deepened Scorseses bond with DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis. The Aviator earned multiple Oscars, including one for Cate Blanchett. With The Departed, co-starring DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg, Scorsese won the Academy Award for Best Director, a career milestone matched by Directors Guild and BAFTA honors. Hugo (2011) married cutting-edge 3D with film history, paying homage to Georges Melies. The Wolf of Wall Street, a scabrous comedy of excess with DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, and Margot Robbie, sparked debate over depiction versus endorsement while showcasing Scorseses knack for satire.

The Irishman reunited De Niro, Pesci, and Al Pacino in a reflective epic about memory and consequence, enabled by digital de-aging technology. Killers of the Flower Moon, with DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and De Niro, examined the Osage murders, expanding his engagement with American history and its moral burdens.

Documentaries and Preservation
Parallel to his narrative features, Scorsese has made deeply felt documentaries: Italianamerican (1974) with his parents; The Last Waltz on The Band; A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995) and My Voyage to Italy (1999), loving surveys of cinema history; No Direction Home (2005) on Bob Dylan; Shine a Light (2008) on the Rolling Stones; George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011); and collaborations with Fran Lebowitz, including the series Pretend It Is a City (2021).

In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, joined by peers such as Coppola, Spielberg, De Palma, and Lucas, to preserve and restore motion pictures. Through its World Cinema Project, launched with support from international partners, he has helped rescue and reintroduce films from underrepresented regions, advocating tirelessly for film heritage.

Style and Themes
Scorseses cinema blends virtuosic camera work, needle-drop soundtracks, and montage with probing moral inquiry. His protagonists often wrestle with temptation and transcendence, whether in the urban crucibles of Mean Streets and Goodfellas, the existential deserts of Silence, or the gilded prisons of The Wolf of Wall Street. Catholic imagery and questions of conscience recur, as do examinations of masculinity, violence, community codes, and the search for belonging. Central to his method is collaborative trust: Schoonmakers editing architecture, De Niro and DiCaprios transformative performances, and the contributions of writers like Schrader, Pileggi, and Cocks shape the work at every level.

Personal Life
Scorsese has been married multiple times, including to Laraine Marie Brennan, writer Julia Cameron, actress Isabella Rossellini, producer Barbara De Fina, and author Helen Morris. He has three daughters, including Domenica Cameron-Scorsese and Francesca Scorsese, and he often cast family members in his films; his mother, Catherine, memorably appears as Tommys mother in Goodfellas. Longstanding friendships with fellow filmmakers and collaborators, as well as mentorship of younger directors and students, reflect his commitment to community within the art form.

Legacy
Martin Scorsese stands as one of the most influential American directors, a central figure of the New Hollywood generation who remains creatively vital decades later. His body of work has shaped global understanding of American urban life, power, faith, and desire, while his preservation efforts ensure that film history remains accessible. Surrounded by collaborators such as Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Thelma Schoonmaker, Paul Schrader, Nicholas Pileggi, Robbie Robertson, and producers and cinematographers who helped realize his vision, he has created a living dialogue between past and present, entertainment and ethics, style and soul.

Our collection contains 30 quotes who is written by Martin, under the main topics: Ethics & Morality - Wisdom - Learning - Free Will & Fate - Faith.

Other people realated to Martin: Rob Reiner (Director), Al Pacino (Actor), Richard Price (Writer), Henny Youngman (Comedian), Stanley Kubrick (Director), Max von Sydow (Actor), Matthew McConaughey (Actor), Jodie Foster (Actress), Cameron Diaz (Actress), Kyle Chandler (Actor)

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