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Martin Scorsese

By Kelly Jane Torrance
November 30, 2007

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We might see Martin Scorsese as many things: An American filmmaker who chronicles American stories of immigration, power and wealth through techniques he learned watching French and Italian films.

A master at pulling you into the point of view of his larger-than-life characters while, as one of our most strikingly cinematic of filmmakers, never letting you forget you're watching a film. A champion of film history who has drawn much-needed attention to the importance of film preservation.

But the director of modern classics like "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas" sees himself as, above all, a storyteller.

That's what the Kennedy Center Honors recipient said was the root of his work the last time he received a major honor here in the District. The American Film Institute's Silverdocs festival honored him for his documentary work last year at its Guggenheim Symposium.

"The impulse is the same all the time" whether working on a documentary or a fiction feature, he said in an interview with festival director Patricia Finneran. "It's to share with the audience a story."

Audiences often think of genre pictures like the gangster flick and the thriller as the most purely entertaining films, the ones that tell great stories, and art house films as the ones that explore character, the ones more likely to survive as works of art. In a 40-year career, Mr. Scorsese, always at once accessibly mainstream and boldly original, proved that the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Martin Marcantonio Luciano Scorsese was born just over 65 years ago in Queens, N.Y. His parents, children of Sicilian immigrants, both worked in New York City's garment district. A severe case of childhood asthma kept him from playing outside with the other children, so he spent his days indoors watching films — and a lifelong passion was born.

But he started pursuing a different passion after graduating from high school. He spent a year in seminary school before leaving for a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in film directing at New York University. He abandoned a career in the church, but not a vocation exploring good and evil.

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