Other Titles • A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
Synopses for A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995)
1.
"I can only talk about what has moved me or intrigued me," says filmmaker Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull) at the beginning of this four-hour documentary about his passion for U.S. cinema. "I can't really be objective here." Hallelujah! A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies is the perfect antidote to the forced and artificial doctrine of the American Film Institute's so-called 100 best films. The AFI's English cousin, the British Film Institute, did a brilliant thing in enlisting Scorsese--probably the most famous student of cinema in the U.S.--to open up and speak at length for this project about the history of artistic survival among Hollywood directors. Working with cowriter and codirector Michael Henry Wilson, Scorsese takes a highly intuitive and heartfelt approach in describing how a number of filmmakers--some famous and some forgotten--carefully layered their visions into their work, often against the great resistance or eccentric whims of powerful producers. Film clips are plentiful, but they are also more than window dressing for nostalgia buffs. For instance, it's not unusual for Scorsese to return repeatedly to the same film (such as Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful) in order to make a series of connecting, deepening points. In the end, this work is truly one of Scorsese's most direct bridges to his imagination and personality, and it has the sort of restorative properties that can make a cinephile wearied by today's junk culture fall in love with movies again. A companion book is also available. --Tom Keogh
(10 votes)
2.
Master auteur Martin Scorsese writes, directs, and hosts this compendium of the greatest works of American cinema, charting the medium's course from nickelodeon reels to digital imaging. The multipart series includes an exhaustive range of clips (supervised by longtime Scorsese editor Thelma Schoonmaker) and interviews with great directors who discuss the nature of cinema authorship and the changing role of the filmmaker. The film consists of head-and-shoulder shots of Scorsese talking to the camera and longer film clips with the director’s voice-over, with Scorsese approaching the series in a deeply personal manner, speaking in terms of how films affected him as a director first, followed by the effect they had on him as a storyteller and fan. It is this intimate approach that makes the British Film Institute coproduction such an original achievement. Rather than force Scorsese to tell an objective history, it lets his fanaticism and love for the cinema shine through by allowing him to choose film clips that moved him as an individual. Various chapters include The Director’s Dilemma, The Director as Storyteller, The Director as Illusionist, The Director as Smuggler, and The Director as Iconoclast.
(10 votes)
3.
Legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese shares his personal view and knowledge of the films, directors and actors that have shaped the world's most popular art form.
This special presentation on TWO DVDs includes the following:
The Director's Dilemma: Mastering The Creative Process
Martin Scorsese penetrates the industry's perennial conflict between Art and Commerce by examining the dynamic between the director's vision and the producer's "bottom line."
The Director As Storyteller: The Western, The Gangster Film, The Musical
Critical attention is paid to the primary role of the director - that of the consummate storyteller. Here, Mr. Scorsese offers a wealth of extracts from his film's greatest genres.
The Director As Illusionist: Controlling And Mastering The Technical Process
Martin Scorsese explores the director's constant search for technological solutions to tell his story, to implement his vision - from silents to sound, from black and white to Technicolor, from standard screen size to CinemaScope.
The Director As Smuggler: The Metaphor Behind the Vision
Moving effortlessly between cult favorites and acclaimed masterpieces, Martin Scorsese celebrates the director's surreptitious route to hide his personal message within the framework of a film.
The Director As Iconoclast: Asserting Personal Expression
Here, Martin Scorsese champions the mold-breakers - those who dared attack conventional filmmaking head on, defiantly sending shock waves throughout the industry, and ultimately expanding the art form.
(10 votes)
4.
Scorsese's invigorating history of American movies avoids the straitjacket of chronology. Although he makes dutiful nods in the direction of Edwin S. Porter, D.W. Griffith and Orson Welles, he is equally interested in figures working at the margins, film-makers such as Andre De Toth, Ida Lupino, Sam Fuller and Edgar Ulmer, "who circumvented the system to get their vision onto the screen". He describes them as "illusionists", "smugglers", con artists who managed to hoodwink the money men into allowing them to make the films they wanted. Some worked in B-movies ("less money, more freedom") others (like Scorsese himself) struck their own Faustian bargains with the studios, making "one movie for them, one for yourself"
His heroes are the outsiders, the film-makers who chafe against the assurances of the American dream. He offers a vivid, guilty vignette of himself as a four-year-old child, sitting in a darkened auditorium watching in amazement as Gregory Peck overpowers Jennifer Jones in Duel in the Sun, one of the first films his mother took him to. "The savage intensity of the music, the burning sun, the overt sexuality ... it seems that the two could only consummate their passion by killing each other". There's a certain irony in Scorsese, who once seriously considered becoming a priest, succumbing to a David O. Selznick Technicolor extravaganza which had already been condemned by the church.
While often sounding like a serious-minded apprentice who watches old movies to pick up tips which will help him in his own work ("study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand the canvas-there's always so much more to learn") he never overlooks the illicit pleasure that cinema can bring. "I don't really see a conflict between the church and the movies, the sacred and the profane". --Geoffrey Macnab
(10 votes)
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