History Quotes / MartinScorsese

-> ''There is only one [[Creator/StevenSpielberg Spielberg]], only one [[Creator/GeorgeLucas Lucas]], and I think [[UsefulNotes/TheBlockbusterAgeOfHollywood what happened there]] is that they all ran to that group. It's not [[{{Misblamed}} the film-maker's fault]]. It's [[FollowTheLeader those who want to cash in]] on that and use that as a gauge on what should be a success in Hollywood.''

-> "One thing I'm going to tell you right off the bat: if you're looking to get into filmmaking as a career, then this's not for you."

-->-- ''MasterClass: Martin Scorsese''.

''First of all, it seems to me that we all want to surrender ourselves to art, to live within a given film or painting or dance. The question of how an artwork is absorbed in time, whether we’re standing before it in a gallery for a matter of minutes, reading it over a matter of weeks, or sitting in a dark theatre and watching it projected on a screen for two hours, is simply a condition, a circumstance, a fact ... The greatest filmmakers, like the greatest novelists and poets, are trying to create a sense of communion with the viewer. They’re not trying to seduce them or overtake them, but, I think, to engage with them on as intimate a level as possible. The viewer also "collaborates" with the filmmaker, or the painter. No two viewings of Raphael’s “Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints” will be the same: every new viewing will be different. The same is true of readings of Literature/TheDivineComedy or Literature/{{Middlemarch}}, or viewings of Film/TheLifeAndDeathOfColonelBlimp or Film/2001ASpaceOdyssey. We return at different moments in our lives and we see things differently.''

-> ''"Quite often, when people discuss the cinema, [[SignatureScene they talk about single images]]. The [[BabyCarriage baby carriage]] rolling down the OdessaSteps in [[Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin Battleship Potemkin]], for instance. Creator/PeterOToole blowing out the match in Film/LawrenceOfArabia. Creator/JohnWayne lifting Creator/NatalieWood in his arms near the end of Film/TheSearchers. The blood gushing from the elevator in Film/TheShining. The exploding oil derrick in Film/ThereWillBeBlood. These are all absolutely extraordinary passages in the history of our art form. Extraordinary images, to be sure. But what happens when you take these images away from those that come before and after? What happens when you lift them out of the worlds to which they belong? You’re left with records of craftsmanship and care, but something essential is lost...The same goes for each of the examples I’ve mentioned above, all of which have been excerpted in countless clip reels. As artfully put together as some of those reels are, I find them disconcerting, because they usually amount to a series of official “great moments” pulled away from their contexts...beyond that, each separate cinematic image is comprised of a succession of still frames that creates the impression of motion. They are recordings of instants in time. But the moment you put them together, something else happens. Every time I get back into the editing room, I feel the wonder of it. One image is joined with another image, and a third phantom event happens in the mind’s eye –- perhaps an image, perhaps a thought, perhaps a sensation. Something occurs, something absolutely unique to this particular combination or collision of moving images...It’s a wonder to me, and I’m far from alone. Creator/SergeiEisenstein talked about it on a theoretical level, and the Czech filmmaker František Vlácil discusses it in an interview [[Creator/TheCriterionCollection included on the Criterion edition]] of his great medieval epic Film/MarketaLazarová (1967) ... It is, I think, fundamental to the art of cinema. This is where the act of creation meets the act of viewing and engaging, where the common life of the filmmaker and the viewer exists, in those intervals of time between the filmed images that last a fraction of a fraction of a second but that can be vast and endless. This is where a good film comes alive as something more than a succession of beautifully composed renderings of a script. This is film-making. Does this “phantom image” exist for casual viewers without an awareness of how films are put together? I believe it does. I don’t know how to read music and neither do most people I know, but we all “feel” the progression from one chord to another in music that affects us, and by implication some kind of awareness that a different progression would be a different experience.''\\

-> "I like ''Film/{{October}}'' a great deal and I run it often. Leaving aside the propaganda elements, I just love [[Creator/SergeiEisenstein Eisenstein]]'s framing and the whole structure of the film. By comparison, I haven't been as influenced by the seamless kind of film-making of [[Creator/JohnFord Ford]] or [[Creator/HowardHawks Hawks]] or [[Creator/WilliamWyler Wyler]], but I see in those films more the relationship of the actors as a family. So, for instance, the scene with my mother and Creator/JoePesci and [[Creator/RobertDeNiro Bob De Niro]] and Ray Liotta in Film/{{Goodfellas}} comes right out of Hawks or Ford. It's not just a matter of shooting it in the same way, you have to feel it as a gathering, with the warmth of the personalities and relationships, all around the table."

-> "If you look at the films made between Creator/RaoulWalsh's ''Regeneration'' in 1915, ''Me and My Gal'' (1932) and ''Sergeant Madden'' (1939), the recent immigrants are always Irish...And, in fact, [[NewerThanTheyThink the representation of the Italian-American experience in movies is actually quite recent]]. I remember when I showed some of ''Film/MeanStreets'' in he late 60s to my old teacher at NYU...his response was: who are these people? and who would want to see this kind of thing?"

-> ''"Very often the people [[SocietyIsToBlame I portray can't help but be in that way of life]]. They're bad and they're doing bad things. And we condemn those aspects of them. But they're also human beings. I find that often the people passing moral judgment on them may ultimately be worse. I know there were [[MoralGuardians people who felt]] I was [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing morally irresponsible to make a film like]] Film/GoodFellas. Well, [[BringIt I'll make more of them if I can]]. Remember what happens at the end of Film/{{Casino}}, where you see Nicky and his brother beaten and buried...[[AxCrazy Nicky is horrible. He's a terrible man]]. But there's something that happens to me watching them get beaten with the bats and then put into the hole. Ultimately it's a tragedy. It's the frailty of being human. I want to push audiences' emotional empathy with certain types of characters who are normally considered villains...It's an interesting dilemma for Sam and Nicky. They both buy into a situation and both overstep the line so badly that the destroy everything for everybody. And eventually a whole new city comes rising out of the ashes of what they've destroyed. Who knows the reality of UsefulNotes/LasVegas now, where you've gone from [[DevilInPlainSight a Nicky Santoro]] to [[TheManBehindTheMan Michael Milken]] [[TakeThat or a]] UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump? Who knows [[CorruptCorporateExecutive where the money's going?]] But I'm sure it's got to be worth it, somehow, for those entrepreneurs to come in with the money. You'll probably see a film in fifteen years exposing what they're doing now."''

-> ''Almost like Film/GangsOfNewYork, with Bill the Butcher becoming President...he's a nativist.''
-->-- [[https://www.channel4.com/news/full-martin-scorsese-interview-on-trump-and-the-pope His opinion]] on Creator/DonaldTrump winning the Presidency

-> ''"I'm torn between admiring things done in one shot, like Max Ophuls and [[Creator/JeanRenoir Renoir]] or [[Creator/KenjiMizoguchi Mizoguchi]] on the one hand, and the cutting of Eisenstein or [[Creator/AlfredHitchcock Hitchcock]] on the other, which I probably love even more."''

-> ''I like Film/{{October}} a great deal and I run it often. Leaving aside the propaganda elements, I just love [[Creator/SergeiEisenstein Eisenstein]]'s framing and the whole structure of the film. By comparison, I haven't been as influenced by the seamless kind of film-making of [[Creator/JohnFord Ford]] or [[Creator/HowardHawks Hawks]] or [[Creator/WilliamWyler Wyler]], but I see in those films more the relationship of the actors as a family. So, for instance, the scene with my mother and Creator/JoePesci and [[Creator/RobertDeNiro Bob De Niro]] and Ray Liotta in Film/{{Goodfellas}} comes right out of Hawks or Ford. It's not just a matter of shooting it in the same way, you have to feel it as a gathering, with the warmth of the personalities and relationships, all around the table."''

-> ''I went with a friend of mine...to see [[Creator/SatyajitRay The Apu Trilogy]] one day at the Carnegie Hall Cinema...Ray holds his images, but he also does some editing that's very powerful, like when the father dies in Aparijito, his head hits the stone and he birds fly; and there are moments like that throughout his movies. But above all it was just being with the people in these films that was great...''

I fuckin' love him, I fuckin' love him''"

-> ''"Very often the people [[SocietyIsToBlame I portray can't help but be in that way of life]]. They're bad and they're doing bad things. And we condemn those aspects of them. But they're also human beings. I find that often the peoplem passing moral judgment on them may ultimately be worse. I know there were [[MoralGuardians people who felt]] I was [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing morally irresponsible to make a film like]] Film/GoodFellas. Well, [[BringIt I'll make more of them if I can]]. Remember what happens at the end of Film/{{Casino}}, where you see Nicky and his brother beaten and buried...[[AxCrazy Nicky is horrible. He's a terrible man]]. But there's something that happens to me watching them get beaten with the bats and then put into the hole. Ultimately it's a tragedy. It's the frailty of being human. I want to push audiences' emotional empathy with certain types of characters who are normally considered villains...It's an interesting dilemma for Sam and Nicky. They both buy into a situation and both overstep the line so badly that the destroy everything for everybody. And eventually a whole new city comes rising out of the ashes of what they've destroyed. Who knows the reality of UsefulNotes/LasVegas now, where you've gone from [[DevilInPlainSight a Nicky Santoro]] to [[TheManBehindTheMan Michael Milken]] [[TakeThat or a]] UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump? Who knows [[CorruptCorporateExecutive where the money's going?]] But I'm sure it's got to be worth it, somehow, for those entrepreneurs to come in with the money. You'll probably see a film in fifteen years exposing what they're doing now."''

-> ''"Very often the people [[SocietyIsToBlame I portray can't help but be in that way of life]]. They're bad and they're doing bad things. And we condemn those aspects of them. But they're also human beings. I find that often the peoplem passing moral judgment on them may ultimately be worse. I know there were [[MoralGuardians people who felt]] I was [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing morally irresponsible to make a film like]] Film/GoodFellas. Well, [[BringIt I'll make more of them if I can]]. Remember what happens at the end of Film/{{Casino}}, where you see Nicky and his brother beaten and buried...[[AxCrazy Nicky is horrible. He's a terrible man]]. But there's something that happens to me watching them get beaten with the bats and then put into the hole. Ultimately it's a tragedy. It's the frailty of being human. I want to push audiences' emotional empathy with certain types of characters who are normally considered villains...It's an interesting dilemma for Sam and Nicky. They both buy into a situation and both overstep the line so badly that the destroy everything for everybody. And eventually a whole new city comes rising out of the ashes of what they've destroyed. Who knows the reality of UsefulNotes/LasVegas now, where you've gone from [[DevilInPlainSight a Nicky Santoro]] to [[TheManBehindTheMan Michael Milken]] [[TakeThat or a]] UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump]]? Who knows [[CorruptCorporateExecutive where the money's going?]] But I'm sure it's got to be worth it, somehow, for those entrepreneurs to come in with the money. You'll probably see a film in fifteen years exposing what they're doing now."''

-> ''I like Film/{{October}} a great deal and I run it often. Leaving aside the propaganda elements, I just love [[Creator/SergeiEisenstein Eisenstein]]'s framing and the whole structure of the film. By comparison, I haven't been as influenced by the seamless kind of film-making of [[Creator/JohnFord Ford]] or [[Creator/HowardHawks Hawks]] or [[Creator/WilliamWyler Wyler]], but I see in those films more the relationship of the actors as a family. So, for instance, the scene with my mother and Creator/JoePesci and [[Creator/RobertDeNiro Bob De Niro]] and Creator/RayLiotta in Film/{{Goodfellas}} comes right out of Hawks or Ford. It's not just a matter of shooting it in the same way, you have to feel it as a gathering, with the warmth of the personalities and relationships, all around the table."''

-> ''"I'm torn between admiring things done in one shot, like Max Ophuls and Renoir or Mizoguchi on the one hand, and the cutting of Eisenstein or Hitchcock on the other, which I probably love even more."''

-> ''"Very often the people [[SocietyIsToBlame I portray can't help but be in that way of life]]. They're bad and they're doing bad things. And we condemn those aspects of them. But they're also human beings. I find that often the peoplem passing moral judgment on them may ultimately be worse. I know there were [[MoralGuardians people who felt]] I was [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing morally irresponsible to make a film like]] Film/GoodFellas. Well, [[BringIt I'll make more of them if I can]]. Remember what happens at the end of Film/{{Casino}}, where you see Nicky and his brother beaten and buried...[[AxCrazy Nicky is horrible. He's a terrible man]]. But there's something that happens to me watching them get beaten with the bats and then put into the hole. Ultimately it's a tragedy. It's the frailty of being human. I want to push audiences' emotional empathy with certain types of characters who are normally considered villains...It's an interesting dilemma for Sam and Nicky. They both buy into a situation and both overstep the line so badly that the destroy everything for everybody. And eventually a whole new city comes rising out of the ashes of what they've destroyed. Who knows the reality of UsefulNotes/LasVegas now, where you've gone from [[DevilInPlainSight a Nicky Santoro]] to [[TheManBehindTheMan Michael Milken]] [[TakeThat or a Donald Trump]]? Who knows [[CorruptCorporateExecutive where the money's going?]] But I'm sure it's got to be worth it, somehow, for those entrepreneurs to come in with the money. You'll probably see a film in fifteen years exposing what they're doing now."''

-->--'''Music/KingMissile''', "''Martin Scorsese''"

-> ''I wanted to do a valentine to Hollywood.But update it, update it to the point where you have the look and feel of an old Hollywood film that grows in time, and each time, each date, it would look like a film of that period. It would look like a film of 1947, then it would look like afilm of 1950. This was done through sets, costumes, hair and makeup. Everything was exaggerated. Shoulder pads were an inch biiger inside, and the ties were made even wider. Giorgio Armani said that he studied the costumes and decided to make clothes, "like Film/NewYorkNewYork."''

-> ''"I wanted to do a valentine to Hollywood.But update it, update it to the point where you have the look and feel of an old Hollywood film that grows in time, and each time, each date, it would look like a film of that period. It would look like a film of 1947, then it would look like afilm of 1950. This was done through sets, costumes, hair and makeup. Everything was exaggerated. Shoulder pads were an inch biiger inside, and the ties were made even wider. Giorgio Armani said that he studied the costumes and decided to make clothes, "like New York, New York."

! By Scorsese

-> ''"I'm torn between admiring things done in one shot, like Max Ophuls and Renoir or Mizoguchi on the one hand, and the cutting of Eisenstein or Hitchcock on the other, which I probably love even more."''

-> ''"There's no sense in making another gangster picture, unless it is as close as possible to a certain kind of reality, to the spirit of documentary."''