Martin Scorsese makes films with very deep themes

Martin Scorsese has a reputation for making films about violent people who live on the fringe of society, but his themes run deeper: His heroes are desperate for redemption. Religion rarely helps them, and they channel their violent temperaments in directions that point to deep flaws in our culture.

Mean Streets was a critical success but not a box-office winner. His next two films, however, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1975) and Taxi Driver (1976), were huge hits. The former movie struck a nerve as one of the first popular films concerning a woman's struggle to survive financially and emotionally in modern society without a man. After the violence of Mean Streets, it seemed an unlikely project for Martin Scorsese, but survival has often been the theme of many of the director's films. Laced with comedy, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore was eventually adapted into the TV sitcom Alice.

Taxi Driver was undoubtedly the most controversial film of the 1970s. This dark portrait of a loner driven toward violence was a riveting tour de force of writing (Paul Schrader), acting (Robert De Niro in the title role), and especially directing. Martin Scorsese's affinity for outsiders was never more vividly revealed than in this film. Although the child prostitute, played by JODIE FOSTER, and the bloodbath finale outraged some segments of society, no one questioned the power of Martin Scorsese's filmmaking. In short order, Martin Scorsese had arrived as one of America's premier young directors.

His willingness to experiment was in evidence when he tried to bring back the lavish movie musical with New York, New York (1977) and when he changed gears altogether to make a documentary about the rock group The Band's final tour called The Last Waltz (1978). Martin Scorsese almost always receives good reviews from the critics but has had middling support at the box office. Raging Bull (1979), for instance, was an artful attempt at making a movie about a real-life character (boxer Jake La Motta) whom the audience couldn't easily like.

The King of Comedy (1983) was an audacious movie that satirized show-business paths to success, once again creating a fascinating hero for whom film fans felt little empathy. But the director managed to express his themes and find commercial success once again in After Hours (1985), a hard-edged comedy set in New York City with a sympathetic hero.

While making Hollywood features, Martin Scorsese has also filmed low-budget documentaries, such as Italianamerican (1974), a movie about his parents, and American Boy (1978), a film about a friend from the 1960s. It would seem that Martin Scorsese is a truly independent filmmaker who just happens to make Hollywood movies.

Martin Scorsese's next project was a remake of a noir classic, Cape Fear. From this crowd pleaser, Martin Scorsese turned to adaptation with a version of Edith Wharton's New York novel, The Age of Innocence (1993), starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Daniel Day-Lewis, and WINONA RYDER. For this, Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks were nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Screenplay adapted from another medium. Martin Scorsese won the Best Director award from the National Board of Review.

Then, back to the mob with Casino (1995), starring Martin Scorsese regulars Robert De Niro as Sam Rothstein and Joe Pesci as his loose-cannon enforcer. SHARON STONE won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in this film, and Martin Scorsese was nominated for the Best Director Golden Globe. Martin Scorsese next turned to an exotic special project with Kundun (1997), telling the story of the Dalai Lama and the rape of Tibet by the communist Chinese.

In Australia, Kundun was nominated as Best Foreign Film, understandably for its splendid cinematography. Next was Bringing Out the Dead (1999), which teamed Martin Scorsese again with PAUL SCHRADER for the screenplay and succeeded, mainly on the talents of NICOLAS CAGE. Gangs of New York (2002) took Martin Scorsese back to an earlier New York, involving urban riots, immigration issues, Tammany Hall corruption, and, especially, the Civil War conscription of immigrants who were also at war among themselves in old New York.

The narrative sprawl led some critics to complain about the film's length. Nevertheless, the film was nominated for Academy Awards and Golden Globes. It was an astonishing spectacle that comes nearest, perhaps, to matching the overused phrase failed masterpiece.

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Martin Scorsese makes films with very deep themes

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