Anonymous
Posted March 13, 2012
Vincent LoBrutto’s Martin Scorsese: A Biography (2008) takes you through the life of Martin Scorsese from his time in New York to gaining his popularity as a famous film director, his constant success in films, and the lack of recognition to most of his most famous films.
The depth of the detail given on the life of Martin Scorsese brings a greater understanding to the genius film director. Bringing up events that Martin Scorsese had gone through which would end up being his greatest inspirations. He gives quotes of Martin from past interviews, giving it much more credibility.
He also writes about his mass success in his already released movie. Movies such as Goodfellas, Casino, The Aviator, shutter Island, and many more dating back to the 1970’s. To give perspective of how famous his films are his movie out now Hugo has already earned millions and is argued to be one of the best animated films ever. Because of its unbelievable realistic animation and the plot. The author does more than a good enough job depicting Martin Scorsese’s experiences making this book much better.
The author also brings up the fact of how the Oscars rarely award him for his movies. He shows that the reason why is because of his vulgarity in the movies. He also shows how the academy is against vulgarity and gore reducing this directors success with awards. Many people argue with the academy saying that some of his movies that went unrewarded could possibly be some of the best movies ever.
I highly recommend this novel because is tells you about Martin Scorsese’s life on all levels. From minor details to major it gives you a full understanding of his life. This is one of my favorite biographies and I think that it is widely underated.
More About This Textbook
Overview
Martin Scorsese's current position in the international film community is unrivaled, and his name has become synonymous with the highest standards of filmmaking excellence. He is widely considered America's best living film director, and his Taxi Driver and Raging Bull appear frequently on worldwide surveys of the best films of all time. Here, in the first biographical account of this artist's life, Vincent LoBrutto traces Scorsese's Italian-American heritage, his strict Catholic upbringing, the continuing role of religion in his life and art, his obsessive love of cinema history, and the powerful impact that the streets of New York City had on his personal life and his professional career.
Meanwhile, the filmmaker's humble, soft-spoken public persona tells only part of the story, and LoBrutto will delve into the other side of a complex and often tortured personality. Scorsese's intense passion, his private relationships, his stormy marriages, and his battles with drugs and depression are all chronicled here, and, in many cases, for the first time. In addition, the book includes an interview with the director, as well as filmographies cataloging his work as a director, producer, actor, and presenter.
As his Best Director award at the 2007 Oscars clearly demonstrated, Scorsese has become something like Hollywood royalty in recent years, finally enjoying the insider status and favor that eluded him for most of his career. But these recent developments aside, Scorsese is also notable as a distinctly American type of artist, one whose work-created in a medium largely controlled by commercialism and marketing-has always been unmistakably his own, and who thus remains a touchstone of artistic integrity in American cinema. In Martin Scorsese: A Biography, readers can examine not only the work of one of the forM's genuine artists, but also the forces that have propelled the man behind it.
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
"Engaging, insightful, and wonderfully crafted, this succinct biography of Scorsese captures the essence of the man, the filmmaker, and the film historian. Using a form of intertextuality, LoBrutto demonstrates how Scorsese's Catholic Italian upbringing influenced his filmmaking from the beginning--and still continues to influence it. The author takes the reader on a visceral guided tour of Scorsese's life, beginning with his grandparents' immigration to the US and continuing to the present, noting along the way the critical stages in the filmmaker's development. He links the stages to specific films, showing the impact of Scorsese's dilemmas and personal growth on his filmmaking. Brutally honest, but never judgmental, LoBrutto reveals the man behind the myth, a man of genius plagued by personal struggles and artistic angst. Providing insight into the life and craft of one of the US's greatest filmmakers, this entertaining volume will be an invaluable resource for students of both film history and biography. Essential. All readers, all levels."
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Meet the Author
VINCENT LOBRUTTO, author of Becoming Film Literate (Praeger, Spring 2005) and Stanley Kubrick: A Biography (1999), one of the seminal Kubrick books. He teaches editing, production design, and cinema studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Turf, 1880-1959
My Voyage to Little Italy 3
Corona: Paradiso 11
Corona: Purgatorio 13
Little Italy: Inferno 21
In My Room 25
The Church 31
The Street 43
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1960-1971
The Home without Books 49
The Apprentice 57
The Big Kahuna: Who's That Knocking at My Door 71
The Sicilian Butcher 107
Break on through to the Other Side, 1972-1975
The Roger Corman Post-Graduate University of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll B Movies: Boxcar Bertha 121
Neorealism American Style: Mean Streets 135
Hollywood! Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore 181
My Voyage through Hell: Taxi Driver 189
In Excess, 1976-1978
Disaster Movies: New York, New York 197
Redemption, 1979-1989
"I'm Not an Animal": Raging Bull 217
The Double: The King of Comedy 253
K: After Hours 265
Resurrection: The Color of Money 275
Passion Play: The Last Temptation of Christ 283
New York, New York: New York Stories 289
The Eternal Flame, 1990-1998
"We Make Street Movies": GoodFellas 297
The Old and the New: Cape Fear 307
Emotional Violence: The Age of Innocence 335
Trilogy: Casino 341
Zenned In: Kiundun 347
Out of Touch/Out of Time, 1999-2007
Five Marriages 355
Taxi Driver Lite: Bringing Out the Dead 365
New York Stories: Gangs of New York 369
My Voyage to Spielberg/Lucasland: The Aviator 373
Tribal Rites of the Irish: The Departed 383
Epilogue 387
Filmography as Director-Fictional Works 389
Filmography as Director-Nonfiction 391
Filmography as Actor 392
Filmography as Executive Producer and Producer 393
Filmography as Presenter 394
Interview with Martin Scorsese 395
Bibliography 405
Index 431