Tower of Books Part 3: Martin Scorsese

'I get angry about the way things are and the way people are. I get very involved in stories and the way a character behaves and the way the world behaves. More than anger, I think, maybe it's caring about how characters behave, how the world behaves...I have to get sometimes rather upset wit my myself or a situation before I can really start working, thinking clearly. Some other people can do it very quickly...but they don't put their heart and soul into it. I'm one of those people who does. It's every minute of the day and night.' 

-Martin Scorsese

This is one the many fascinating quotes by who some have called the greatest living American director (or possible the greatest living director period). I see Mr. Scorsese has one the most passionate director's alive. After reading this amazing book 'Conversations with Scorsese' by Richard Schickel, I have a better understanding of why Mr. Scorsese is where he is and why he has received such high accolades over the years. This man loves, loves, loves film...he loves old hollywood pictures, he loves history, and the way people lived in the ancient times, their rituals, their beliefs, the moral codes they lived by, no matter what time period it is, he is fascinated by it. Mr. Scorsese can remember back when he was around 5 years old what movies had a impact on him. I love it when he speaks of the emotional core of a scene. This is key for him because this is what the movie viewer remembers from a scene, how it emotionally impacted them.  He speaks of his parents, the neighborhood he grew up in, how there was always opera playing in his house and other kinds of music being heard around him. What makes Mr. Scorsese the great director he is, is that he knows how to incorporate what he has experienced in his life throughout the years (all the way when he was a little boy) and put it into a scene so that in the end the movie comes full circle, whether it's in a disturbing way, a fierce, romantic way, it's always his way. The struggles, pain, financial problems-he's so real, honest, and hardcore about how he speaks in this book about life, making movies, and what it really means to endure. Him and Orson Welles are prime examples of perservence in this very, very competitive art form called: Cinema.

'I'd like to make something that has some body-something that one would not only be able to enjoy as entertainment, but also to think about. That means being moved by it or repulsed by it at times. To leave the theater saying, You know what, that's a very interesting point of view.'    -Scorsese