Scorsese turned down the chance to direct Schindler’s list in the 1980s, as he felt he couldn’t do as good a job as a Jewish director. He agreed to swap films with Steven Spielberg, taking over Cape Fear (1991) instead.
November 17, 1942
Scorsese, an asthmatic child, was raised in New York's Little Italy (USA) and spent most of his early years frequenting movie theaters. After he tried unsuccessfully to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood, Martin graduated from New York University as a film major in 1966.
In 1968 he made his first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door?, and then agreed to work as an assistant director and editor on the musical documentary Woodstock (1970).
Scorsese won in 1973 critical attention with Mean Streets and even more with Taxi Driver (1976), a brutal, uncompromising film that starred Robert De Niro as a lonely, psychopathic New York cabbie. Martin chose for his next project, Raging bull (1980), black-and-white cinematography to render stark realism to the story of boxing champion Jake La Motta.
In 1986 Scorsese made a conventional Hollywood movie, The color of money but two years later he sparked controversy with his film adaptation of the novel The Last Temptation of Christ. He returned to more familiar subject matter in GoodFellas (1990) and Casino (1995) but turned to unexpected material with The age of innocence (1993).
By making Kundun (1997) Martin was barred from entering Tibet. His latest film The departed was his biggest financial success to date and it won Martin's only Oscar.
It has been announced that Scorsese will be working on The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and on Silence, the story of Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in feudal Japan.
2007 Won Oscar for: The Departed (2006)
2005 Nominated Best Director for: The Aviator (2004)
2003 Nominated Best Director for: Gangs of New York (2002)
1994 Nominated Best Writing for: The age of innocence (1993)
1991 Nominated Best Director for: Goodfellas (1990)
1991 Nominated Best Writing for: Goodfellas (1990)
1989 Nominated Best Director for: The last temptation of Christ (1988)
1981 Nominated Best Director for: Raging bull (1980)
Lester Keyser -> Martin Scorsese (1992)
Mary Pat Kelly -> Martin Scorsese: A Journey (1996)
Lawrence S. Friedman -> The Cinema of Martin Scorsese (1998)